[Houshalter]

I happen to be on a fresh copy of Windows 7 right now, so I'm going to try it. I expect to encounter at least several steps where a nontechnical user would be totally lost or frustrated.

1. Download Python 2.7 and install. Encountered error where the installer stopped with no indication that it had completed or failed. Tried to install again and it messed up the original installer which was hiding in the background and it failed.

2. Downloaded the YouTube-dl.exe. Running it does nothing. Youtube-dl gives no instructions on how to install.

3. Reading the documentation of youtube-dl, installation instruction is just "place it in their home directory or any other location on their PATH."

4. Google about PATH variables and home directories... I wouldn't expect a nontechnical user to get past this step.

5. Add C:\Python27 to the Path variable.

6. Drop youtube-dl.exe into C:\Python27.

7. Start Powershell. Doubt a nontechnical user would know how to do this, but whatever.

8. Figure out how to format a command to youtube-dl. Reading through the documentation is kind of confusing at first, but I will just copy a command from this HN thread.

9. Paste "youtube-dl --extract-audio --audio-format mp3 dQw4w9WgXcQ" into powershell. As you mentioned yourself, something a nontechnical user would have trouble doing since control-v is disabled.

10. "ERROR: ffprobe or avprobe not found. Please install one." So Google how to install ffprobe.

11. First link links to another page, which has a long 14 step guide asking me to figure out how to install PHP before I even start, so I'm just giving up here, 30 minutes in.

Sadly I didn't even get to the "it's working but I don't know where it's saving the files to" issue.

[ptman]

"We also provide a Windows executable that includes Python."

I read this as not having to install python for it to work.

I think some powershell commands that have required arguments start interactively prompting the user for values for those arguments if they aren't specified on the command line. That would probably work:

1. Download youtube-dl.exe

2. double-click

3. youtube-dl.exe notices the lack of url as argument and prompts:

URL:

4. paste URL and hit enter

5. Progress bar of download (?)

[Houshalter]

That may be correct, but the download page explicitly says "Remember youtube-dl requires Python version 2.6, 2.7, or 3.2+ to work." and links to python's website. I tried renaming Python.exe and it still worked, so I have no idea what's up with it.

[yohui]

youtube-dl.exe does not need a separate Python installation.

[blakeyrat]

I think you missed the point; the point is: it says it does. Houshalter even quoted it.

Yes, your software's download page is part of the user experience also.

[lanterk]

For 9, I would just go with youtube-dl -f 140 (or 141 in some cases). No reason for lossy->lossy conversion.

[Houshalter]

Hmm I don't see any documentation for that format code.

I chose mp3 because it's the only format my ipod accepts. The formats it downloads by default won't play, even if they might be higher quality.

[rg3]

youtube-dl -F VIDEO_URL will give you a list of formats in YouTube, that you can choose using the -f option. DASH streams contain only video or only audio normally.

[Quequau]

It strikes me that with Microsoft working with Canonical to bring an Ubuntu like command line to Windows that it probably includes something like apt. This doesn't completely address your larger point but it probably would make the process easier.

[Houshalter]

Yes it seems to me that the problem with open source projects on Windows is they all expect the user to figure out their often complicated installation procedure (and then the installation of all their dependencies...)

[JustSomeNobody]

1. This would occur with a GUI as well.

Can't comment on the rest as we have yet to get Python installed.