Watch a playlist together

Half of this works well and half of it does not exist yet, so here is the honest split.

What works: the party is attached to you, not to the video. Move to another video and the party moves with you, with the same link, the same people, and the same chat. So you can play a playlist top to bottom with a party running the whole way.

What does not exist: there is no shared queue. Your friends cannot see what is coming up, nothing advances by itself when a video ends, and nobody is carried to the next video without agreeing to it. Every hop is you moving and them tapping Follow.

Watch a playlist together

1. Open the Playlists tab and click the playlist you want. It opens on its own screen.

2. Click Play All. The button carries the count, so a three-video playlist reads Play All (3). The first video opens, and the queue beside it reads Playing from your playlist's name with the number of items, and marks the one you are on as Now.

3. Open Watch Along on that video and click Start a watch party.

4. Click Copy link and send the vdr.fyi link to the people you want with you. They join the way they would for any party.

5. When a video finishes, click the next item in the queue yourself, or use the next-video control. The party comes with you: the panel still reads You're hosting, and the link is unchanged, so anybody arriving late still lands in the right place.

6. Everyone already in the party stays where they are until they say otherwise. On a computer each of them sees a card under the player, naming you and saying you moved to a new video, with Follow underneath. On a phone that spot is a slim strip carrying the same message and the word Follow, which you tap to come along, and the full card sits in the Watch Along panel. One tap and they are on the new video with you. If they have wandered off to another page in the app, a card waits for them there too, so somebody who is browsing rather than watching still finds out.

Why the Follow tap is there

It is deliberate, not a gap. Being yanked to a different video mid-sentence is unpleasant, so the party asks instead of jumping. A screen reader hears the same thing spoken politely, and the card has a real button in the tab order, so following is one keypress rather than a hunt.

Somebody who would rather stay on the video they are on just leaves the card alone. Watch on your own in the panel stops them following the group while keeping their seat, and Leave the party, in the Voice or Settings room, gives the seat up entirely. The rest of you carry on.

What you cannot do yet

• No shared queue. Nobody else can see or reorder what is coming up.
• No automatic advance. A finished video does not move the party on.
• No attaching a playlist to a party. The party has no idea a playlist is involved; it only knows which video you are on.
• Nobody else can move the group. Only the host's hop is what everyone else is offered.

Two things that help in the meantime

• Say what is next in party chat. Chat is right there in the panel and everyone in the party reads it.
• Surprise us picks a random video and takes the party there in one click, from the same settings the gear opens. It is not your playlist's order, but it is a way to keep a long session moving without anybody deciding.

What's next

• Play queue covers the queue itself, on your own.
• Invite a friend to a watch party has the full share-the-link path.

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