Watch2Gether -- The Cheat Sheet
Before you do anything, you need a room! Go to the main website over at https://www.watch2gether.com/, then hit the big "Create your Room" button.
NOTE: You've just created a temporary room. This room will automatically be deleted after 24 hours. If you don't want that, skip to Saving Your Room and come back here after. If you plan to do that, you should probably create a Watch2Gether account.
You've just created your own room. How simple was that? :-) Read on to learn more about the interface and how Watch2Gether works.
See that Playlists text in the left bar (top right, ish)? That's where you manage playlists.
You add a playlist by clicking this:
The Playlists settings menu looks like this:
You can see here that the Dubstep playlist already exists! I made this playlist (not Watch2Gether).
Then type in the name of the playlist you wish to create, and press the button. After you're done, you need to exit out of that (click the X), then you'll be back in the main screen. You should see a bar under the Playlists text. Click it, and switch to your new playlist.
Now you've made your fancy playlist, you're probably eager to add some content to it. That's easy.
This interface is quite similar to YouTube. Enter the name of the video you wish to add, then hit the Enter button.
You'll see a new screen with the search results. Let's add some Dirty Dancing to our new playlist!
NOTE: You don't have to click the + button. If you click the video instead, the video won't be added to the playlist, but instead will be played immediately, replacing any currently playing song.
Now then, you've probably changed your mind. Let's remove the song you just added from the playlist!
Done. Your playlist is now empty again.
I'd like to reemphasize this notice:
NOTE: You don't have to click the
+button. If you click the video instead, the video won't be added to the playlist, but instead will be played immediately.
Here's how to master the video player.
NOTE: Watch2Gether isn't just for YouTube.
You can select any one of those services instead of YouTube, then search for videos using that provider.
If you're adding a video to a different playlist (playlist B) than the one you're on (and you want to stay in the playlist you're currently in -- playlist A), you'll need to do this:
- Search for that song via the search bar.
- Switch to the playlist you wish to add the video to (playlist B).
- Add the video via the
+button. - Switch back to the playlist you were on before (playlist A).
If you don't do all that, Watch2Gether will play the songs in the other playlist (B) after the video you're listening to has finished. This is the intended behaviour.
There's also a History tab next to the Playlists one. This saves all of the music you've played.
Another good feature of Watch2Gether is the ability to chat to your buds. After you reload your browser though, all your chat history will be lost.
You type in messages here:
And you can see them here:
When you're done typing, hit Enter and the message will be sent to all your buds. There's also emojis (see the smiley face button).
You can ban and kick people from your room, like so (go into the cog menu at the top, next to the name of your room):
If you're familiar with a service like Discord or IRC, these terms won't be alien to you. If they are, here's what they mean.
Banning: Removing a user permenantly until you unban them. They cannot join back while banned. Kicking: Removing a user from the room until they join back.
Assuming you're still in the Settings menu after the last bit, you should see a section named "Moderation".
You should still be in the Settings menu, as shown above.
As you can see, you can moderate your Watch2Gether room. Unfortunately, you can't have delegate the task of moderation to other users, which a platform like Discord allows. Please bare this in mind, as it may be an unfamiliar setup.
For each toggle you check in the Moderation menu locks that action to the owner of the room, e.g. if you were to check the "Player" setting, only the owner of the room can seek the current video.
The names for these settings might be quite confusing, so here's a list of what they do.
- Members Only: New members of a room have to be approved by the room owner.
- Selected video: Only the owner can change the currently playing video.
- Player: Only the owner can seek, pause and play (from the Player).
- Playlists: Only the owner can modify playlists.
- Colors: Only the owner can change the colors of the room.
NOTE: You cannot transfer ownership of your room to another user.
If you've changed your mind on your room, you can delete it with ease.
- Go to https://watch2gether.com (authenticate if necessary)
- Press the X button:
If you really like your room and wish to keep it, you'll need to make a Watch2Gether account, then come back here, in the settings menu of your Room.
Enter the new name for your room, and hit Enter. You've just made your room permanent!
Watch2Gether has a browser add-on / extension too. It allows you to add music when you're in a site like YouTube or Vimeo (the list goes on). If you're eager to get this extension, you can download it here:
Firefox Extension Chrome Extension
The extension lets you add videos without being in the browser tab hosting your Watch2Gether session. It's basically this:
That's what it looks like in Firefox. It might look slightly different in Chrome.
In closing, I'd like to give my thanks to Florian for managing such a brilliant service, and some friends at a Linux server for encouraging me to write this. I hope you enjoy Watch2Gether as much as I will.
how do i change the name of an existing room?