[Feature Request]: Block channel by URL

[kommunarr]

Guidelines

• I have searched the issue tracker for open and closed issues that are similar to the feature request I want to file, without success.
• I have searched the documentation for information that matches the description of the feature request I want to file, without success.
• This issue contains only one feature request.

Problem Description

Currently, channels can be blocked by their ID. This can be inconvenient, as many people may be holding the channel link, but will have to search for the Get ID option in YouTube / Invidious / etc. or manually delete most of the URL to paste it in.

Proposed Solution

Enable blocking channels by URL:

1. For channel links of the form */:id
2. For channel links without channel ID (e.g., https://www.youtube.com/user/barbie)

Alternatives Considered

Adding a "Copy Channel ID" option on the Channel page (as is done by YouTube) and/or the video dropdown would mitigate the UX speedbump, to a decent extent.

Issue Labels

ease of use improvement, improvement to existing feature

Additional Information

Would have to research more to see how to achieve #2 of that issue in a performant / simple way. IIRC, our current functions only allow searching channels by ID. If anyone has any ideas, please feel free to share.

[absidue]

YouTube's APIs only allow you to get a channel by ID, but you can use the getLocalChannelId and the invidiousGetChannelId to resolve a vanity channel URL to it's ID (we use those functions on the channel page to resolve the vanity URLs).

[kommunarr]

Thanks for that info! Here are some prospective candidates for the regex validator.

[seb-1204]

Where can I find documentation on how to block channels? I did not find anything at https://docs.freetubeapp.io/usage/subscriptions/#subscribing-to-a-channel