"Hide Chat" hides the chat but leaves unused space

[felixfoertsch]

When going to a live stream or a live stream recording having the "Hide Chat" Option enabled, the chat is hidden, but a blank space remains.

On this screenshot you can see a black bar to the right. This is where the chat normally goes.

Here you can see the chat occupying this space:

Expected behavior: The chat should either 1) disappear completely and fully extend the video or 2) just start the chat toggled hidden, so the chat button still remains but can be shown when needed. I'd prefer version 2).

[felixfoertsch]

I was so annoyed by the chat (I currently watch a lot of live streams because of the Dota 2 International... :D) that I now fixed it myself.

I use StopTheMadness and it can execute Javascript snippets. I use this code to press the close button automatically:

function clickCloseButton() {
    const closeButton = document.querySelector('button[aria-label="Close"]');
    
    if (closeButton) {
        closeButton.click();
        console.log('Close button clicked.');
    } else {
        console.log('Close button not found. Retrying...');
        setTimeout(clickCloseButton, 500);
    }
}

clickCloseButton();

[insin]

The way YouTube displays chat has changed since we implemented hiding it - we'll probably switch to clicking the close button instead.