When I designed Texas Blues Alley, I had this nagging feeling that there was a faster way to let people watch videos. Why force people to load an entire page if all they want to do is watch the video on that page?
That's when I had the idea for "Quick View", a faster way of watching lessons, gear videos or performances on TXBA.
Here's how it works...
There are several places on TXBA where a group of content is displayed as a grid of "cards", like you see here.
Usually, you'd click on the title to load the page for this video. The full page has a bunch of cool stuff like gear details, related videos, and comments. But if you're in a hurry, Quick View offers a faster option.
Look for the 
icon in the lower right of each card. If you click on that icon, the corresponding video will magically appear in an overlay, without taking you away from the grid of cards. When you're tired of watching, just click the Close button at the top right of the player, or click anywhere outside the video player, and it vanishes.
But wait, there's more...
This isn't just a video feature, it also works for audio cards, such as the Backing Track card shown below.
Look for the 
symbol in the lower right. Clicking on that will open a SoundCloud player over the page you're on, allowing you to hear the track without clicking through to the full page.
This is not a life-changing feature, just a convenience. I remember the first time it worked correctly, and I just smiled because it felt..... cool. I hope it strikes you the same way.
You can use the Quick View feature in The Woodshed: Free Lesson Friday, Old Tone Zone: Tone Tuesday, Stage: Backing Tracks, and Stage: Performances sections of Texas Blues Alley. Enjoy :-)