Menus on Menu Bar for VLC on Mac

[Varjak]

Okay, this is probably a very obvious question; but I'm used to using VLC on a PC. Where are the Menus that are on the Menu Bar for the PC version (like Media, Playback, Audio, Video, Tools, etc.)?

Also, on a related note, is there a way to customize the controls as one can do on the PC version (i.e. add the skip forward, back; faster, slower, etc.)?

I'm using the latest Mac version on a Mac Mini.

Thanks.

[dfuhrmann]

The main menu is at the very top of your screen, like with all other Mac applications.

With the Mac UI, you can only modify the controls bar in a limited way (i.e. hiding some buttons). But you cannot fully customize it.

[Varjak]

There's nothing there at all other than the three colored dots for closing, minimizing, and maximizing the window.

[kdean]

That's the top of the window. The menubar is at the top of the screen / display next to the apple icon. It has Apple Icon, VLC, File, Edit, View, Playback, Audio, Video, Subtitles, Window, Help.

[Varjak]

Wow, this was totally my fault. I failed to mention I was using this on a Mac Mini on an HD TV. I Googled around and apparently this is a common quirk. You need to play with the Display Preferences and 'turn up' the Underscan setting. Otherwise the Menu Bar is cropped out. I was beginning to think I had totally forgotten how to use a computer at all.

Two more control-related questions:

1. So there's no way to add the buttons for skip 10 seconds (or so) forward or back? I used those a lot on the PC version. I also preferred the old slider that let you raise the volume to 200 percent.

2. I tried to set hotkeys for Faster (fine) and Slower (fine) but it wouldn't work. I tried Shift-] and Command-] for Faster (fine) and neither worked. Any suggestions? The original installation comes with no settings for those particular settings. Also, it seems odd that the manual slider goes in odd increments (113%, 118%, etc.). I would think 5% increments would be better. I find that 10% is often undetectable; but 20 percent is too high. 15% faster would be optimal for a lot of uses IMO.

[dfuhrmann]

You can add those buttons. Check the View menu, and add prev / next buttons. This changes the default behaviour of the normal forward button to 10 sec jumps.

Custom hotkeys should work fine. Make sure you restart VLC... maybe you should also try another (easy) combination to see if there is any special problem with your choosen key.

[Varjak]

Thanks, I'll give those things a try.

By changing the default behavior, you mean the forward buttons won't be fast-forward, they'll be a 10-second skip forward? And the previous/next buttons were for the next track/chapter, right? I really would like to have both; but that sounds like it may not be possible.

I guess I'll have to play with it.

[dfuhrmann]

Yes, just play around a bit, you will see the difference.

[Varjak]

Okay, as you said, adding the previous/next buttons does make 'forward' skip about 3 seconds, which isn't terrible; but not great. But then there's no way to fast-forward without using the slider or the 'faster' hotkeys, and then you don't get the actual fast-forwarded video. That's not optimal but livable.

I still can't get the hotkeys to work for speeding up or slowing down playback. The preset command-= speeds up by large amounts; but nothing seems to work for speeding up by smaller increments. I thought it might have to do with setting preferences for both media keys and for the Apple Remote; but then the command-= wouldn't work either. I've started and re-started VLC several times and made sure the prefs were saved.

[dfuhrmann]

Please note that depending on your keyboard layout, some of the default key combinations simply cannot work and you need to set them manually: For instance, on a German keyboard = is on top of 0, so only the key combination Cmd + Shift + = would work.

I do not know, but maybe your issue is similar.

[Varjak]

I still can't get custom hotkeys to work. I tried a bunch of different keys. The default hotkeys do work though.

BTW, Googling around, I found that Command-Option-right arrow key will jump forward 10 seconds, not the 3 seconds of the other method. It's clunky; but doable.

[joselori]

That's the top of the window. The menubar is at the top of the screen / display next to the apple icon. It has Apple Icon, VLC, File, Edit, View, Playback, Audio, Video, Subtitles, Window, Help.

I would like to merge some files but the menu bar does not have the 'Media' item that everyone talks about when doing this. Where is the 'Media' menu item for Mac version?

[joselori]

I would like to merge some files but the menu bar does not have the 'Media' item that everyone talks about when doing this. Where is the 'Media' menu item for Mac version?

[rbraintree]

I would like to merge some files but the menu bar does not have the 'Media' item that everyone talks about when doing this. Where is the 'Media' menu item for Mac version?

Did you ever get an answer to this? I am desperate to find this out!

[Varjak]

I happened to see my old thread near the top here, and wondered why it had popped up from so long ago, and I read it, hoping I could help.

I'm not sure what you guys are asking about merging files and the 'Media' category in the menu bar; but when I boot up VLC, I get the 'Library' side-bar and it has 'Media Library' as an option. Can you do what you need to do with that? Are you trying to compose a playlist or merge something else?