The VideoLAN Forums

- is there a way to hide the controller window by default? in 0.8.5 version there are already the controls in the main window and i'd like not to see the controller window everytime i open vlc

- another question: is there a way to disable the error windows (the one that asks to fix the movie and the one that shows the errors)? i don't want to see them everytime i open a partial downloaded movie

thanks for your help,
3m

another question: is there a way to disable the error windows (the one that asks to fix the movie and the one that shows the errors)? i don't want to see them everytime i open a partial downloaded movie

i've found a solution for this question: in preferences window, on interface menu -> advanced, if i check the "be quiet" option vlc doesn't show errors and warnings anymore

anyway i can't find a solution for my first question yet

1) Sorry, this isn't possible at the moment and I don't think that such a feature would be implemented. This would be kind of against the human interface guidelines on Macs, because the user should always see something different to the changed menu-bar to be notified that the application is running.
Adding this is as an advanced-preference would be possible of course, but I personally don't have the time to do this.

2) The one showing the errors can be disabled in the preferences. Go to the interface section, check the advanced-flag at the bottom and check "Be quiet". Save the preferences and restart VLC.
The one asking to repair files, etc. can't be disabled at the moment and I don't see that this will be done in the future.

1) Sorry, this isn't possible at the moment and I don't think that such a feature would be implemented. This would be kind of against the human interface guidelines on Macs, because the user should always see something different to the changed menu-bar to be notified that the application is running.
Adding this is as an advanced-preference would be possible of course, but I personally don't have the time to do this.

ok, but a lot of apps can have no open window, you can check if they are running looking at the dock *they black arrow under the icon*, anyway i think it should be a good "half-way" to hide the controller window only when the movie window is open

2) The one showing the errors can be disabled in the preferences. Go to the interface section, check the advanced-flag at the bottom and check "Be quiet". Save the preferences and restart VLC.
The one asking to repair files, etc. can't be disabled at the moment and I don't see that this will be done in the future.

ok thanks

- is there a way to hide the controller window by default? in 0.8.5 version there are already the controls in the main window and i'd like not to see the controller window everytime i open vlc

This is actually not that hard to achieve if you have Xcode and Interface Builder installed off the OS X install disc. This is how I did it:

1. First, I went to /Applications in Finder and found the VLC icon
2. I Control-Clicked it and chose "Show Package Contents"
3. Then, I went in the Contents->Resources->English.lproj folder and opened MainMenu.nib in Interface Builder
4. In the "MainMenu.nib (English)" window, select the "vlc" icon
5. Choose Tools->Show Inspector from the menu bar
6. Uncheck "Visible at launch time"
7. Save and quit

After performing that procedure, the controller window shouldn't appear anymore when you launch VLC. Hope this works, however it couldn't be a bad idea to make a back up of VLC before trying it.

is there a way to hide the controller window by default? in 0.8.5 version there are already the controls in the main window and i'd like not to see the controller window everytime i open vlc

I second that question.

I'm only using the controls inside the video-window, and it's getting pretty annoying that - even after I closed the control-window - it pops up everytime I close the video-window. What's that for ?!

- is there a way to hide the controller window by default? in 0.8.5 version there are already the controls in the main window and i'd like not to see the controller window everytime i open vlc

This is actually not that hard to achieve if you have Xcode and Interface Builder installed off the OS X install disc. This is how I did it:

1. First, I went to /Applications in Finder and found the VLC icon
2. I Control-Clicked it and chose "Show Package Contents"
3. Then, I went in the Contents->Resources->English.lproj folder and opened MainMenu.nib in Interface Builder
4. In the "MainMenu.nib (English)" window, select the "vlc" icon
5. Choose Tools->Show Inspector from the menu bar
6. Uncheck "Visible at launch time"
7. Save and quit

After performing that procedure, the controller window shouldn't appear anymore when you launch VLC. Hope this works, however it couldn't be a bad idea to make a back up of VLC before trying it.

Just had to post to say, that worked like a charm!

Thanks for the tip... Guest !
It works fine.

This is an option I'd like to find in VLC preferences for a while !
Having the video in a separate window is annoying.

To be honest, I think the video attached to the controller like in the Windows version would be more intuitive and less disturbing...

This my first message here but I use VLC since the beginning.
And tried to promote it as often as I could on the Website I working on (a software library)
I used it on Windows at first and then and Mac OS X.
And I really want to thank all the developers for their work and especially the OS X team that have done some breakthrough this last months to keep VLC development alive on our platform !
Thank to all of you !

Could anyone post their fixed version of MainMenu.nib? I'm having issues editing it myself. I have one from vlc 0.85, but it disables the fullscreen controls.

I would also love to see the option of disabling the controller window by default.

Better, would be an option that auto closes the controller window when a video is opened because I guess this is the true problem here. It's not good to have 2 different objects floating in the workspace.

Another good feature would be the option to enable the translucent full screen controller in window mode, so it could work like new Quicktime X

We are working on something that will solve this issue. Stay tuned

I am fairly disappointed, this was a 2006 topic and it has not still yet been dealt with?
You have pages and pages of options in the advanced setting, why does allowing to hide by
default the controller sound so weird? Why would an application need 2 floats around the
desktop? that's just clutter!!

Also, I was trying out the 7step process from Anonymous:
1. First, I went to /Applications in Finder and found the VLC icon
2. I Control-Clicked it and chose "Show Package Contents"
3. Then, I went in the Contents->Resources->English.lproj folder and opened MainMenu.nib in Interface Builder
4. In the "MainMenu.nib (English)" window, select the "vlc" icon
5. Choose Tools->Show Inspector from the menu bar
6. Uncheck "Visible at launch time"
7. Save and quit

But now it doesn't work anymore.. I have 0.9.8 and the nib file is pre-compiled,
which means I cannot open it in interface builder and changed it as he suggested.

So? Still nothing?

One simple solution for those of you who wish to have the Controller and the video window all in a single window is to use Hirogen's "BlackPearl" VLC theme. I am currently using it with a copy of VLC 1.1-pre3 that I compiled this morning. "BlackPearl" comes in two flavors -- one with separate Controller and video windows, and the other is a single window version, which I use. You can download it here:

http://www.iconpaper.org/category/mac/skins-vlc/

It is the third theme on the end.

I hope the above helps.

I struggled a bit to find a download link. After 3 or 4 redirects I found it.
Below is the direct link to the download page. It's a bit of a pain to install though..

http://hirolabs.de/download_vlc_blackpearl.php

Tallia1, it should take you less than five minutes to install the BlackPearl theme, or any theme, in Macintosh VLC. Here is a quick tutorial:

1) Shut down VLC if it is running.

2) Control/right-click the VLC.app, and then select "Show Package Contents".

3) Navigate to the "Contents" folder and backup VLC's current "Resources" subfolder to a safe place. This is in case you want to return to VLC's default look later on. Of course, you could just reinstall VLC.

4) Copy all of the new image files that are inside of the downloaded theme's "Resources" folder into VLC's "Resources" folder.

5) Copy all of the new files that are inside of the downloaded theme's "English.lproj" folder into VLC's "English.lproj" folder. This may be just a "MainMenu.nib" file. Whether or not there are additional files depends on the theme that you are using.

6) Close all windows and folders and restart VLC.

OH I know how to install it, I was just referring to the fact that the author didn't go the extra mile to make it easy
A couple of symbolic links and he could have easily done it

So how do you like the BlackPearl theme?

I tweaked a few more of the images to suit my personal taste.

As you may know, Lunettes has built-in skin support, but it isn't ready for prime time yet, and there are only a few skins for it right now.

Well, to be honest we are not there yet... What I want is VLC to open ONE and ONE window only.
No controller, no playlist.. Just the video and few control items built right in it..

So you are saying that even having the Controller buttons on the same window, below the video portion -- as BlackPearl does -- does not meet your expectations?

Did you use the single window version of BlackPearl?

After you open your first video in BlackPearl, it will open just one window when you start up VLC again.

I am using it right now.

This is how it looks for me:

Okay, I want you to try two things.

First, quit VLC and start it up again.

When you do that, you should have just ONE window, with the controls below the video portion.

If you do not...

Then I suspect that you installed the wrong files.

In the BlackPearl DMG, there are two folders. The left one is for separate windows. The right folder will say SingleWindow under it. That is the one that you want to use.

Please let me know how it goes.

OHHHH.....!!! I see the problem... The DMG folder was so fancy that was actually able to confuse me: I didn't even see the second folder

I guess you are the author?
Well... the graphics in there were a bit TOO MUCH

No, I am not the author of the BlackPearl VLC theme. I just use it.

Make sure that you replace the images in the "Resources" folder, as well as the "MainMenu.nib" file, which goes in the "English.lproj" folder, which is a subfolder of the "Resources" folder.

When you get it right, it will look something like this:



At least so I hope.

Yes, I already did it Thanks for pointing that out. It seems to work nicely.
Still... it's a stupid option, much more useful than many that they have in
the advanced mode.. They SHOULD include it.