The VideoLAN Forums

Is there any way to disable the 'video controller' ? I think VLC looks a lot neater just being one window rather than having a separate controller. Also, I have disabled the window mode controller somehow (i.e. the thing that goes along the bottom showing what duration etc) to make the window snappier (see screenshot), but was wondering if you guys could implement the full screen controller into the window-mode?

Cheers,

I had the same question; searched the forum and found this.

Each time I start VLC, it opens two windows, one with the video and a useless controller window (with playlist, etc.) that I have to close every time. Is there a way to disable this window?

I tried different values in ~/Library/Preferences/VLC/vlcrc, but changing the value of intf= seems disastrous, the show-intf=0 option seems to have no effect, and the key-intf-hide= option doesn't seem to work either. What do I do?

the easiest way I can think of would be to start vlc with something like
/Applications/VLC/Contents/MacOS/clivlc "the name of your movie.mpg"
You can type that into a terminal window and vlc will open with just the movie window. But, you don't have access to any features (pause, fast forward, rewind, stop, play, volume) related to vlc at that point, and in order to quit vlc, you'd have to type into a terminal window killall VLC.
Hope that helps.
You may try in your terminal
/Applications/VLC/Contents/MacOSX/VLC --intf ncurses "the name of your movie.mpg"
There you have the controller and playlist options, but you don't have another window, and you still have access to all of the features in vlc (play, pause, stop, volume, etc.)

Er... that might work, but I *do* want to use the Mac OS X interface, not the CLI or the ncurses one.

I just think the "controller" window is redundant and would like to turn off only that one window. I'm beginning to suspect there is no way to do this, so could this please be made an option?

Thanks,

Okay, we cannot implement the fullscreen controller in the windowed-mode for technical reasons. It's just not possible right now and won't be in the near future. That's why there these small buttons on the bottom of the video-window.

The controller window is kind of redundant, I agree. However, it's the only window managing the playlist and it's the one-and-only window a user sees when starting VLC. We don't show the video-window for a reason (or 2..): we want people to make use of the playlist, the equaliser, etc. pp. All this functionality would other be hidden somewhere in menus. VLC is not meant to clone QuickTimePlayer. So, well, please just close the controller window if you don't need it.
We don't want to add an option to hide it on launch for another reason: inexperienced users would complain that VLC doesn't work, because they don't see the switch of the menubar.

Okay, so far...

Thanks for the explanation; I understand.

To make it convenient to close it, could you make a hotkey to hide the controller window? I thought this is what the "key-intf-hide=" does, but I must be wrong because it doesn't seem to work. There is the Command-Shift-C which brings up the controller if it is hidden, but hitting it again doesn't make it go away -- could this key be changed to toggle the controller, perhaps? This is a rather minor detail, I know, but I would prefer to close the controller window using the keyboard [and because the video window is sometimes floating on top, I'm not sure which window has focus, and close the wrong window with Command-W by mistake ]

Thanks,

We don't want to add an option to hide it on launch for another reason: inexperienced users would complain that VLC doesn't work, because they don't see the switch of the menubar.

I'm sorry if I come off as harsh, but not adding an option to turn off the redundant controller windows makes little sense. There's a plethora of frightening advanced options in preferences if you check the Advanced box. That's a perfect place to hide this from inexperienced users, isn't it?

Feel free to implement this. Right now, I assume that you got no idea what the development versions of 0.9.0 look like and that we've got more serious problems to focus on like being able to play any files at all, having working preferences, etc.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not pointing fingers or anything. Just sounding off what could work if the decision of not including the option to turn off the controller window is simply it might scare off inexperienced users.

I don't work in software development but I do understand priority decisions involved in developing software. My company is best known of its software R&D department but it's always hard to request a feature, even a simple one, unless lacking it would be a show-stopper.

That said, I wholeheartedly appreciate the dev team's effort, don't let me get in your way

Happy holidays!

Older versions of VLC used to have one simple window with the video AND controls on the same screen!

I used to run 0.8.4 and recently upgraded to the new 0.8.6 and hated the extra window. Some quick googling and I found some sites that still host older versions. I was able to sucessfully uninstall 0.8.6 and install the old 0.8.4 by downloading it from FileHippo: http://filehippo.com/download_vlc/?575

My VLC again just has the single video & contoller screen

I may be missing out on some new great features and possibly updated codecs, but now it works great and is much simpler and easier to use by having everything in one window.

i would love to upgrade, but will not do it until they switch back to the older simpler and easier to use interface.

Feel free to download VLC 0.8.6c again from this page, go to the preferences, Interfaces -> Main interfaces -> macosx and uncheck "Embedded video output" to get this old behaviour. Note that VLC will crash, if you try to use VLC 0.8.6d or later.

I am using WinXP, not Macosx. Will this still work? I'd love to be able to upgrade if it works

ehm, no.

There could be a similar setting in the wxWidgets section though. Additionally, the "window decoration" setting (hidden in the Video category, check "Advanced" to see it) may suit your needs.

Okay, we cannot implement the fullscreen controller in the windowed-mode for technical reasons. It's just not possible right now and won't be in the near future. That's why there these small buttons on the bottom of the video-window.

The controller window is kind of redundant, I agree. However, it's the only window managing the playlist and it's the one-and-only window a user sees when starting VLC. We don't show the video-window for a reason (or 2..): we want people to make use of the playlist, the equaliser, etc. pp. All this functionality would other be hidden somewhere in menus. VLC is not meant to clone QuickTimePlayer. So, well, please just close the controller window if you don't need it.
We don't want to add an option to hide it on launch for another reason: inexperienced users would complain that VLC doesn't work, because they don't see the switch of the menubar.

Okay, so far...

If you have bigger priorities that's perfectly understandable but it would be nice if it were possible to turn this off…if you tucked it into the Advanced options like someone suggested (also setting it to appear as the default when VLC is run for the *very first time*) an inexperienced user probably wouldn't find it or would have to be cheeky as hell to complain after messing around with Advanced preferences without knowing what they were for. No complaints or criticisms otherwise.

Please checkout VLC 0.9.0-test2

Ok I'll check it out and send you a report of any bugs (I'm very new to beta-testing so if there's anything to keep in mind let me know).

update: i tested it out (powerpc version for imac G5) the movie runs fine but the controller still appears (switched off in prefs).