I think my issue is the same or close to it. I don't use the video portion of VLC 2.0.7 at all, except for the toolbar. The playlist is a shortcut on my w8.1pre laptop's link toolbar. It used to open on click, by itself, I believe, or maybe the video screen also opened- either way, the playlist was there & active (not the video screen), on immediate 1st click. Now, I have to go to the "view" menu on the video screen, or use the playlist button at the video screen's bottom. Then I go to the playlist, then doubleclick on the preferred stream, if I'm changing the 'cast from the top item, which does start playing on startup as before.
-How can I make the playlist open on VLC start, by itself? Also note, on my ancient Mac OS 10.5.8, I can click on the "vlc playlist" alias in the dock, and that's it - the app opens, the playlist only is displayed, & the last open stream starts. That's the choice I would like on the win laptop (above), & did not locate it in prefs. Thank you.
In VLC 2.0.6 / 2.0.7, Vista x64, I must've made a change in prefs (or something changed) - that now the playlist (full screen) displays at every start. It's always empty for me, so no point.
Can't find setting in prefs to not show it, but the vlc-qt-interface.ini file shows "playlist-visible=true" & under Playlist section, "view-mode=1".
I can change those manually, but still don't know what I changed in prefs that started showing the playlist instead of video screen.
Thanks.