The VideoLAN Forums

I love VLC. I listen to radio and CDs all day long with VLC.

I am very frustrated with VLC's GUI.

The issues are around the "Hide VLC media play in taskbar," which the developers seem to have not fully thought through. Furthermore, several threads here have tried to raise issues with seem to be pretty widely misinterpreted. So, I'm going to try to be clear about the inconsistencies and the underlying need those of us who use VLC frequently seem to have.

1. When VLC is in the task bar AND in the systray (called "Notification area" in Win7), right-click the "traffic cone" and click on "Hide VLC media player in taskbar." Result: It doesn't "Hide," but it "Restores" the taskbar to it's own window over the desktop. Shouldn't this condition be known as "Show the VLC application" in the VLC right-click menu?

2. When VLC is an open application (but not the top-most application) AND in the systray, right-click the "traffic cone" and click on "Hide VLC media player in taskbar." Result: it brings the VLC GUI to the front. Shouldn't this condition be known as "Show the VLC application" in the VLC right-click menu?

3. When VLC is an open application, and is on top AND in the systray, right-click the "traffic cone" and click on "Hide VLC media player in taskbar." Result: It really does close the application GUI (finally). Shouldn't this condition be known as "Hide VLC media player application" in the VLC right-click menu?

4. When VLC is not an open application AND in the systray, right-click the "traffic cone" and click on "Show the VLC media player." Result: It really does show the application, on top of other application windows, and in the taskbar. That is expected.

5. Some of us would prefer to have a clear set of command-line options that would expose or hide the VLC media player when the systray application is launched. I would like to see something like --no-taskbar or --systray-only (which would start the systray application and hide the VLC media player from both the desktop and the taskbar). Then, my command line would look like this in the shortcut I create:
"vlc.exe" --no-taskbar --volume=103 --open "VLC Playlist.xspf"
That way, I can start the first entry in the playlist (which is implicit), set the initial volume, and have no other evidence of VLC running, save for the systray icon.

Have I overlooked some other command-line option that is functionally equivalent to "--no-taskbar"?

vlc --no-qt-system-tray
vlc --qt-start-minimized

Clearly, Mr. Kempf, you have been giving this same advice to several folks. I would really appreciate it if you would actually READ what I wrote and respond to that.

Your suggestion of "--no-qt-system-tray" removes the icon from the System Tray, doesn't it? That is expressly what I DO NOT WANT. I said what I wanted was to "...have no other evidence of VLC running, save for the systray icon".

And, doesn't "--qt-start-minimized" mean the application is open in the task bar, but minimized? And, isn't that expressly what I said I DO NOT WANT?

Perhaps my title was ambiguous. "Getting VLC out of System Tray" is an way of saying "I want VLC running solely from the System Tray," not "I don't want VLC to appear in the System Tray." To put my intentions another way, what I want is what I have today if I
1) Launch VLC,
2) Right-click the "traffic cone" icon in the System Tray and click "Hide VLC Player..." in the properties menu
But, I want it without having to do 2) manually; isn't that was command-line arguments/parameters are for?