.GZ Extension, Crashing, Bit Rate Display

[jdanniel]

Hello.

I need some help with VLC's skins, please.

My goal is to find, and use, skins that display an audio file's bit rate. I'm more interested in that than anything else about VLC.

I went to the skins page, and downloaded a few skins. Several have the .GZ extension. The WIKI page for Skins does not say anything about the .gz extension. What, exactly, is it?

What I went ahead and did was download all of the skins at once. There's an option on the skins page to download all of the skins in one .zip file. I unzipped the file and placed its contents in the program's SKINS subfolder.

I can now select whichever skin I want. The problem is, I must have selected a skin that does not work properly. The media player is not displayed, and I am unable to change the skin, because I cannot access the right-click context menu.

How do I change the skin, if the program is not displaying properly?

And is there a way to find out which skins display the bit rate, without me having to try out each and every skin--which could result in the program not displaying properly again?

Thank you for your assistance. Jd

[3breadt]

My Airflow skin has a bitrate display included. I don't know about the other skins.

I assume that you use Windows. To change your skin when VLC doesn't show up normally anymore go to Start > Programs > VideoLAN > Quick Settings > Interface > Set default interface to Qt (default)

Then VLC starts in the normal interface, then go into the settings and change the skin path to the default skin or another skin you know that works. Then set again the default interface to the skinnable one and restart VLC.

VLC skins are file archives that come either in ZIP or TAR-GZIP format. Usually they should have the .vlt extension, but in some cases the skin designers obviously left the .tar.gz extension which belongs to TAR-GZIP archives. Just change it to .vlt

[jdanniel]

Thanks for replying.

I did rename the files with the .vlt extension, and put them in the skins folder. That didn't work.

Downloading the package that contains all of the skins did work, however.

But I was unable to get past the crash problem.

I must have selected a skin that does not work properly. The media player is not displayed, and I am unable to change the skin, because I cannot access the right-click context menu.

I should have elaborated further on this. I do not recall which skin caused the crash, but all I see is a totally black box where VLC should be. I cannot move the box, I cannot right-click on it to access the context menu. Quite simply, I cannot do anything with it. My only recourse is to uninstall VLC and install it again.

There are a couple of skins that display the bit rate. The two skins that come closest to what I want are Chaos and Winamp Modern. I was hoping there would be a Winamp Classic-style skin, but there is not. I'm not really all that crazy about these two skins, but Chaos is probably the one I'd use.

I've discovered another problem: I cannot get the .MP3 file extension icons to change in Windows Explorer. This might be due to my also having Winamp on my computer. What I'll do is uninstall both Winamp and VLC, reboot the computer, install VLC again, and try adding just the Chaos and Winamp Modern skins. Let's see if that helps at all.

But if I can't get VLC to recognize those two skins--even after I remove the .GZ extension--and if I can't get the file icons changed...then I'll probably just stick with Winamp.

[3breadt]

I think you haven't read my last post carefully enough. There IS a way to change the skin when your problem occurs (black box, no context menu). Namely by temporarily changing back to the default interface, e.g. through the shortcut in the start menu, as mentioned in my previous post.

Then change the skin in the preferences, no need to reinstall.

Winamp likes to keep the mp3 file association. Uninstalling Winamp and installing VLC properly should do it.

Some skins from the skins page are simply broken, don't bother trying to get them to work.

[jdanniel]

I went ahead and uninstalled Winamp and VLC, then reinstalled VLC.

I now have other problems. I posted them in another thread elsewhere on the forum. But thanks for replying. I do appreciate it.