The VideoLAN Forums

There is any way to instruct a running instance of VLC to change the playing file ?

Right now im closing and opening vlc via a script (linux shell script) using different files, but there is a way to tell vlc to change the current video file and reproduce another without closing it ? (using vlc for linux btw)

Thanks

Have you tried enabling only one running instance? In the (Advanced) Preferences:
Advanced >> Allow only one running instance

Arite.

I think that im lost in the answer...

So i will make the question again but in other words:

How can i via a shell script or programming languaje (in linux) tell a running vlc player (in a X11 environment) to stop reproducing the current video file and now reproduce another video file ?

My previous post said to enable only one running instance for VLC (in the Qt4 interface go "Tools >> Preferences..." etc.), meaning that executing e.g. VLC from commandline would not create a new instance. However it does not appear to work (using nightly build) - may with 0.9.x though.

Alternatively (a better more flexible method) you could use VLM with the telnet or http interface.

Arite.

Using rc interface should work fine
vlc --extraintf=rc --rc-host=localhost:9999 .....

and within a script shell :

nc locahost 9999 <<EOF
stop
add new.avi
play
EOF

see rc help for the whole command set available

Yes !!! thats what i was looking for... thanks a lot!!!