The VideoLAN Forums

I prefer to use vlc in docked playlist mode. When I go to the playlist portion of the player and click on a new song, I am unable to use any of the hotkeys (like play/pause) unless I use the mouse the select the controls portion of the player. This is annoying as in un-docked mode I can simply alt-tab over the the player and use the hot keys, but I have to manually do it when it's docked. I don't see any way to custom the controls for when the focus is on the playlist, but is there anyway I can use my hotkeys without mousing to the player portion?

I ran into an additional issue with hotkeys, (I'm running win xp 32 bit), where I go to preferences and bind the right and left arrow keys to next and previous instead of the default n and p. Unfortunately after I hit apply and save the n and p were the only ones that controlled next and previous song. I then restarted the vlc player and now the left arrow key controls the previous, but the right arrow key fails to go to the next item in the playlist. I tried setting it again in the settings, but it doesn't seem to work and neither does the n key anymore.