The VideoLAN Forums

Currently, when clicking on a video, nothing happens. This is at least a pity.

Because, especially when you are using VLC on a computer located in the living room, you might not have a keyboard, but a mouse at hand.
So why not toggle pause/play when clicking on the VLC video?

YouTube has this functionality already. And I don't see any good reason why VLC should not support this feature.
It is a quick win. I can imagine it is VERY easy to implement, and will have a HUGE positive impact on the user experience.

Looking forward to your opinions!

I'm just curious. Is nobody interested in this feature at all?

The plugin: https://github.com/nurupo/vlc-pause-click-plugin

Thank you, mederi. But why not make it native? It should be standard behaviour in my opinion.
It is like you would have to install a plugin for Windows for the start button.

It is troublesome to always sync updates with a plugin.

Thank you, mederi. But why not make it native? It should be standard behaviour in my opinion.

How do you deal with DVD menus?

For the DVD menus, is it possible to detect the difference between a movie and the menus? The biggest clue I think is how the streams are handled. A menu either loops over a very short period of time (usually 1 minute max), or is static (no animation except for the buttons). Also, does libdvdnav allow for VLC to detect exactly what processing instructions are being used by the VOB? If you go by the first detection approach, this function would not be available for very short content, but if you go by the second approach, you have exact predictability of when this function is desirable. Just adding my two cents.

Indeed. The plugin has some flaws:
- The DVD/Bluray menu is one of them. The plugin should stop toggling play/pause if in the DVD/Bluray menu. Otherwise when clicking "play" in the menu, the movie stops.
- On double click the movie pauses as well, but instead it should just go on playing in fullscreen (like it is the case on YouTube)

Yes, personally I am very interested in seeing this function added. FWIW, Media Player Classic has had this function for years and I really don't understand why VLC has not included it as a standard feature. Again, fwiw, I find the popup start/pause/stop etc bar in full screen mode actually obscures the actual part of the screen I am trying to focus in on (ie disassembling a laptop computer tutorial video). Introducing a click/pause anywhere on the screen function totally eliminates this problem.

I used the lua click/pause plugin until the author couldn't maintain it any more due to changes in VLC coding and am now off to explore the more current plugin mentioned here (Github - nurupo/vlc-pause-click-plugin)........... rather strange having to compile code on my linux box for such a simple function though, imho.

Anyways thanks for a wonderful product and your time and consideration on the mentioned topic.

You can move the full screen bar, so it does not obscure it.

I'll take a risk that I'm not necro-ing this thread as the topic itself is ancient undead.

People have been clamoring for years for a click-pause feature, arguing for it, spelling out the irrefutable logic of it ... etc. The fact is, Even five years ago NOT having a click-pause is counter-intuitive.

After years of clamor, VLC developers still refuse to implement this feature, even while doing so makes it an anomalous video player among the pack (heck, as someone pointed out, even lousy in-browser flash players have this feature).

My only conclusion is that the VLC developers have decided to leave it out for the sake of stubbornness. I know they mention from time to time that the mouse-click is already relegated to some obscure, arcane task, but that excuse ain't cutting it.

My only conclusion is that the VLC developers have decided to leave it out for the sake of stubbornness. I know they mention from time to time that the mouse-click is already relegated to some obscure, arcane task, but that excuse ain't cutting it.

You are a stupid, selfish, insulting and aggressive person. We don't want you here.

For the 1000th time, the reason is simple: having a click-to-pause breaks filters and DVD menus.
And there are extensions to do it.

Jean Baptiste,

As the site administrator, I suggest you temper your response to help calm the waters stirred up by people who are creating anger or havoc in any forum posts. What may look like a personal attack above shows me a frustration on behalf of the author feeling that nobody is listening.

As far as the click to play, I would LOVE that feature being native because the one listed in the extensions is years old and only if you read the comments do you learn there is a newer one. I updated the comments to the newest one as well. The extensions lists are very spare for a media player that is so well regarded and I've been using it for close to 10 years so I'm definitely a fan.

Regarding the DVD menus, it would be quite simple to have a toggle on the right click menu and the regular screen menu that could disable it as needed. I believe the benefit of this feature far outweighs the DVD menu playback issue if it can be overcome simply. If I were a coder I would offer to help, but that is not within my skillset.

Thank you for a wonderful product. I'm looking forward to 3.0 which will support Chromecasting but have not seen when it will be coming out for Windows.
All the Best
Jonathan
San Antonio, Texas (Remember the Alamo!)

Clicking on the screen to PAUSE is a must. No matter how that messes with other features, you have to find a way to solve it. You cannot stay behind the modern ways. You were revolutionary in the beginning, now you are against new times?

I've been using VLC for the last year and it works great in most ways.

Your failure to include an easy way to set up click to pause/play is unacceptable. I spent over an hour trying to get it to work in VLC but the add on is outdated. Youtube and MPC both support this natively.

I'm not using Windows so MPC wasn't an option so I decided to look for something better. SMPlayer may not have click to pause/play enabled by default, either, but I was able to go to an easy to find option in Preferences where I could assign the left mouse button to "pause/play" and the function works perfectly!! Installing it and doing that configuration took less than 5 minutes!

It is brutal that you stubbornly refuse to include this as an option. And then you change the functionality of the program so the add on to provide the ability is non-functional...That is beyond frustrating!

The reason you've answered this question "a thousand times" because it is a glaring omission on your part. I doubt most users even care about the DVD menus or special filters you use as an excuse. Look at the other full featured players like MPC. Why have they offered click to pause/play for more than a decade yet VLC is incapable of the same?

Get your head out of the sand!

Hello, I'm new here and this is my first post.

Normaly I wouldn't have me registred here, but I am now nearly on the edge of frustration. (Mildly spoken!)

As Mr. "admin" just proved to be not the kindest guy around and also doesn't seem to be much motivated to end this misery I am not speaking to him (though he is also meant) but to the community.

I've tried the "add-ons" linked above but they do not work (although I am so extremely sure that no one should have to use an "add-on" for such a fudgin' basic function as "Click to pause"! DVD menu problem aside - there just has to be a way around!)

Please, anybody, if you know an "add-on" that is newer than the above mentioned and that works for this simple problem please share your wisdom with me/us!

Otherwise I just have to downgrade again (as I tried a couple of years ago) to get the "lua" extention working. (Which it does quite fine. Although one has to pay attention not to "upgrade" by accident! (<-- this is so ridiculous! "Please do not accidentally upgrade this program!" )

O Lord - I have to downgrade a media program to get it to "pause on click". - To see this written down makes it really funny! (... nearly. )


EDIT: Please, reader, if you have the same problem and you haven't written anything in this thread: Please do so! Make a comment so the real importance of this "feature" emerges! (Don't be shy or lazy. I just registered too. That takes maybe two minutes and it's for a good cause! )

Please, reader, if you have the same problem and you haven't written anything in this thread: Please do so! Make a comment so the real importance of this "feature" emerges!

Ok, it's time to bump this thread. It's a really must-have BASIC feature. Although, I don't believe the devs taking care, they probably think like: if you need such thing, write your own plugin/patch.
I'm using mpv with smplayer as frontend for now.

vlc should have a click to pause option as default, saying it interferes with DVDs is a joke,since every other half decent video player can do it AND have DVD/filter support...

an option to turn click to pause on/off is all it needs

The plugin: https://github.com/nurupo/vlc-pause-click-plugin

And there are extensions to do it.

It's not good to continue to do like if have a solution to this problem, because this solution do not work!

- http://addons.videolan.org/content/show ... ent=158285
"ANNOUNCEMENT: starting from VLC version 2.1 this extension stopped working, because VLC developers have removed few important callback from lua API, which this extension was relying on"

- https://github.com/nurupo/vlc-pause-click-plugin
I tried on my own version (v2.2.1) and on the last version (v2.2.4) ...

IT DON'T WORK!
Then what else?
(boring)

- Thanks -

It is ridiculous !
It's a a car with a square steering wheel or a square spoon. People are used to click a video to pause it. Thanks to youtube.
I'm not a programmer but it cannot be impossible.
Why would it not be possible to have the video catching a click as a background layer and have the ... how do you call it 'control bar panel' as a top layer ?
Something like :
check if the click is on a control bar button , yes : execute button function
no : goto check2
check2 : check if click is on video area, yes : change pause state
no : nevermind

I've been using vlc since it began as a french student project, and as an inhabitant from the country north of France, like it very much, but this one annoying detail has me almost looking for another mediaplayer...
Sometimes you don't have to add stuff anymore. Once it plays every video, stop changing it. Just add a possibility for addons so people can customize it like they want.
Spend your time making addons and leave the functioning product like it is. But unfortunately it must be impossible for humans to stop evolving stuff...

This doesn't mean i'm not grateful for your guys making vlc : thank you very much ! It's just this tiny little...

Hello.

My solution to this was to use the program X-Mouse Button Control https://www.highrez.co.uk/downloads/xmo ... ontrol.htm and program one of the mouse buttons to act only in vlc like the pause/play button.

For me it solved the problem

It does work. Look at this extension: https://github.com/nurupo/vlc-pause-click-plugin . Versions lower than 2.1.0 are not supported. So take care.

The plugin: https://github.com/nurupo/vlc-pause-click-plugin

And there are extensions to do it.

It's not good to continue to do like if have a solution to this problem, because this solution do not work!

- http://addons.videolan.org/content/show ... ent=158285
"ANNOUNCEMENT: starting from VLC version 2.1 this extension stopped working, because VLC developers have removed few important callback from lua API, which this extension was relying on"

- https://github.com/nurupo/vlc-pause-click-plugin
I tried on my own version (v2.2.1) and on the last version (v2.2.4) ...

IT DON'T WORK!
Then what else?
(boring)

- Thanks -

[Solved]
I just tried:
- https://github.com/nurupo/vlc-pause-click-plugin
on VLC version 2.2.4 and it worked great for me. He even fixed the double click issue. Double click toggles full-screen and does not pause, but single click does pause. You can even specify which mouse button pauses.

Directions:
make sure you look up your version in Help > About
Mine is version 2.2.4 (which is the most current version on 19 October 2016) so in the github I used his (vlc-2.2.x+) code, link:
- https://github.com/nurupo/vlc-pause-cli ... c-2.2.x%2B

For windows I downloaded his .zip file under the install instructions
the .zip file only contains 1 file (libpause_click_plugin.dll)
after extracting the .zip folder I placed the .dll file in "C:\Program Files (x86)\VideoLAN\VLC\plugins\video_filter\" folder per his instructions
I activated and configured it inside the vlc program. I will copy his instructions here

Usage
1. Restart VLC to load the newly added plugin
2. Go into advanced preferences: Tools -> Preferences -> Show settings -> All
3. Enable/Disable the plugin with a checkbox: (in advanced preferences) Video -> Filters -> Pause/Play video on mouse click
4. Enable/Disable the plugin with a checkbox: (in advanced preferences) Interface -> Control Interfaces -> Pause/Play video on mouse click
5. Change mouse button to the one you want: (in advanced preferences) Video -> Filters -> Pause click -> Mouse Button
6. Restart VLC for settings to take place
7. Play a video
8. Click on video picture to pause/play the video

THanks richmelchr !! Those Usage instructions did it!

Appears to be broken in latest nightly build. Plugin doesn't show up after putting in plugins/video_filter & restarting.

Latest Nightly: 3.0.0-Git Vetinari - Dec 26 2016 04:31:45

Very frustrating the lack of this feature.
This software is awesome but in my humble opinion (just for me, and just for this reason) it's unfinished.
I'll check again in the future.
Happy new year everybody!