The VideoLAN Forums

Hi, here's some stuff I found while making my skin

Bugs / Notices

- Preferences -> Advanced (Advanced options) -> Allow only on"e"
- Open File dialog opens on background (desktop) with action="dialogs.fileSimple()"
- For some reason text scrolling takes "a lot" of cpu ^^
- Problem with <text> and visible option with overlaying (when overlaying 2, only one is working, the other is hidden),
without the visible option the 2 overlay normally
exemple:
<Text x="28" y="6" width="345" font="mainfont" color="#000000" text="$N - VLC" scrolling="none" visible="vlc.isPlaying"/>
<Text x="28" y="6" width="345" font="mainfont" color="#000000" text="VLC" scrolling="none" visible="not vlc.isPlaying"/>
- Crash when resizing embedded playlist to minimum or maximum size with default interface


Requests

- "special" action="resize..." for left / top too
- Centering images
- Actions and right click menu over Text
- When using lefttop="lefttop" rightbottom="righttop" to scale text width, text is duplicated (mosaic, even with resize="scale"),
to display text as title of the window for exemple we need the text area width to fit when window is resized (without text duplication ^^)
- Anchor positioning (anchors are not (?) using lefttop / rightbottom attributes)
exemple:
<Anchor x="454" y="0" range="20" priority="2" lefttop="righttop" rightbottom="righttop"/>
anchor stays at x=454 while window is resized
- When switching layouts with WindowID.setLayout(LayoutID) (or windows) would it be possible to keep the video inside the <Video> element (seamlessly) ? (for exemple one layout has video only, and a second layout has video + playlist, actually when switching, the video pops in another window, we have to close it and press play to get it playing inside the <Video> element again)

Hope it makes sense ^^

Open File dialog opens on background (desktop) with action="dialogs.fileSimple()"

Please read "may" open on background ^^

The typo in preferences is fixed. I'll let the skins masters anwser your other requests

Another request, when switching layouts it would help if the other layouts could (or not) inherit width / height, and if the positions, sizes, visibility could be saved on close and restored on open
Thanks

- Open File dialog opens on background (desktop) with action="dialogs.fileSimple()"

Yes, it sometimes happens, but I never really investigated the reason. If you find a way to reproduce systematically the bug, please share it with us

- For some reason text scrolling takes "a lot" of cpu ^^

This is a known problem, mainly due to the alpha-blending. This might be possible to make it much more efficient on Windows by using native alpha-blending, but until now I didn't manage to make it work...

- Problem with <text> and visible option with overlaying (when overlaying 2, only one is working, the other is hidden),
without the visible option the 2 overlay normally
exemple:
<Text x="28" y="6" width="345" font="mainfont" color="#000000" text="$N - VLC" scrolling="none" visible="vlc.isPlaying"/>
<Text x="28" y="6" width="345" font="mainfont" color="#000000" text="VLC" scrolling="none" visible="not vlc.isPlaying"/>

I didn't know this one, I will try to reproduce it.

EDIT: I didn't pay enough attention to your example. One control is visible when "vlc.isPlaying", the other one is visible when it's not playing, so it's perfectly fine to see only one of them at a time.

- Crash when resizing embedded playlist to minimum or maximum size with default interface

OK...

- "special" action="resize..." for left / top too

This is not planned in a near future, as it is more complex to handle (the position of a window being identified by its top left corner, this involves resizing and moving at the same time).

- Centering images

We could certainly add a resize="no" attribute to the controls, to prevent resizing them (thus, if lefttop="lefttop" and rightbottom="rightbottom", the control would stay centered in the window, both horizontally and vertically).
But we are looking for something more expressive in the XML. For example, it should be possible to have one control staying at 1/3 of the width of the window. I don't know how to describe this in the XML file, in a simple and powerful manner (maybe using barycentres?). Suggestions are very welcome...

- Actions and right click menu over Text

I don't understand this request. You want for example to be able to click on a button even if there is a text control above it?
We could easily do that, but then how to control the scrolling text?
Maybe we could do that only when the Text control has scrolling="none"...

- When using lefttop="lefttop" rightbottom="righttop" to scale text width, text is duplicated (mosaic, even with resize="scale"),
to display text as title of the window for exemple we need the text area width to fit when window is resized (without text duplication ^^)

If the text is duplicated, this is a bug. I will have a look...
BTW, note that the Text control has no resize attribute...

- Anchor positioning (anchors are not (?) using lefttop / rightbottom attributes)
exemple:
<Anchor x="454" y="0" range="20" priority="2" lefttop="righttop" rightbottom="righttop"/>
anchor stays at x=454 while window is resized

This was already requested a few times, but it's not so easy to code because resizing a window could make the anchored windows move at the same time... I will try do do that this week-end.
Note: the Anchor tag doesn't have lefttop and rightbottom attributes (yet)! Make sure your skin follows the DTD!
Read the "Using VLC warning messages" section in the Howto for more information.

- When switching layouts with WindowID.setLayout(LayoutID) (or windows) would it be possible to keep the video inside the <Video> element (seamlessly) ? (for exemple one layout has video only, and a second layout has video + playlist, actually when switching, the video pops in another window, we have to close it and press play to get it playing inside the <Video> element again)

No, it's currently not possible. This will hopefully be easier to do once the video output framework will be rewritten...

Another request, when switching layouts it would help if the other layouts could (or not) inherit width / height

Yes, I already thought of such a thing (for example, with an attribute Layout.slave containing the name of the "master" layout), but I would prefer something more flexible: how to do if you have 3 layouts which should all have the same size? should we support cases where one layout is twice as wide as another one? etc...
This is a bit like for centring controls: coding it is doable, but finding a simple and expressive way to describe it in the XML is not easy. Suggestions are also welcome!

and if the positions, sizes, visibility could be saved on close and restored on open

The positions are already saved, but it's true that all the rest should also be remembered from one session to the other. It will be done... one day


Thanks for these insightful remarks.

Hi,
thanks for the answers, i'll read the "Using VLC warning messages"

for this exemple:

- Problem with <text> and visible option with overlaying (when overlaying 2, only one is working, the other is hidden),
without the visible option the 2 overlay normally
exemple:
<Text x="28" y="6" width="345" font="mainfont" color="#000000" text="$N - VLC" scrolling="none" visible="vlc.isPlaying"/>
<Text x="28" y="6" width="345" font="mainfont" color="#000000" text="VLC" scrolling="none" visible="not vlc.isPlaying"/>

I'm trying to show one message when playing, and another one when it's not playing, but actually the problem is, for exemple, when not playing the text with visible="not vlc.isPlaying" was visible and the other one hidden (normal), but when playing no one was visible, if i delete or move the text with visible="not vlc.isPlaying", the other one will work ok

For the text action / right click, for exemple I'm writing stuff in the title bar of the vlc window, except when the text is scrolling, it would be useful if i can click on it to move the window, specially if the text takes a lot of the title bar , maybe adding a switch to enable (or not) right click and/or actions ^^ ?[/quote]

I'm trying to show one message when playing, and another one when it's not playing, but actually the problem is, for exemple, when not playing the text with visible="not vlc.isPlaying" was visible and the other one hidden (normal), but when playing no one was visible, if i delete or move the text with visible="not vlc.isPlaying", the other one will work ok

In fact, only the one with visible="vlc.isPlaying" is the problem. I found out where the bug comes from, it was introduced in a rather recent change (just before the 0.8.5 release)... It will be fixed before the next release.

- Anchor positioning (anchors are not (?) using lefttop / rightbottom attributes)

I just implemented that. In the next nightly build, you will be able to use the "lefttop" attribute for the anchors.