The VideoLAN Forums

On linux (I use ubuntu) I can have a window open that is a windows shared directory, using smb. I can right-click these files and have them startup with vlc via the right click context menu.

However, if I choose open file... from within vlc I cannot navigate to these shared files, as I can in windows. There should be someway to select these from the open dialog.

Also, it does not appear that these files can be drag/dropped into vlc from the smb file window. I don't really know how this is implemented in linux/ubuntu, but vlc does appear to react to the drag/drop - the cursor changes when the drop is over top of vlc. So, however the system handles drag/drop, vlc should be able to catch this drop and start up the file (closing down anything currently showing).

I don't use any other form of file sharing, but I would think any other type of file share should also be supported in this same way.

That is because it is using the Samba (smb://) protocol. You can start a file via the commandline using e.g.: Where computer is the name of the networked computer, and /path/to/file.mp3 is the path to it on the computer.

There has been some work done on implementing the native GTK+ Open File dialog (Nautilus) - see here (images won't show ATM since server hosting the images is down):
http://www.jbkempf.com/blog/post/2008/1 ... ile-Dialog.

Which should allow for files shared on the Samba network to be accessed directly.

Arite.