The VideoLAN Forums

Hello!

As much as I like VLC, there's one thing I'd appreciate to be changed:
If you drag multiple items on VLC's icon, the program makes a playlist with all dragged items, but, instead of beginnig to play at the first item, it begins with the last one. Is there any chance that this can be changed in future versions? (I'm talking of the Mac version - I can't say if the other versions behave the same way.)

Any answer appreciated. Thanks.

This happens on Windows as well. It's caused by the way Windows handles selections, and every program that can act on multiple dragged items has this misfeature. I expect it to be the same on OS X.

I don't think it's a "general" or system generated problem. There are programs like "Cog" that don't do that. And, after all, what's so difficult in creating a playlist from a drag and drop action without selecting any of the files (if there are multiple files)? Or simply select the first of the dragged items in an alphabetic order?
I can do this in AppleScript for a list of dragged items, so "real" programmers should be able to do so in "real" programming languages…?

Hello!

As much as I like VLC, there's one thing I'd appreciate to be changed:
If you drag multiple items on VLC's icon, the program makes a playlist with all dragged items, but, instead of beginnig to play at the first item, it begins with the last one. Is there any chance that this can be changed in future versions? (I'm talking of the Mac version - I can't say if the other versions behave the same way.)

Any answer appreciated. Thanks.

Is this honestly that big of a issues ?

VLC starts playing from where you started dragging of selected items. Therefore I always start dragging from the first item and then all of the files will be in same order as they were in window.

I just tried this in VLC 0.8.5 Mac on OSX 10.6.3, and this version shows the correct behavior. Files are added in alphabetical order, regardless of how you drag them (incl. when you start dragging from the last item). Same in VLC 1.0.5 Mac on OSX 10.6.3.

If you drag multiple items on VLC's icon, the program makes a playlist with all dragged items, but, instead of beginnig to play at the first item, it begins with the last one.

Yes - we are happy that VLC knows alphabetic sorting in lists since ages.
But some magic starts playing the last entry in such lists than the first one, everything stops after the last entry was played.
It would be nice to streamline this to real world needs and autostart the first entry of a list.

Effect rechecked on VLC at Linux and Apple OSX.

hi!
i registered to this forum only to say that finally i found the solution to this reknown problem!!!
to have the correct order in few steps you have to go to preferences and choose the advanced settings (not the simple one). click on playlist, and deselect automatic analization of the file. save and exit from the preferences. then go to the folder where you have the files to play, select them in any way you want, right-click and select add to vlc playlist. the order will be perfect!!!
i detested this bug since i use vlc (since a long time) and sometimes i tried to solve it... I hope this thing will be helpful!
p.s. sorry if the names of the commands are wrong, but i use vlc in italian and i don't know the correct translations!

It's "automatically preparse files" here and does not change autoplay of the last file in the list.
Please have a solution to autoplay the first file in the list.

"automatically preparse files" checked will show the file description in the playlist, e.g. id3tag or video tag.
It is sorted by filename and you can now sort by Title, Artist, etc.

"automatically preparse files" unchecked will show the filename in the playlist.
It is sorted by filename and you can now only sort by filename.

mmm strange... in my case i saw the differences! maybe there are different settings in my vlc... i'm sorry, i thought that was really the solution! i swear that i've done the exact steps that i wrote in the previous post and the problem was solved... it's a mistery... so... sorry again!

Updated to VLC 1.1.3 - same effect.
Selecting multiple files and opening with VLC starts playing with the last selected file.
It should start the first file in the list.

+1 - This annoys me too.

I'm often playing 10+ videos at a time (playing an entire chapter of a training video each video only being a few minutes). I typically initiate this by dragging all the files onto the playlist window. I really wish VLC would start playing the first item instead of the last item, far less important I wish VLC would maintain the playback speed between videos as well, but starting on the first file is way more important.

has anyone found a solution to this yet? I just downloaded vlc for playing multiple mp3's in a playlist in a single window, and was annoyed to find out it starts out by playing the last item when opening multiple files. any ideas/solutions? - thanks!

Hi,

I'm going to crasy with this stupid bug ... since this summer I decided to Use VLC as my only player on my computer, and I have to live with this bug :

When I select a MP3 folder to play it with VLC, it doesn't respect the file's names to order it in the playlist ...

I don't know if it's a real bug, but any kind of WMP or winamp player always respect the alphabetical order when you play a folder...
Help me to keep VLC as my first media player, and add the fonction "playlist order" with options like "filenames / Meta-files / M3U ...."

Since that, I have to add the "track number" on the playlist, and I must clic on it to sort them in order.
...really annoying

It's 2014 and this bug is still not solved. As far as I can understand from contributors like Rémi Denis-Courmont it seems that VLC's developers are sticking their heads in the sand and pretending that there is no issue. There is.
This issue has been raised again and again and it reflects quite badly on the VLC team that it is not even being acknowledged, let alone fixed.

Let me clarify (again):
1. Open a folder with audio files in Windows Explorer
2. Select files (it makes no difference whether you do ctrl-A to select all, click each file while holding ctrl, click one file then hold shift and click another file to select multiple, etc.)
3. Hit enter (which usually defaults to "play") or right-click and select "play" or right-click and select "add to VLC playlist"

Results:
1.Files will be added to VLC playlist in a random order
2. If you selected "play" or hit enter, the last file in the playlist will start playing - and after it finishes VLC will stop becuase it has reached the end of the playlist...

Workaround:
1. Open a folder with audio files in Windows Explorer
2. Select files
3. Click on the first file and drag to VLC.

Result: the files will be added to the playlist in the order shown in Explorer.

The workaround is pretty clumsy, because it means that you have to manually open VLC and then drag and drop. It is much more natural to go to Explorer, select the files you want to play and hit enter.

I find it very poor that the developers are not listening to the community and have been refusing to accept this issue for at least five years now. Come on VLC team, pull your fingers out!

VLC opens in the order Windows Explorer sends them. This is the reason.

That is a technical problem to be solved. It does not mean that it should be ignored, because *functionally* it is a very poor user experience.
.

Have you checked that the Random feature is not switched on? It's the last icon at the bottom of the playlist screen and toggles between modes.

This works for me on Windows 7 (and for other systems, this post describes some experiments you could do):

Drag and drop involves seven steps.

1. press left mouse button while in the file explorer
2. move mouse until desired files are selected
3. release mouse button
4. (optionally) move mouse a little
5. press left mouse button to start "moving" the files
6. move mouse over VLC
7. release left mouse button to drop the files on to VLC

The important thing, according to my experiments, is step 5. The file that is under the mouse at that instant in time will be the first file that is played, therefore you should place the mouse over your preferred first file when doing this.

This applies with right-clicking also. If you select a bunch of files, and then right click to bring up the menu ("Add to VLC playlist..."), you should ensure that you right click while the mouse is over the file you wish to play first. If you're having trouble on Windows 7, or other systems, I suggest you think carefully about where your mouse is at all stages of the operation.

1. drag files / right click -> add to vlc player playlist.
2. sort by title.
3. double click the freaking mouse on the top one.

Why get bogged down with all the nitty gritty when there are bigger problems on this earth?

Jonathan
San Antonio, Texas (Remember The Alamo!)

Let's clear things up again, without worrying about ppl like Jonathan moaning about it: (If other players with worse versatility & performance & everything can do it alphabetically, for example, the worst ever: Win Media Player can do it, why not the best there is, why not VLC?)

This is what's happening which frustrates the VLC users, and the Devs doesn't seem to give a --please stay polite--:
1 Select multiple files in win explorer (doesn't matter what your view in Windows Explorer is)
2 Right-click & click PLAY (doesn't matter which file you right-click on, most of the time it won't go accordingly)
3 The playlist populated in VLC is randomized, and the song that started playing isn't the one you right-click on

This is what we expect / hope / beg / spit on the Devs for:
1 Select multiple files, right-click & select PLAY
2 Create playlist alphabetically, and play the right-clicked file first.

Again, if Microsoft can do it on their lousy media player, why not the most popular & available VLC?

Thanks.
CK

P.S: Jonathan, this forum is for VLC users to reflect on the issues of using VLC, therefore whether there are more problems in this world, or maybe around your world, whether the VLC dev will listen to us or not, it is still the place for us to say anything about VLC, however it is not for the self-righteous who just wants attention by dissing others publicly, without actually contribute to the topic. (Shut it, in short.)

Is this honestly that big of a issues ?

Yes, it's a massive pain in the ass. It means that if I want to load entire seasons of shows I have to do it individually. It's incredibly frustrating.

Please fix that, when you have to play a bunch of files day by day, you need this feature so much,

So many times wasted when you have to open files. click to playlist, sort them, choose to play again the first one,

After 9 years, no dev one care about that simple feature

2020, and still nobody pays the developers. That is why we have to take the extra step of removing the dumb-ordered files from VLC and then make sure in Explorer to right-click the FIRST item.