QT4 Consolidation Thread - VLC's New Interface

[3breadt]

Hmm the first function "clone" my video card drivers do automatically with all videos. I can't even disable that function, or I still haven't found out how to do that.
And the stretch thing I can also acomplish with the drivers.
BTW: I have a NVIDIA card.

[CloudStalker]

I have an ATI card, an older one at that, and no such functions exist. So what exactly is the point of creating a clone video though VLC then? Well I guess it's a good thing that I didn't put too much time in uploading this, because ImageShack just had to be at its slowest that day. Oh well, such is the development of VLC.

Um...does this mean that this idea's dead? well I got more anyway.

[kasparhansen]

This function would be very neat.

But as is it right now with VLC.. if you play a video file in fullscreen (with codec-A at your 2nd screen.. when the next video is about til play (with codec-B) the 2nd screen jumps out of fullscreen mode.. would the same problem occure in your function ?

[CloudStalker]

I haven't thought about that. [Currently thinking] Well I understand what the problem would be in that case. It has been discussed that the way other media players do it is by hanging on to the dlls for a longer time so even if the codec is different it'll still play seamlessly between videos/songs.

When I come to think about it's possible that this function would still work, because for every video [no matter what the format] it'll always create a fresh new window on the second monitor and go to fullscreen and such based upon the settings you've made in the preferences. Anyway, appreciate the support.

[CloudStalker]

Hey j-b one little thing I thought I might point out, when you click on the VLC icon in the system tray to hide the interface and then click on another window to bring it into focus shouldn't VLC come to the front of other windows when you click on the icon again instead of being hidden behind them? I think this makes more sense.

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

Well, yes, but I can't do anything for that.

[asdufisn]

"Thumbnail Preview From Seek Bar" would be awesome

[kasparhansen]

it would be extremely nice

[CloudStalker]

I totally agree, it would be awesome! However: sadness

[kasparhansen]

but I would like that fullscreen error thing to work properly

the problem is explained in viewtopic.php?t=37474&highlight=dual+screen+fullscreen

And I cant find another player that supports xspf and .vob

is there any possibility that this could be fixed in 0.9.1 or something ?

[CloudStalker]

I've just noticed something in the QT4 interface, when you click on the "Play" button there's normally a menu that appears to select a File, Disc, ect. Whenever you clear all items from the playlist this action no longer functions; the "Play" button should be reset when this happens, agreed?

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

I've just noticed something in the QT4 interface, when you click on the "Play" button there's normally a menu that appears to select a File, Disc, ect. Whenever you clear all items from the playlist this action no longer functions; the "Play" button should be reset when this happens, agreed?

File a bug on that one in trac and assign it to me.

[EllePollack]

Hi. This probably isn't strictly qt4 related but it is interface stuff and this seemed the best place for it.

I've been using Winamp 2.9 for the last several years - the last decent version, IMO. I've generaly liked the tech of VLC as an all-in-one media player - I do use it as my DVD player these days - but the interface has kept me from switching. I'm holding out hope for the next version though...I haven't been brave enough to try downloading nightly builds but what I hear and read sounds promising.

So in no particular order this is kind of my wishlist/idea dump...some of it stolen from or inspired Winamp, some of it are things I've seen elsewhere and one or two things I haven't seen at all. In some cases just being able to do these via skins would be acceptable.

- "Stop with Fadeout/Stop after current": In winamp when you right-click on the stop button (or use ctrl-click/shift-click) you get these two options beside the regular stop. The first fades the song out before stopping, the second stops the player after the current track/file is finished. The later, especaily, is something I missed right away when it initialy disappeared in the ill-fated Winamp 3. They'd also be especialy usefull for people running live streams and such.
- "Add (file/folder/stream/etc.) to current playlist" - I've seen people try to impliment this in older VLC versions via skins and it just hasn't worked. It's also close to a dealbreaker for me: my style is to make playlists on the fly according to my mood. I understand a better playlist interface is in the works and I hope something like this makes it in.
- The anti-Library: I don't like players that create music "libraries" that try to organize my stuff for me. I allready have an organized library and it's called NTFS. But what I would like is a "library" that just lets you add shortcuts to those folders for quick access (my music on C:, my videos on F:, network drives...)
- Quicker open/play: To open a CD to play in Winamp is two clicks: Click to open the menu, hover over "Play" and click on the cd drive listed. The whole build a media URL thing in VLC just gets in the way for me: it's extra clicks between me and my music. If you can't/won't change it, at least let me skin around it.

I think those are the big ones...I'm getting sleepy over here. Will probably end up thinking of more. Can illustrate some of them...when this comes out I intend to try diving again into skinning and UI customization (I'm no coder though).

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

ok.

- stop after current/fade after current and stop: don't know how, but I would like that you had a feature request on trac for that one. Or I'll forget.
- Add folder/stream/file to playlist will be in it for this version.
- Anti Library: VLC won't change anything in your files, since it is a security concern and I don't like it. However it can store shortcuts, URI and playlists.
- Quicker Open... I don't really know about that one. I'll see what we can do for windows. Now you have to 'Open Disc', select CD audio if DVD is selected, and select the drive. And validation

[EllePollack]

I'll post to the Trac as soon as I can get validated to do so: I seem to have caught the IRC channel in the wrong time zone and the web link to validate returns a 404.

I was doing some brainstorming on paper last night. I don't claim to be a UI expert but it kind of illustrates some of the things I'm talking about, particularly the open file/disc/stream interface.

Pic: http://www.themindstream.net/sandbox/vlc_uisketch.jpg <-- Obviously some skinning has been done in this example. I'm trying not to make it look like a carbon copy of Winamp though.

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

I'll post to the Trac as soon as I can get validated to do so: I seem to have caught the IRC channel in the wrong time zone and the web link to validate returns a 404.

I was doing some brainstorming on paper last night. I don't claim to be a UI expert but it kind of illustrates some of the things I'm talking about, particularly the open file/disc/stream interface.

Pic: http://www.themindstream.net/sandbox/vlc_uisketch.jpg <-- Obviously some skinning has been done in this example. I'm trying not to make it look like a carbon copy of Winamp though.

404
Gimme your name on trac to get validated.

[CloudStalker]

I've noticed that in the more recent nightly builds you're allowing for the cone-stuction and editing of meta data, wonderful! Maybe you can borrow some code, and ideas, from mp3tag, another open source program. It would probably be more feasible to edit meta data (including album art) straight from the playlist instead of one by one (current). Take a look at it and see what's good.

I've got some more ideas but this time they're a little more subtle then the previous ones (reverse psychology; I have no new ideas but I'm sure if I did they would be outrageous!). No but really, something that involves skins and skin support.

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

Well, yes, it is allowed... But not fully working I am afraid. But still it is way better than it used to be.

[kasparhansen]

j-b,

Would it be possible to make an autorefresh playlist function ?

like this: viewtopic.php?f=7&t=38632

?

[CloudStalker]

Do you mean this: refresh

or do you mean some type of live folder where when new items are added to a folder, for instance downloading music to a folder, it'll automatically refresh the playlist to show the new items instead of having to reopen the folder? [unnecessary typing]

[hfswjyr]

Hi,

I believe this is called Watch folder or something like that. This is where you designate a folder to be your downloads folder and whenever you put new media into that folder, the VLC media library will add the file to the library.

One more question, I see in the nightly builds there is a media library section. However, does it do anything at the moment? I cannot get VLC to remember my media at all. I have to save an ugly .xspf (perhaps the playlist needs a cone icon?) of all my music to desktop and load it everytime I start VLC. Does this mean the media library is still under development?

Also, I think being able to edit ID3v2.x tags in VLC would be a great addition.

Thanks for all the hard work.

[CloudStalker]

Thanks for your post.

I don't think that the media library has been fully implemented just yet, but according to...stupid me, I copied the image instead of the link; I lost it for now.

[kasparhansen]

hmm cloudStalker, what I mean is close to the last one..

I need vlc to automatically update my .xspf because it I am kinda updating and saving it via a website.. so it would be very neat not to close / restart VLC each time the .xspf changes..
Do you think this function could be applied?

btw are you in the develope team or are 'just' a happy user of vlc ?

[CloudStalker]

Before reading this post please turn up the contrast on your computer screen. Thank you.

hmm cloudStalker, what I mean is close to the last one..

I need vlc to automatically update my .xspf because it I am kinda updating and saving it via a website.. so it would be very neat not to close / restart VLC each time the .xspf changes..
Do you think this function could be applied?

I don't know, we'll let j-b answer that for ya.

btw are you in the develope team or are 'just' a happy user of vlc ?

Um...ah...of course!Not!

[kasparhansen]

hehe, okay.. hope he read this thread then