Unable to resize window

[nathrao]

I have VLC 2.1.5 on Windows 8.1. When I open a video with even 1280 by 720 size, the window is larger than the screen, so I am unable to resize it. Changing the zoom setting has no effect. Moving the window seems to just make it occupy the whole screen, so again I am unable to get to the lower right corner to adjust the window size. I am unable to find any setting in the preferences for default window size. Searches for this problem either turn up instructions for older versions that refer to setting in preferences that seem to have been removed, or point to completely unrelated issues. I am at a complete loss and would like some help.

Thanks
Nath Rao

[btvslayer]

I have the same issue with VLC 2.1.5 on Windows 7 (64bit running on a 1366 x 768 Lenovo V570). Problem is, most low to mid-range laptops, notebooks etc.. have screens that are either 768 or 800 pixels high. I would ask the developers (who seemingly have "pegged" even the preferences window to 800 pixels high) to respect the lower of these two values (and therefore appease many frustrated users).

Would it be graciously considered to either allow ad-hoc vertical resizing or adjust the preferences window to 768 pixels in height?

MANY, many grateful thanks go to those who've worked so hard creating this wonderful product!

[lifeoflead]

Hi, Have you tried this?: Tools-Preferences-Interface (show simple), uncheck "Resize interface to video size"; then..Tools-Preferences-(show all), scroll down to video, set video size to desired start size. the default setting is -1. Try 600x480 to start.

[btvslayer]

Hi, Have you tried this?: Tools-Preferences-Interface (show simple), uncheck "Resize interface to video size"; then..Tools-Preferences-(show all), scroll down to video, set video size to desired start size. the default setting is -1. Try 600x480 to start.

I reset all settings and restarted following your advice. I set this to 640x480 and opening video's now force-scale to that size, but the Preferences Interface still over-flows both top and bottom of the screen. Windows users with snap turned on and/or the task-bar not set set to "auto-hide" would, I suspect, not even be able to even follow your instructions (since the "all" option would be invisible.

One of the unfortunate things is this:
When the Preferences Interface window is open, users can hover and adjust the windows horizontal width, but when the user hovers at the top edge of the window, the cursor flips to an up-down-arrow but cannot manually adjust the window height..
Go figure!

My take on this? Any VLC user with the Windows task-bar not set to auto-hide and a screen pixel height of 850 pixels or more, will not encounter setting preferences to be a royal pain in the Caboose - but the rest of us loose or just put up with it (and this issue has been around for a while).

VLC is sooo great! Could the preferences window its' only non-flexible flaw?

[lifeoflead]

That sounds like a Windows problem, not vlc. I have had similar problems on PCs with lower screen resolution as well. It is even more difficult when using mouse pads. The only solution I have found in those cases is to double click the top bar to have the window take up full screen, then set up my adjustments.

** Something I just noticed, when Preferences is closed while set to "Show Simple" it will reopen in a larger window. I think it may be the need to show all of the icons. I have kept it on "Show All", so I didn't see that before.

*** My bad... Interface screen won't go to full screen.... DOAH!

well, nothing on this Earth can be perfect. We must accept that which cannot be changed...

[btvslayer]

well, nothing on this Earth can be perfect. We must accept that which cannot be changed...

I have a sneaky suspicion this anomaly just slipped through without much notice. Why?
Well for starters, all other windows launched from the "Tools menu" can be resized vertically.
I am going to try VLC on some other devices and see if mine is an isolated case...
I'll be back.

[btvslayer]

OK, checked on some other devices:
1) Both my sons use Q6600 towers with ATI 6450 cards and 2 screens at 1080p, so I didn't expect a problem and didn't find one either. Even resizing screen 2 down to 720p, the preferences window was always A) vertically sizable, and B) less than the height of the screen.
2) My wife has a low-end 10.1" eMachines 355 with a 680p height and it had no problem either... The preferences window consistently opened to about 90% of the screen height and was indeed vertically resizable. However on that device, useful preferences navigation was more dependent on vertical scrolling but at least the simple, all settings and save were still accessible and not cut off (as on my i5 Lenovo v570).
3) Our HTPC is a 2gig Intel i3-540 (Intel HD video and win7 32bit) using built-in HDMI at 1080p, which suites us just fine for movies. The room size and 47" screen require using Windows font/icon magnification settings at 150% and the VLC preferences widows has no sizing problems here either.

Back to my fiddling with settings on my PC (the Lenovo V570 laptop):
Since my screen size is just 15.6" and maxes-out at 768p high, I normally have Windows font/icon magnification set at 125%. I set it to 100% and did the normal log-off/on as Windows suggested. Now VLC's preferences opens at 80% of screen height and allows me to resize the preferences window up but not down. On the other devices mentioned, I could reduce the window height to much lower - about 40% of the screen height. This still works and allows me to access the save button, but VLC convenience then forces me the use unacceptably small text and icon sizing on all the other apps I use (a little unfair).

At this point, I'm going to look into Intel display driver updates, GDI issues with other apps, and launching VLC with some Windows compatibility settings. I have tried the removal of %appdata%\vlc as stated in https://forum.videolan.org/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=85063 but maybe a full removal, registry clean, and re-install will cure this. I'm not sure how many have fiddled with this issue, but since I do IT work, I've seen it before - thankfully, most default settings work just fine. BTW, my Lenovo's graphics chip-set is the Intel HD3000 - Does anyone else have this problem?

So... Using Windows font/icon magnification makes the preference window spill-over the top and bottom of the screen - but should it?