Click Video To Toggle Pause/Play

[natalya]

I want this feature too, very much.

VLC is great media player, but most of time I use other players because is easier to pause.

[ab40]

Demand is a term from the field of economics. And there is actually no demand, or at least not enough to support much of an offer. That is to say, while there have been user requests for over a decade already, there is no paying customer demand. Otherwise, you bet it would be supported since a long time.

- that's another way to say what was already said:

You are a stupid, selfish, insulting and aggressive person. We don't want you here.

OK, we're just stupid, selfish, insulting and aggressive users not paying money. We're paying attention. We care. Yet.

And being the person who makes money decisions, I would never express "demand" for such a feature.
In business there's no sense in debate about "square steering wheel".
Just avoid the car, just avoid the manufacturer.
Just avoid the lack of common sense.

Lack of the feature is only an indicator.
Prioritizing outdated DVD stuff over worldwide UX customs - is not just an exception.
It's an illustration of the whole VLC freaky UI/UX design.
And I'm sorry to say that.
I'm sorry I cannot recommend this powerful player to any of non-computer-savvy people.
Let alone using it in production.

[Rémi Denis-Courmont]

And being the person who makes money decisions, I would never express "demand" for such a feature.
In business there's no sense in debate about "square steering wheel".
Just avoid the car, just avoid the manufacturer.
Just avoid the lack of common sense.

This is just plain wrong: It is common in business setting, to request customization. I'd think it's far more common in B2B than in B2C in fact. That is pretty much the whole business model of many IT service companies - not to mention architects,, lawyers, etc.

And even if it were right, that is irrelevant: you are not a paying VLC client and you never were. You are more than welcome to stop using VLC and use allegedly superior competing products. Surely the competition will bend backward to accomodate your wishes for no reason at all. Not.

[Eriatile]

I have looked into adding the functionality into VLC myself, but the proper way to do this, one which VLC team would merge, seemed to be rather involved due to the DVD/BR menu and other things, so I have settled on writing a plugin instead.

Wouldn't it possible for DVD menu :
- to make click to pause not work at all if a dvd is playing (as detecting when a dvd menu is playing and turning off click to pause seems difficult)
- or, like others have suggested, to use middle button so it won't interfere with dvd menu

I think any of these solutions would be greatly appreciated.
It's a feature which VLC really lack and it's hard for users to understand why. Pretty much all video player have it.

Thankfully, Nuropo, you made an extension and for that I'm really grateful.
It's sad only advanced users are benefiting from it since basic user would never search or find it. Not because they don't care, only because they wouldn't even think about it. And if they do it's still to cumbersome to configure so they won't use it. :-/

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

I have looked into adding the functionality into VLC myself, but the proper way to do this, one which VLC team would merge, seemed to be rather involved due to the DVD/BR menu and other things, so I have settled on writing a plugin instead.

Wouldn't it possible for DVD menu :
- to make click to pause not work at all if a dvd is playing (as detecting when a dvd menu is playing and turning off click to pause seems difficult)
- or, like others have suggested, to use middle button so it won't interfere with dvd menu

Yes, this is the direction we're getting to. It just needs work.

[avenger]

I'm amazed this is still not a feature of VLC nowadays. Annoying that the extension can get wiped out every time we update VLC. Today the extension got wiped as I reinstalled VLC. I understand all DVD issues but, this could be just a little checkbox hidden in advanced settings, as a feature that does not mean a considerable overhead in the application code, etc.... The library is 18Kb big, and I believe it would be even smaller if it was merged in the code.

I've been using this tiny extension for years without issue, I just can't understand why so much resistance against such a tiny yet helpful feature... Even if optionally toggleable. Well, but of course I'm talking as a completely DVD-BD ignorant one, I don't even have a working DVD drive (much less a BD one), and never watch this kind of videos (with interactable menus) at all...

p.s.: good news is, after a reinstall, just placing the DLL file in the plugins/video_filters directory, as instructed by the initial post step-thru, does it. No need to go down the settings path and enable it again. Of course, this is probably because I chose to retain settings while upgrading VLC.

[Arthorias]

Not-so-friendly reminder that this IS an essential feature and that it IS annoying as f*** (annoying enough to have spent a couple of minutes of my life registering in this forum for this sole reason) not having it natively implemented. I just tried the nurupo plugin and thank God it works (at least it does in VLC 3.0.6 - tested on the 32 bit version -), although it is utterly ridiculous to depend on a breakable plugin for such a BASIC feature. The DVD menu excuse, as others have said, just won't cut it in the year of our Lord 2019 (does anyone STILL play DVDs? lmao).

[Lotesdelere]

Hit the space bar = Pause
Hit the space bar again = Play

Keyboard is always faster than any mouse movement.

[Eriatile]

Sure keyboard is faster but still mouse is useful.
For instance I watch video on my TV and to control VLC I use my wireless mouse as a remote controller. (And
I don't have the keyboard because it's too cumbersome)

[Arthorias]

Sure keyboard is faster but still mouse is useful.
For instance I watch video on my TV and to control VLC I use my wireless mouse as a remote controller. (And
I don't have the keyboard because it's too cumbersome)

This is exactly my same use-case. Spouting "just use the keyboard, bro" is asinine; more so when every other mediocre video player out there has had the feature implemented for years.

[nurupo]

Just a heads up that the new version of the plugin learned to work correctly in DVD menus - it won't pause/play if you mouse click while in the menu.

[leo007]

much thanks for plugin.
sometimes there is a chance of false trigger and unexpected behave so I prefer to separate key trigger of those 2 actions.
my small ahk script make Pause/play get fired by Left mouse click only while Ctrl is pushed Down.

Code: Select all

#IfWinActive, ahk_exe vlc.exe $^LButton:: KeyWait, Ctrl, D SendInput, {Space} ; Play/pause VLC Return #IfWinActive

[jgt1942]

leo007 how do I implement your script?

I tried to find information about scripts by using the wiki help file but so far I have had no success using such helpfiles. They don't seem userfriendly and I can never find what I'm looking for. When I search for something I always get a bunch of hits that seem to have no relationship to what I'm searching for.

[leo007]

leo007 how do I implement your script?

I tried to find information about scripts by using the wiki help file but so far I have had no success using such helpfiles. They don't seem userfriendly and I can never find what I'm looking for. When I search for something I always get a bunch of hits that seem to have no relationship to what I'm searching for.

you have to follow next steps:
1) open notepad and paste:

Code: Select all

#NoTrayIcon #IfWinActive, ahk_exe vlc.exe $^LButton:: KeyWait, Ctrl, D SendInput, {Space} ; Play/pause VLC Return #IfWinActive

then save this as ahk file (instead of txt).
2) converter this ahk script → Exe file with Ahk2Exe
3) finally put this created exe file in startup folder C:\Users\<user name>\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup (so it will run in background each system startup).

it should be easy but in case you having difficulties i can make converted exe file for you.
so only thing that is left is to put it in Startup folder

[nurupo]

sometimes there is a chance of false trigger and unexpected behave so I prefer to separate key trigger of those 2 actions.

Not sure what you mean by that. Pause/play won't get triggered unless you click, there is no false trigger or unexpected behavior.

If your left mouse button somehow got broken and clicks on its own resulting in "false trigger", you can work around the broken mouse button by re-assign pause/play from the left mouse button to the middle mouse button (mouse wheel click). Alternately, you could re-assign pause/play from the left mouse button to the right mouse button, though in that case you would probably also want to re-assigning the context menu popup from the right mouse button to the middle mouse button (mouse wheel click). You can do all of that in plugin's settings: http://i.imgur.com/iDtLJpe.png

[leo007]

sometimes there is a chance of false trigger and unexpected behave so I prefer to separate key trigger of those 2 actions.

Not sure what you mean by that. Pause/play won't get triggered unless you click, there is no false trigger or unexpected behavior.

sometimes unwonted fullscreen get triggered because its work with same left mouse click. so i have to keep extra couple second time delay between each click.

sometimes there is a chance of false trigger and unexpected behave so I prefer to separate key trigger of those 2 actions.

re-assign pause/play from the left mouse button to the middle mouse button (mouse wheel click).

Great optional idea.
but ctrl + left click combination seems to be more comfortable to me.
hope it could be implemented natively in future updated.

[nurupo]

sometimes unwonted fullscreen get triggered because its work with same left mouse click. so i have to keep extra couple second time delay between each click.

You can disable full screen being triggered by a double-click, so that no matter how fast you left click, VLC won't go full screen. And since there is no way for you to full-screen using a mouse anymore, you could assign the full screen to some other mouse button, e.g. the middle mouse button.
Or you could keep full screen being triggered by a double-click and instead re-assign pause/play to a non-left mouse button, so that pause/play no longer interferes with full screen.

Great optional idea.
but ctrl + left click combination seems to be more comfortable to me.
hope it could be implemented natively in future updated.

Well, it's good you found something that works for you!

[leo007]

I got used to trigger full screen by double-click for as long as I remember what is video player in windows)).
so unfortunately this recommendation couldn't work in my case.
i find only separate keyboard key in combination with mouse click works the best for me.
but I think you suggested great work around ideas that May suite other people

[NoOneSpecial]

sometimes unwonted fullscreen get triggered because its work with same left mouse click. so i have to keep extra couple second time delay between each click.

You can disable full screen being triggered by a double-click, so that no matter how fast you left click, VLC won't go full screen. And since there is no way for you to full-screen using a mouse anymore, you could assign the full screen to some other mouse button, e.g. the middle mouse button.
Or you could keep full screen being triggered by a double-click and instead re-assign pause/play to a non-left mouse button, so that pause/play no longer interferes with full screen.

Great optional idea.
but ctrl + left click combination seems to be more comfortable to me.
hope it could be implemented natively in future updated.

Well, it's good you found something that works for you!

NURUPO...you're a SAINT! Installed your plugin, enabled it, disabled double-click (so double-click still works as usual to toggle full screen), and now VLC works exactly like MPC (which I had been using for 10 years, in no small part due to the click-anywhere play/pause combined with a robust do-everything video player).

AND I showed my gratitude with a $$ donation

Jean-Baptiste Kempf, take note. The feature we've been asking for for a decade now, that you keep making excuses about, is TOTALLY DOABLE, and we show our gratitude (at least sometimes) with our pocketbook, not to mention promoting the good and highly-usable things we find (and the extraordinarily frustrating things we find) with everyone in our social circles. Hint hint...

[jgt1942]

leo007 how do I implement your script?

I tried to find information about scripts by using the wiki help file but so far I have had no success using such helpfiles. They don't seem userfriendly and I can never find what I'm looking for. When I search for something I always get a bunch of hits that seem to have no relationship to what I'm searching for.

you have to follow next steps:
1) open notepad and paste:

Code: Select all

#NoTrayIcon #IfWinActive, ahk_exe vlc.exe $^LButton:: KeyWait, Ctrl, D SendInput, {Space} ; Play/pause VLC Return #IfWinActive

then save this as ahk file (instead of txt).
2) converter this ahk script → Exe file with Ahk2Exe
3) finally put this created exe file in startup folder C:\Users\<user name>\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup (so it will run in background each system startup).

it should be easy but in case you having difficulties i can make converted exe file for you.
so only thing that is left is to put it in Startup folder

Sorry to be such a dummy but I could not make my way through doing whatever I need to do with AHK2Exe. I did read through the instructions for AHK2Exe but I was totally confused. I would greatly appreciate it if you created the converted EXE so all I have to do is put it in the Startup folder.

In the thread where you posted the code, I see seven lines of code. Is this the entire piece of code? When I click the "Select All" button just above the code, the screen flashes, I then see the top of the thread, I press Ctrl+C expecting to copy the code but nothing happens. I'm using the Chrome browser (latest version) running on Win10 x64 (latest version).
Thanks!! I very much look forward to using the EXE you will create.

[MisterX]

Hey, author of https://github.com/nurupo/vlc-pause-click-plugin here (proof).

The plugin does work and has been working ever since it was released in 2014, at least on Windows and Linux (I don't own a macOS so can't verify). The plugin is maintained and I use it on daily basis myself. If you can't get it to work then you are likely doing something wrong, e.g. using wrong version of the plugin or not checking all of the checkboxes. Unless you check all of the required checkboxes VLC won't start the plugin. If you follow the install and usage instructions correctly the plugin should work. Make sure to check all the screenshots the usage instructions have. Though some people have reported that they have followed the instructions correctly but had to reset VLC plugin cache, so there is that too, but this seems to be a very rare issue. If the plugin doesn't work for you, feel free to open an issue in the GitHub repo and I will try to help you.

I'd love for VLC to have this feature out of the box, that way I wouldn't have to maintain the plugin and answer to issues, users wouldn't have to struggle with installing my plugin and everyone would just be happier.

Thank you Nurupo, your plugin works perfectly.

At first I thought it would be too complicated for me to install that, as I'm not very good with computer stuff. Then I tried, I just followed your instructions and your screenshots step by step and I did it. Wow! So now I don't have any reason to use other (bad) media players just to be able to pause with one click. Now I can just use the best one and have all the functions I need. That's brilliant!

[jgt1942]

MisterX, MUCH thanks for the post, this worked for me!!!!!!

[Gazeld]

much thanks for plugin.
sometimes there is a chance of false trigger and unexpected behave so I prefer to separate key trigger of those 2 actions.
my small ahk script make Pause/play get fired by Left mouse click only while Ctrl is pushed Down.

Code: Select all

#IfWinActive, ahk_exe vlc.exe $^LButton:: KeyWait, Ctrl, D SendInput, {Space} ; Play/pause VLC Return #IfWinActive

For those who want something simple with Autohotkey, I just tried this and it seems to do the job, i.e. left-clicking on the video in VLC toggles play/pause:

Code: Select all

~LButton:: ;VLC window is already active here due to ~ in ~LButton MouseGetPos _, _, _, ctrl ;Get name of control under mouse pointer if (SubStr(ctrl, 1, 16) == "VLC video output") ; Is it the VLC video control? { SendInput, {Space} ;Play/pause VLC } Return

Reminder: copy/paste this code into a txt file that you save with the .ahk extension, then you can use it with Autohotkey installed, or compile it into an exe with the compiler ahk2exe.

[cheater]

It is ridiculous !
It's a a car with a square steering wheel or a square spoon. People are used to click a video to pause it. Thanks to youtube.
I'm not a programmer but it cannot be impossible.
Why would it not be possible to have the video catching a click as a background layer and have the ... how do you call it 'control bar panel' as a top layer ?
Something like :
check if the click is on a control bar button , yes : execute button function
no : goto check2
check2 : check if click is on video area, yes : change pause state
no : nevermind

I've been using vlc since it began as a french student project, and as an inhabitant from the country north of France, like it very much, but this one annoying detail has me almost looking for another mediaplayer...
Sometimes you don't have to add stuff anymore. Once it plays every video, stop changing it. Just add a possibility for addons so people can customize it like they want.
Spend your time making addons and leave the functioning product like it is. But unfortunately it must be impossible for humans to stop evolving stuff...

This doesn't mean i'm not grateful for your guys making vlc : thank you very much ! It's just this tiny little...

How do you make DVD menus and interactive filter works if you use click to pause.

Here's how.

First of all, think about the most common use case. Even when you only watch DVDs (which nobody does nowadays let's be honest) menu interaction is not more than 1% of interaction with the movie. For this reason, clicking to interact with DVD menu should not be the default action - it should be a special case.

Let's be honest, someone who wants to watch movies in a technically obsolete format (many movies are now available in higher quality either on Bluray or via stream) will most likely also have dedicated hardware to play them on, which collectors usually find to be a better experience than using a PC due to ease of use and physical interaction. So there isn't a reason to cater to this use case.

For this reason I suggest that left-clicking to pause should be the default, and there should be a special option to make left-click interact with menues. This should be settable in the preferences, and additionally there should be a button on the toolbar for turning on the special rare case of someone actually wanting DVD menu interaction.

Finally, you can with some effort (that's going to be the sticking point) figure out if a click somewhere on the screen actually gets handled by a DVD menu, or not. If not, then use it for play/pause. If yes, then use it for the menu. In this situation, you get the best of both worlds. But until that is the case, it's better to have left-click default to play/pause.

Middle click defaulting to play/pause is not a good idea, as it's not easily discoverable by users. Plus some mice don't even have a third button. The ones that do, put it on a mouse wheel, which isn't great for repeated use.

When you have multiple functions to assign to the mouse, the most commonly used function should be on the left click, the less commonly used function on right click, and the least commonly used function on middle click.

Clearly play / pause is a feature that is used much more than the context menu which occupies the right click, and even more so the DVD menus. So we should relegate DVD menu interaction on the middle button, and put the most commonly used option on the primary interaction button.

Another thing. I've had left click set to play/pause in another player forever. The same mouse button is used for DVD menu interaction. When I click on a menu item, yes, the DVD pauses. So what? For the one time I use DVD menus every year I can bear to click a second time somewhere else to unpause the DVD again. It's not an issue at all. Not having play/pause on the left click really is an issue.

[Rémi Denis-Courmont]

You have the same problem with Bluray as with DVD, as with disk images. I think you are way underestimating the use of VLC for optical media playback in general anyway.

What you describe is feasible, but it's sure to cause massive support complaints and backlash. So guess what, the VLC developers who'd have to deal with those consequences, are not keen on it.