VLC 0.8.6 - full screen controller panel

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VLC 0.8.6 - full screen controller panel

December 26, 2006

VLC media player 0.8.6 (changelog) was released a few weeks ago so this may be old news, but I am clearing my backlog of drafts.

Mac OS X users, if you watch videos in full screen mode (like I do most of the time), you’d be delighted to know that they added a full screen controller Ã la the video player in iTunes:

That was one of my pet peeves with VLC when I was still using Windows as my main desktop OS, and I’d stayed true to Media Player Classic right to the point where I switched to OS X. Media Player Classic is Windows-only, so I had to switch to VLC as well (QuickTime player never impressed me and I wasn’t willing to pay for the Pro version). The lack of a full controller in full screen mode and the inability to move to specific spots in the video timeline with sufficient granularity seems to have been fixed with this new full screen controller panel.

And while they still haven’t made it possible to pause a video by clicking on the video output (which was the case in Media Player Classic), I’ve mostly compensated for it by hitting the space bar. Now that they’ve added a right-click context menu to the video output screen, the same can be done but in 2 clicks with just the mouse - not optimal but it does feel better to see a context menu pop up when right-clicking. I guess that’s the Windows user in me talking - I still feel that almost everything I see should have a context menu or it just feels wrong.

Oh and they added support for the Apple Remote Control. Works great, I just have to remember to take out my remote control and use it next time I’m sitting back watching a movie or anime.

Posted by Chu Yeow at December 26, 2006 SGT |

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| Category: Applications, Mac, Open Source

4 Comments & TrackBacks ()

And for some bizarre reason the new PC version doesn’t seem to have the snazzy full-screen control bar you mention. Argh. I know, I know, get a Mac.

Posted by: ImBatman on December 29, 2006 8pm

I didn’t even realise that older version of VLC player didn’t support full-screen viewing until I read this post. I would like to have an option in VLC player to open all video files directly in full-screen/maximised mode. The default directory for open operation is the same for media files and the subtitle files, which is inconvenient when the subtitles are stored in a separate directory.

Apart from these two minor inconveniences, VLC player beats any other media player hands down in my opinion.

Posted by: tabrez on January 1, 2007 1pm

Yeah, I’m really waiting for ANY kinda of full screen display for the PC. I can use my Mac at work, but I mainly use my PC for day-to-day stuff @ home so this would save me.

Also a pet peeve of doing ‘Always on top’ then going to full screen (on PC) leaves a trace of the previous sized window.

Posted by: k3n85 on January 23, 2007 5am