3

I enabled vlc dbus interface:

Is there a way to control VLC from the Sound Menu?

VLC now appears in the sound menu and the controls work.

However, the keyboard shortcuts configured for the media player (System Settings -> Keyboard -> Shortcuts -> Sound and Media) for Play, "Next Track" and "previous track" aren't working. They work fine with banshee.

Community
  • 1
Rahul Kumar
  • 33

2 Answers2

1

Your command in comments seems fine. Best way to set, if using compiz, is in ccsm > Commands. (you also need to have the dbus plugin enabled.

Then for command enter as commented dbus-send --type=method_call --print-reply --dest=org.mpris.MediaPlayer2.vlc /org/mpris/MediaPlayer2 org.mpris.MediaPlayer2.Player.PlayPause

Enable it to the media key in the key bindings as seen in screen, here it's run command 2, when going to the set 'key combo', I just used the media play/pause on keyboard, ie. no combo

enter image description here

doug
  • 17,026
  • Yes. That's an option. Doing so makes it vlc specific, while the system shortcuts don't. I mainly use vlc for audio, video. If I can't make the system shortcuts work, defining custom commands for vlc specific dbus methods is the next best thing. – Rahul Kumar May 11 '12 at 14:32
  • When I run the command in shell, it says: Error org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.ServiceUnknown: The name org.mpris.MediaPlayer2.vlc was not provided by any .service files What am I doing wrong? – x-yuri Aug 01 '14 at 14:12
  • Well, first I had to enable Interface > Control Interface > D-Bus control interface, then restart vlc, and now it works. I didn't enable dbus plugin if I understand you correctly. I'm talking about D-Bus (D-Bus Control Backend), the same kind of thing as Commands (Assigns bindings to arbitrary commands). I'm running vlc-2.0.8, if anything. – x-yuri Aug 01 '14 at 14:31
0

ASAIT, VLC cannot be bind to System Audio shortcuts like Rhythmbox or Banshee or Totem. It has its own HOTKEYS interface. The only way I found is the Playlist Hotkeys thing:

  • Press N for Next audio/video track
  • Press P for Previous audio/video track
  • Press SPACE to pause/play track
  • Press S to stop track.

Though, the VLC Window should be active in order for the hotkeys to be active too.

And D-BUS triggering:

Play/Pause Track command:

dbus-send --type=method_call --print-reply --dest=org.mpris.MediaPlayer2.vlc /org/mpris/MediaPlayer2 org.mpris.MediaPlayer2.Player.PlayPause

Stop Playing command:

dbus-send --type=method_call --print-reply --dest=org.mpris.MediaPlayer2.vlc /org/mpris/MediaPlayer2 org.mpris.MediaPlayer2.Player.Stop

Next Track command:

dbus-send --type=method_call --print-reply --dest=org.mpris.MediaPlayer2.vlc /org/mpris/MediaPlayer2 org.mpris.MediaPlayer2.Player.Next

Previous Track command:

dbus-send --type=method_call --print-reply --dest=org.mpris.MediaPlayer2.vlc /org/mpris/MediaPlayer2 org.mpris.MediaPlayer2.Player.Previous

VlC Dbus commands added as shorcuts in Unity launcher for VLC entry (using Ubuntu Tweak

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:tualatrix/next
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install ubuntu-tweak

)

VLC Custom Shortcuts in Unity Launcher

VLC Hotkeys

VLC Hotkeys

If you try to bind the Multimedia Bios/System keyboard keys to VLC you'd get either a conflict or the latter would be overwritten/lost. That's my case. For the time being, spot some free keyboard shortcuts and bind them to vlc mpris/vlc methods.

Community
  • 1
Hanynowsky
  • 2,781
  • I know about vlc keybindings. I am interested in system keybindings to control vlc.

    I am still looking into it, so I am not sure either. But considering that banshee is controlled using the dbus interface, and vlc can be controlled using dbus, I think it should be doable and I am missing something.

    dbus-send --type=method_call --print-reply --dest=org.mpris.MediaPlayer2.vlc /org/mpris/MediaPlayer2 org.mpris.MediaPlayer2.Player.PlayPause

     – Rahul Kumar May 11 '12 at 08:56