How to make quicklist for VLC Media Player with playback controls

Question

I am trying to make a quicklist for VLC that has playback control, if possible. Using this link as reference, I've made a copy of vlc.desktop and added the following to the bottom in Gedit:

X-Ayatana-Desktop-Shortcuts=Play;Pause;Stop;Next;Prev
[Play Shortcut Group]
Name=Play
Exec=vlc --play
TargetEnvironment=Unity

[Pause Shortcut Group]
Name=Pause
Exec=vlc --pause
TargetEnvironment=Unity

[Stop Shortcut Group]

Name=Stop
Exec=vlc --stop
TargetEnvironment=Unity

[Next Shortcut Group]
Name=Next
Exec=vlc --next
TargetEnvironment=Unity

[Prev Shortcut Group]
Name=Prev
Exec=vlc --prev
TargetEnvironment=Unity

So far I'm having no luck getting it to work properly.

That is not going to work: the 'stop' 'next' and 'prev' have no knowledge of the currently playing video. Since none of the options are supported by vlc all you are doing here is start a new instance of VLC. — Rinzwind, May 29 '11 at 10:02

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Dec 18 '11 at 19:35

You can do this but seems more of a pita than worth considering there is a vlc appindicator or systray icon. (the systray icon works better than the indicator

Anyway vlc will respond to global hotkeys, then you'd use something like xdotool in your quicklist

The pita part is you'd need to create & set global hotkeys in vlc that don't conflict with anything else, then test that they work in vlc.

So as an example for pause, setting the global for 'pause' to ctrl+alt+p in vlc, see screen (you could do the play/pause toggle instead so only 1 quicklist entry needed

Then the quicklist entry, using xdotool which needs to be installed

[Pause Shortcut Group]
Name=Pause
Exec=xdotool key ctrl+alt+p
TargetEnvironment=Unity

Depending on what version of vlc you have after setting a global hotkey the next time you open the settings window it may not be displayed but will still be valid. Overall as mentioned a pita

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score 0 · Answer 2 · edited Oct 15 '11 at 00:03

0

The standard VLC executable has no built-in support for those commands. However, you could control your instance of VLC via the remote control interface. Also there are a number of other interfaces available.

edited Oct 15 '11 at 00:03

Nathan Osman

32,155

answered May 29 '11 at 11:57

con-f-use

18,813

built in support? what version of vlc are you using? – kazimir87 May 29 '11 at 14:17
Sorry, that was a type "has now support" was ment to be "has NO support". You misread me. – con-f-use May 29 '11 at 15:01
1

i didn't "misread" you if it was your fault for the typo. but thanks for the response. – kazimir87 May 29 '11 at 22:25
No, that were even two typos "type" -> "typo". Sorry, I'm a governmentally tested dyslexic. – con-f-use May 29 '11 at 22:29

How to make quicklist for VLC Media Player with playback controls

2 Answers2