How to prevent VLC player from resizing window when I click on playlist

Open the AppleScript Editor, save as application, when saving check the box "Stay Open". Use this new applescript application to launch the VLC application.

Description: It will launch VLC, turn off growl notifications, check every 2s to see if VLC has quit, if so it will turn growl notifications back on and then quit. As a bonus, it will use growl notifications to notify you when growl notifications will be turned on or off. Yeah, because that's the cool way to do it.

Not familiar with Herald, but this will give you a start. Just check to see what Herald's background process is and modify the script accordingly… or quit/relaunch the "Mail" process.

global Growl_was_Loaded
global VLC_is_Loaded

on open mediaFiles
    launchThis(mediaFiles)
    idle
end open

on run
    launchThis(null)
    idle
end run

on idle
    set x to isAppLoaded("VLC")
    if x and not VLC_is_Loaded then
        launchVLC()
    else if VLC_is_Loaded and not x then
        set VLC_is_Loaded to false
        if Growl_was_Loaded then
            tell application "GrowlHelperApp" to launch
            growl_notify("Growl notifications: ON")
        end if
        tell me to quit
    end if
    return 2 -- wait 2 seconds    
end idle

on launchThis(mFiles)
    set Growl_was_Loaded to isAppLoaded("GrowlHelperApp")
    set VLC_is_Loaded to isAppLoaded("VLC")
    launchVLC(mFiles)
end launchThis

on launchVLC(mf)
    if mf is null then
        tell application "VLC" to launch
    else
        tell application "VLC" to open file mf
    end if

    if Growl_was_Loaded then
        growl_notify("Growl notifications: OFF")
        delay 1
        tell application "GrowlHelperApp" to quit
    end if
    set VLC_is_Loaded to true
    tell application "VLC" to activate
end launchVLC

on isAppLoaded(app_name)
    tell application "System Events"
        set app_list to every application process whose name is app_name
        if the (count of app_list) > 0 then
            set x to true
        else
            set x to false
        end if
    end tell
    return x
 end isAppLoaded

 on growl_notify(msg)
    tell application "GrowlHelperApp"
        set the allNotificationsList to {"Growl Toggler"}
        register as application "Growl Toggler" all notifications allNotificationsList default notifications allNotificationsList
        notify with name "Growl Toggler" title msg description "" application name "Growl Toggler" icon of application "Automator"
    end tell
end growl_notify

F11 will toggle the window between full screen and windowed view.

If VLC is defaulting to open in full screen, you can change that in Windows 7 by

1. Open VLC.
2. Resize the window to the desired default size (if you are in full screen, switch to window view first).
3. Close out of VLC.

Now the next time you open VLC it should open in the view you last left it.