Ubuntu – How to make quicklist for VLC Media Player with playback controls

playbackquicklistsunityvlc

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.

Best Answer

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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All you need to do is add the --rate switch after vlc and specify the value you want or have tested in vlc previously; for example, from the command line I could play a file with

vlc --rate 3 myfile.mp4

So vlc --rate 3 (substitute 3 for the value you want) is the key part of what you need for your launcher.

More command-line options for vlc are available by entering in the terminal vlc -h, or vlc -H for exhaustive help.

I don't know which desktop you are on, but on Xfce I create a very simple vlc mp4 launcher .desktop file in ~/.local/share/applications in this format (and make it executable):

[Desktop Entry]
Type=Application
Name=vlcmp4launcher
Comment=vlcx3
Exec=/usr/bin/vlc --rate 3 %U
Terminal=false

Then simply go to your file browser and right click an mp4 file, select this launcher, and check the box to make sure that all mp4s are opened with this .desktop application from now on. Now just clicking the video file will make it play using your custom parameters, but will leave unaffected any other video file that vlc plays.

This is the quickest way to associate your launcher with the filetype, but to do it manually you would edit ~/.local/share/applications/mimeapps.list and add the name of your launcher. As an example, you would add video/mp4=vlcmp4.desktop to the [Default Applications] section and the [Added Associations list] section should have video/mp4=vlc.desktop;vlcmp4.desktop;.

More information on .desktop files and launchers is here at the Ubuntu help pages.

Best Answer

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