Redesigned fullscreen controller panel

As you might already know, I am working on a redesigned new Mac OS X interface throughout the next couple of months as part of Google’s Summer of Code 2011. The actually user visible design is done by the French UI artist Damien Erambert.

While most of the work will focus on the video playback window and the playlist, he also had a look at the fullscreen controller panel, which you can see on flickr.

This newly created design was submitted to VLC’s development branch today. The minor bugs are supposed to be squashed of course.

As a new feature, the fullscreen controller panel will adapt to your screen size. On very large and wide displays such as the iMac’s 24″ and 27″, the current controller looks quite lost and too tiny, so we decided to enlarge it appropriately. If you don’t have such a huge screen, you won’t notice any difference.

VLC 1.1.10.1

Shortly after version 1.1.10, today we published VLC 1.1.10.1. This is an OS X-only release with the following improvements:

  • Fixed disappearing repeat buttons when changing playback mode
  • Fixed Freebox TV playback
  • Dramatically reduced installation size (up to 30 MB on Universal Binary installations)
  • Fixed potential execution problems

Additionally, I’m currently working on a Video Effects panel for VLC 1.2, which will make all the options available currently known from the Windows and Linux ports. Screenshots to be posted shortly.

Capturing from more video devices (updated)

Thanks to a contribution by Katsushi Kobayashi, VLC 1.2 will support capturing video input signals from all QuickTime-compatible devices. This is basically your internal iSight (which was supported since VLC 0.9) plus any compatible webcam, FireWire video device, etc. The GUI was slightly updated to reflect this change and will get a few more options and refining until the release later this year.

In case you’re interested, this update will be available for testing in tomorrow night’s nightly builds.

Updated: new screenshot with close-to-final layout here.

Track Synchronization

Prior to starting with the more complex Video Filters panel, I’ve added a Track Synchronization panel to VLC 1.2. As its name says, it allows you to synchronize your audio, video and subtitle tracks more easily. Of course, the previously available hotkeys still work.

You can have a look at the result on flickr.

This panel will be available tonight through the development branch’s nightly builds.

Audio Filters

As a first step in reworking the existing Mac OS X interface for VLC 1.2, I’ve created an Audio Filters panel providing options similar to the Extended Controls panel known from the Qt interface used on Win32 and Linux. VLC 1.2 for Mac will get an entirely new main window and playback concept as part of this year’s Google Summer of Code. More on that once GSoC officially starts.

This panel is already fully functional and available through VLC’s unstable nightly builds. Note that video output is not supported in the current binaries, so you really need to focus on the audio features.

Screenshots of the new panel available here.

Update on VLC for Mac

After a long time of minimal changes to the Mac OS X port of VLC, I was able to pick up development of it again. As a first result, VLC 1.1.9 included a bunch of bug fixes to the interface (Apple Remote handling, hotkey preferences, Growl integration, quitting through the Dock, etc.).

VLC 1.1.10 will include improved Media Key support on Mac OS X 10.6 and later thanks to SPMediaKeyTap by Spotify AB as well as additional crash and bug fixes. VLC 1.1.10 no longer interferes with other applications using the media keys, most notably iTunes and QuickTimePlayer. Nightly builds reflecting the latest changes are available since last night on nightlies.videolan.org. Feel free to check these out and to provide feedback if you need anything else for VLC’s next minor release.