# VLC Skins



## Chrismichael (Jul 27, 2008)

Im looking for a way to play movies in my VLC player in a small mode (1/4 of screen, always on top), but without the player controls border around it. Much like Divx player does in a smaller mode. Any suggestions would be great.


----------



## Elvandil (Aug 1, 2003)

Try BSPlayer. You can play with a small frame, no frame, or on the desktop as a wallpaper behind the icons.

In VLC, the zoom level can be set under the Video settings. There are a number of skins (I have around 10), but I don't see any with no frame.


----------



## Chrismichael (Jul 27, 2008)

Does it play all the crazy codecs and file types that Vlc plays? And thnx for such a swift response.


----------



## Elvandil (Aug 1, 2003)

I'm not as happy with VLC as I used to be. It doesn't play a lot of my files. BSPlayer (which I'm pretty sure has a free version) has so far played everything that I tried to play. You can keep them both installed. Any codecs that are installed into the system and registered can be used by almost all players, anyway.

It won't hurt to try it. It can be uninstalled.


----------



## Saint Anger (Jul 18, 2003)

Chrismichael said:


> Im looking for a way to play movies in my VLC player in a small mode (1/4 of screen, always on top), but without the player controls border around it.


I can get a borderless window with the skin called "WMP11" ( found here )

click the "Switch to compact mode" button in the lower right corner. This will enable the video window to play outside of / separate from the player controls. 
_
(I'd guess the following should work with any skin that will play the video in the same type of "separated" window...(?))_

- Go to -> Preferences -> Video
- enable "Advanced options"
- scroll towards the bottom and Disable "*Window decorations*"
- SAVE

"Always on top" setting is available in preferences or when you right-click the video.

As mentioned, the "Zoom" setting will control the playback window size.

*[!!]* Unfortunately though, moving the video somewhere other than the top left corner of the screen is an issue I couldn't figure out. I thought the X and Y coordinate settings under "Video -> Window properties" would apply, but it isn't working for me...

... Anyhow, sounds like BSPlayer might be a better option for this !...

Good Luck!


----------



## Elvandil (Aug 1, 2003)

There are so many players out there that it is very difficult to decide which to use. Certainly some of them are the worst junk, but others are pretty good. I like MPlayer and SMPlayer for most things now, but change to others from time to time.

The DivX player is not bad, and Media Player Classic is good since it plays Real, Quicktime, and WMP files so all you need is that one player. When installed, you can also play Real and Quicktime files in the normal Windows Media Player. And with Real and Quicktime alternatives, plugins are even put into the browsers so that all those things can be played without having Quicktime and Real Player, 2 players I got pretty sick of. Real is nothing but a bloated ad-machine.

Another really good player that I hardly ever hear mentioned is JetAudio. It has a beautiful bunch of skins, plays most anything, and even a streaming server so your friends can listen, too.


----------



## Chrismichael (Jul 27, 2008)

I got that skin and Im trying now to make it load as default, I see it under advanced options preferences/interface, although it will not allow you to browse to add the file extension for the new skin.


----------



## Saint Anger (Jul 18, 2003)

Chrismichael said:


> I got that skin and Im trying now to make it load as default, I see it under advanced options preferences/interface, although it will not allow you to browse to add the file extension for the new skin.


- put the WMP11.vlt file in VLC's "skins" directory (..._or not, but I did_...)
- go to Preferences -> Interface -> Main interfaces
- next to "Interface module" , choose "Skinnable Interface" from the dropdown list
- after that, I believe whenever restarting VLC it will come back with whatever skin you used last...
- but if not, go to Preferences -> Interface -> Main interfaces -> Skins
......("Advanced" options should also be enabled)
- at "Skin to use" , enter the path to the skin file 
......(which by default would be C:\Program Files\VideoLAN\VLC\skins\WMP11.vlt - for example)

hope that helps!


----------



## Chrismichael (Jul 27, 2008)

Thank you that worked well, the only problem is that anything I watched is locked in the upper left hand corner of the screen, immovable, still looking through options to fix this, hoping its not just the skin as this one has absolutely nothing around it (no annoying borders).


----------



## Saint Anger (Jul 18, 2003)

Chrismichael said:


> Thank you that worked well, the only problem is that anything I watched is locked in the upper left hand corner of the screen, immovable, still looking through options to fix this,


yeah, I thought that might be a problem... I'll reply back if I happen to figure that part out.

Good Luck!


----------



## Chrismichael (Jul 27, 2008)

lol ,, K it fixed itself,, but now it wont always stay on top, even with it locked under preferences. Its funny at this point as the player itself seems to becoming unpredictable, but Im sure Ill figure it out.. Thnx everyone for the assistance.


----------



## Saint Anger (Jul 18, 2003)

Chrismichael said:


> lol ,, K it fixed itself,, but now it wont always stay on top, even with it locked under preferences. Its funny at this point as the player itself seems to becoming unpredictable, but Im sure Ill figure it out.. Thnx everyone for the assistance.


The part about moving it from the left corner is fixed? Care to share or what?

Did you try right-clicking on the video window and selecting always on top from there?

I think the skin interface is possibly just plain buggy. I typically dont even use skins.


----------



## Saint Anger (Jul 18, 2003)

Elvandil said:


> There are so many players out there that it is very difficult to decide which to use. Certainly some of them are the worst junk, but others are pretty good. I like MPlayer and SMPlayer for most things now, but change to others from time to time.
> 
> The DivX player is not bad, and Media Player Classic is good since it plays Real, Quicktime, and WMP files so all you need is that one player. When installed, you can also play Real and Quicktime files in the normal Windows Media Player. And with Real and Quicktime alternatives, plugins are even put into the browsers so that all those things can be played without having Quicktime and Real Player, 2 players I got pretty sick of. Real is nothing but a bloated ad-machine.
> 
> Another really good player that I hardly ever hear mentioned is JetAudio. It has a beautiful bunch of skins, plays most anything, and even a streaming server so your friends can listen, too.


Sorry to hear about your problems with VLC. I've been having very good luck with it for quite a while. I probably don't throw as many different formats at it as you do though (or even the average person). It serves me well for my usual diet of divx, xvid, mpg, mov, mp4, and wma. Totally agree about Real. I haven't had their software, or Quicktime, installed since Win 98 days.

Good thing for me that I'm not fussy about eye-candy though, as VLC's skin options seem pretty wank in my (albeit limited) experience. I normally just run the default interface, and mainly just looked into skins out of curiosity. None of the ones I tried had a good combo of looks AND functionality, for my taste at least. Most seemed to cause stability issues also.

Anyhow, I sure don't miss the old days of hunting down codecs or having multiple players installed. Used Media Player Classic for quite a while before finally finding VLC. Use it in Linux too. ( I wish my fave audio player, foobar2000, had a proper linux port. Could never get it working well via WINE...  )

Cheers!


----------



## Chrismichael (Jul 27, 2008)

Ive been really trying to figure what changed but, my guess is 2 either 2 things.. One opening and closeing it just fixed the bug or the option had something to do with it. I unchecked it and restarted it and fixed .. But as much as I like this skin http://www.videolan.org/vlc/skins.php (simply white) it just wont stay on top..


----------



## baileyrays (Jul 19, 2008)

Chrismichael said:


> Im looking for a way to play movies in my VLC player in a small mode (1/4 of screen, always on top), but without the player controls border around it. Much like Divx player does in a smaller mode. Any suggestions would be great.


Hi friend, 
For VLC related queries it will be good if you post your issue in http://forum.videolan.org 
I have got good response from the guys attached with VLC.
You can also try.


----------

