Webtorrent-desktop: VLC won't minimize and have title

Created on 2 Jul 2016 · 8Comments · Source: webtorrent/webtorrent-desktop

What version of WebTorrent Desktop? (See the 'About WebTorrent' menu)
Version 0.8.1 (0.95.2)
What operating system and version?
Ubuntu 16.04
What did you do?
Open unsupported format in vlc
What did you expect to happen?
vlc to have title displaying played file in top bar rather than localhost and minimize player
What actually happened?
played file isn't shown, and it won't minimize (vlc).

bug

Source

janat08

Most helpful comment

I think --video-on-top is there because the vlc window doesn't auto-focus, but this can probably be solved in a different way. The title can be set with --meta-title.

mathiasvr on 9 Jul 2016

👍2

All 8 comments

Minimize thing may be ubuntu peculiarity

janat08 on 2 Jul 2016

I confirm both issues occuring in Windows 10. Although in my case it's not that the window won't minimize - rather than it is always on top _unless_ minimized.

Goldob on 9 Jul 2016

VLC currently runs with the following arguments:
--play-and-exit, --video-on-top, --no-video-title-show, --quiet
Personally I find _always on top_ annoying, so maybe we should discuss the default options?

mathiasvr on 9 Jul 2016

In other words: _it's not a bug, it's a feature_.

Anyway, I also think it's irritating and my vote is for getting rid of --video-on-top flag.

The title thing could be more problematic. I thought we could pass --video-title=<string>, but it seems to work only with no video embedded. Need to find a workaround for that. Details here.

Goldob on 9 Jul 2016

I think --video-on-top is there because the vlc window doesn't auto-focus, but this can probably be solved in a different way. The title can be set with --meta-title.

mathiasvr on 9 Jul 2016

👍2

@mathiasvr That's right. --video-on-top is a workaround for a VLC issue. As far as I've been able to tell, there's no way to tell VLC to take focus without using --video-on-top. There's a forum thread about it, and I believe there was a bug report as well, but I can't find it now. So, it's expected behavior (at least for now).

@Goldob If someone finds a way to force VLC to come to the front without needing --video-on-top, I'm happy to merge that! I also find floating on top annoying.

As for setting the title in VLC, here's a PR for that: https://github.com/feross/webtorrent-desktop/pull/746

feross on 27 Jul 2016

👍1

This should at the very least be an option in the settings.

@feross I get that it's beneficial that VLC auto-focuses to itself when you play the video, it's after all what you're trying to do. But, the benefit of having VLC auto-focusing and not having to switch windows yourself, is a fraction compared to the annoyance of not being able to minimize / switch windows while the video is running.

It might be a different experience for you as the owner, and I assume it is since you've chosen to see the benefit of auto-focusing as more useful then always-on-top is annoying. But for me personally, this is a reason in itself to not use WebTorrent Desktop. I would rather have to switch to VLC myself, it is after all how VLC works by default, and your software should in no way alter VLC's default behavior. If anything, this is a VLC bug that you should NOT attempt to fix in this library.