Certain command parameter needed for vlc

Discussion
1

Hi all, :wave:

I´ve got a particular question regarding a certain command-option for vlc player.

First off I want to say that I use mpv (https://mpv.io/ ) per default as my audio and video player, and I´m very satisfied with it. :slight_smile:

However - as I want to learn something new - I have a question regarding vlc.

The default interface may be regarded as somewhat dull to some people; so there are quite a lot of skins to download and implement. This is what I wanted to achieve … just to test it or take a look at it. :wink:

So I downloaded the the respective zip-file from videolan here: VideoLAN - Download skin .
The compressed file offers an abundance of skins and I tried a few of them.
The site states:

How to use these skins?
[…]
Put the downloaded VLT files in the following folder:
On Linux/Unix: ~/.local/share/vlc/skins2

I had to create the skins2-folder first and then I put 7 skins here (Blend.vlt chaos.vlt JVC-VLC3.vlt Modern.vlt Night.vlt QuickTime.vlt uDeluxe.vlt).

That worked well after I chose “Use custom skin” in the interface settings.

Yet what I want to achieve is the following:

I want to keep “Use native style” in the interface settings by default. It´s only at times that I might want to to use a skin.

Now of course I´d like to avoid fumbling in the settings via GUI each time and after using vlc reverting everything I changed.
So I thought there should be a command with certain options or parameters that would allow me to start vlc the way I want. :thinking:

Well, the man-pages wouldn´t tell me much in that respect so I looked around online and found this on VLC command-line help - VideoLAN Wiki :

Here’s the output of vlc -H of vlc-4.0.0-dev under Windows […]

Here the penny dropped with me. I did just the same on my Lubuntu system. Finally I found this:

env LANG=en_US.UTF-8 vlc -H
	[...]
	Skinnable Interface (skins2)
      --skins2-last <string>     Skin to use
          Path to the skin to use.
          [...]

For experimental purposes I put the 7 skins I initially used in the folder

/media/rosika/f14a27c2-0b49-4607-94ea-2e56bbf76fe1/DATEN-PARTITION/Dokumente/Ergänzungen_zu_Programmen/zu_vlc/skins/vlc-skins/

and started vlc thus:

firejail vlc --skins2-last=/media/rosika/f14a27c2-0b49-4607-94ea-2e56bbf76fe1/DATEN-PARTITION/Dokumente/Ergänzungen_zu_Programmen/zu_vlc/skins/vlc-skins/JVC-VLC3.vlt [Path_to_film.mp4]

vlc started alright but is was still using “native style” and not the custom skin (JVC-VLC3.vlt). :thinking:
I guess that´s probably due to the fact that “native style” was still set in vlc´s GUI settings.

So basically what I´m looking for is a command-line option for vlc which would do two things:

  • force vlc to use “custom skin” in the first place (that one wouldn´t be achieved with my command)
  • use e.g. JVC-VLC3.vlt as the selected skin (I don´t know for sure whether my option syntax “–skins2-last=[…]” is correct.)

Does anyone of you know whether this could be achieved at all :question:

Thanks a lot for your help.

Many greetings.
Rosika :slight_smile:

2

Hi Rosika,
I dont know , but this seems to say yes

Regards
Neville

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3

Hi Neville, :wave:

thanks so much for your help.
Your link is worth a lot. It indeed provided the correct solution. :+1:

Although I spent quite some time researching yesterday I didn´t stumble across it. :blush:

I tried both variants suggested:


firejail vlc --intf skins2 --skins2-last= --skins2-last=/media/rosika/f14a27c2-0b49-4607-94ea-2e56bbf76fe1/DATEN-PARTITION/Dokumente/Ergänzungen_zu_Programmen/zu_vlc/skins/vlc-skins/JVC-VLC3.vlt /media/rosika/f14a27c2-0b49-4607-94ea-2e56bbf76fe1/DATEN-PARTITION/Dokumente/prov_ordner/banks-Filme_et_al/R_Pilcher_Lords_lügen_nicht.mp4

and

firejail vlc -I skins2 --skins2-last= --skins2-last=/media/rosika/f14a27c2-0b49-4607-94ea-2e56bbf76fe1/DATEN-PARTITION/Dokumente/Ergänzungen_zu_Programmen/zu_vlc/skins/vlc-skins/JVC-VLC3.vlt /media/rosika/f14a27c2-0b49-4607-94ea-2e56bbf76fe1/DATEN-PARTITION/Dokumente/prov_ordner/banks-Filme_et_al/R_Pilcher_Lords_lügen_nicht.mp4

Both worked equally well. The respective Rosamunde_Pilcher film was played using the
JVC-VLC3.vlt interface.

So the missing part (what I was looking for) is either of these parameters:

  • --intf skins2
  • -I skins2

Great. :smiley:

One thing though:

I noticed when running vlc using a skin the terminal throws some “interface errors” at me:

VLC media player 3.0.9.2 Vetinari (revision 3.0.9.2-0-gd4c1aefe4d)
[000056210d04ce50] skins2 interface: skin: Pioneer Skin  author: Daniel Cruz
[000056210d04ce50] skins2 interface error: pls, check bitmap sizes for id: prin-next
[000056210d04ce50] skins2 interface error: pls, check bitmap sizes for id: prin-next
[000056210d04ce50] skins2 interface error: pls, check bitmap sizes for id: plst-next
[000056210d04ce50] skins2 interface error: pls, check bitmap sizes for id: plst-next
[000056210d04ce50] skins2 interface error: pls, check bitmap sizes for id: mini-next
[000056210d04ce50] skins2 interface error: pls, check bitmap sizes for id: mini-next
[000056210d04ce50] skins2 interface error: pls, check bitmap sizes for id: mico-next
[000056210d04ce50] skins2 interface error: pls, check bitmap sizes for id: mico-next
[000056210d04ce50] skins2 interface error: pls, check bitmap sizes for id: prin-mute
[000056210d04ce50] skins2 interface error: pls, check bitmap sizes for id: prin-mute
[000056210d04ce50] skins2 interface error: pls, check bitmap sizes for id: prin-mute
[000056210d04ce50] skins2 interface error: pls, check bitmap sizes for id: mini-play-pause
[000056210d04ce50] skins2 interface error: pls, check bitmap sizes for id: mini-play-pause
[000056210d04ce50] skins2 interface error: pls, check bitmap sizes for id: mini-play-pause
[000056210d04ce50] skins2 interface error: pls, check bitmap sizes for id: mini-mute
[000056210d04ce50] skins2 interface error: pls, check bitmap sizes for id: mini-mute
[000056210d04ce50] skins2 interface error: pls, check bitmap sizes for id: mini-mute
[000056210d04ce50] skins2 interface error: pls, check bitmap sizes for id: equa-on-off
[000056210d04ce50] skins2 interface error: pls, check bitmap sizes for id: equa-on-off
[000056210d04ce50] skins2 interface error: pls, check bitmap sizes for id: equa-on-off
[000056210d04ce50] skins2 interface error: pls, check bitmap sizes for id: micro-play-pause
[000056210d04ce50] skins2 interface error: pls, check bitmap sizes for id: micro-play-pause
[000056210d04ce50] skins2 interface error: pls, check bitmap sizes for id: micro-play-pause
[000056210d04ce50] skins2 interface error: video: resize policy and autoresize are not compatible
libva info: VA-API version 1.7.0
libva info: Trying to open /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/dri/iHD_drv_video.so
libva info: Found init function __vaDriverInit_1_7
libva error: /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/dri/iHD_drv_video.so init failed
libva info: va_openDriver() returns 1
libva info: Trying to open /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/dri/i965_drv_video.so
libva info: Found init function __vaDriverInit_1_6
libva info: va_openDriver() returns 0
[00007f8127cad790] avcodec decoder: Using Intel i965 driver for Intel(R) Ivybridge Desktop - 2.4.0 for hardware decoding

This is not the case when using the default interface (no skins).
I don´t know why that is… :thinking:

However the exit code still is zero. So I guess … (hopefully) nothing much to worry about :question:

Thanks a lot for your help, Neville.

Many greetings
Rosika :slightly_smiling_face:

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