VLC Media Player 2.2 gets Addons Manager
Videolan, the company behind the popular program VLC Media Player are currently working on version 2.2 of the player.
While information are sparse at this point as to what the company will change, improve or introduce in the media player, one feature has been integrated already in the latest development builds of VLC: an Addons Manager.
As you may now if you are using VLC Media Player, it supports addons and plugins that you can install to improve the player's capabilities.
Add-ons can be installed from the official add-ons repository which you can find here on the Videolan website.
Installation requires you to download the addon, extract it, and move it to the VLC extensions directory where it is then picked up by the client.
The Addons Manager will be integrated into VLC Media Player 2.2 as it stands. The main advantage that it provides you with is that you can browse and install extensions for the media player directly from within its interface.
Here is how that works:
- Open VLC Media Player 2.2 on your system.
- Select Tools > Plugins and Extensions.
- Switch to the Addons Manager tab here. It is a new tab that is not available in earlier versions of the media player.
- Uncheck the "only installed" box.
You can use the search to find addons of interest, or select one of the available categories instead from the menu. The categories appear identical to the ones offered on the official VLC-Addons website.
Available right now are skins (themes), playlist parsers, service discovery and extensions.
While you find lots of themes currently listed here once you uncheck the only installed box, other types of extensions are listed sparsely only here.
When you click on an addon, you get options to install it right away or display more information about it. Installation works right away and you do not have to do anything other than hitting the install button in the Addons Manager.
This is more comfortable than the previous option, as it removes the need to manually move extensions into the right directory on your system.
It is not clear yet if the Addons Manager will display all available add-ons for the player, or if it limits the selection somehow. It can be that it only displays extensions that are compatible with the version of the player that you are running, which explains why there are not many listed right now by it.
Verdict
The Addons Manager makes the management and installation of VLC Media Player extensions comfortable. It is likely that its integration will introduce more users to extensions which in turn may fuel more development as well.
Advertisement
Why not make use of the mplayer.conf?
Huh, I have never even seen this “font cache” pane; videos play at once for me, using VLC & XP SP3.
Mike, in theory this should have only been displayed once to you, at the very first video that you played with VLC. The time this window is displayed depends largely on the number of fonts in your font directory.
huh, I lucked out for a change?? Amazing!!
Apparently VLC keeps this info through version updates, but I didn’t see this message after a fresh OS install about 8 weeks ago, & a new VLC.
yes, yes, i have the same problem. sometimes, VLC crashes when it is playing .mov file.
Error:
Buidling font Cache pop-up
Solution:
Open VLC player.
On Menu Bar:
Tools
Preferences
(at bottom – left side)
Show settings — ALL
Open: Video
Click: Subtitles/OSD (This is now highlited, not opened)
Text rendering module – change this to “Dummy font renderer function”
Save
Exit
Re-open – done.
Progam will no longer look outside self for fonts
Source – WorthyTricks.co.cc
Great tip, thanks a lot Kishore.
@Kishore, I’ll try your tips, but does this mean it will no longer show subtitles either?
I do use subtitles, but the fontcache dialog box pops up (almost) everytime I play a file.
Could this be related to the fonts I have installed? Or if I add/remove fonts to my system?
I’ll try to do a fresh install also, if your tips does no work. I’ll post back here later…
/thanks
/j
@ Javier, The trick i posted will show up subtitles too. If not,
@ Javier, The trick i posted will show up subtitles too. If not,Dont worry, VLC is currently sorting out this issue and the next version will be out soon.
No probs @ Martin !! Its my pleasure
Try running LC with administrator privileges. That seemed to fix it for me
I am using SMplayer 0.8.6 (64-bit) (Portable Edition) on Windows 7 x64. Even with the -nofontconfig parameter in place SMplayer still scans the fonts. Also, I have enabled normal subtitles and it is still scanning fonts before playing a video. Also, it does this every time the player opens a video after a system restart (only the fist video played).
Does that mean that only instrumental versions of songs will be available for non-paying users?