Interfaces
Interfaces are the way you interact with VLC media player. Like anything else in VLC, they are modules, which allows for their interchangeability (see below).
Main interfaces
VLC has four main graphical interfaces:
- The Qt Interface (qt) is the default interface on Linux and Windows starting with version 0.9.0.
- Used to be wxWidgets Interface (wx) before.
- The skins2 Interface is an interface where you can customize VLC's look (works on Linux and Windows).
- The macOS Interface is the default (and only) graphical interface on macOS.
- The BeOS Interface is the default (and only) graphical interface on BeOS.
Full list
Besides the above main interfaces, VLC contains many more:
| qt | Current (>=0.9.0) default Qt4 interface on Linux and Windows. |
| wx | Previous (<0.9.0) default wxWidgets interface on Linux and Windows. |
| skins2 | Load VLC with a skin. (Linux and Windows only) |
| macosx | Default Mac OS X interface. |
| minimal_macosx | Minimal Mac OS X interface. |
| beos | Default BeOS interface. |
| http | Web Interface, used for controlling VLC from over a network. |
| gestures | Mouse Gestures, where you can control VLC by moving the mouse |
| rc, ncurses, telnet | Console Interfaces, non-graphical interfaces. |
| showintf | Show interfaces module. |
| hotkeys and joystick | Control VLC with the keyboard/joystick (see HotKeys). |
| dummy | Don't use an interface (HotKeys still available). |
Listing the available interfaces
To get a list of available interfaces, running VLC with the -l option:
% vlc -l
This also displays the muxers and encoders/decoders and puts it in a file called vlc-help.txt. On Linux, run
% vlc -l | grep -iF interface
to display the interfaces.
Using an interface
To run VLC with a different primary interface, use the following command:
% vlc --intf name
You can also use
% vlc -I name
You can also change the default in the Preferences.
However, you can also launch more than one interface:
% vlc --intf qt --extraintf sap,telnet,http
This will launch VLC with the default Qt interface, but will also launch the SAP, telnet and web interface in addition to the Qt one. The default for this can also be changed in the preferences.
Note that if you only use the dummy interface, you won't be able to tell vlc to quit (except watching a video). You may have to break it manually with Ctrl+C; or use vlc://quit as the last item on the playlist.
