5 ms·

If I want to change the speed in VLC, I can find the menu easily. There is a minimal GUI on MPV that doesn't show me anything for changing speed, it changes A-V

If I want to change the speed in VLC, I can find the menu easily. There is a minimal GUI on MPV that doesn't show me anything for changing speed, it changes A-V delay when I try a -/+ command with CTRL, there is no right click menu, there is accessibility to helpful shortcuts that I shouldn't need to memorize keys for. Its minimalist for no good reason, has poor accessibility, and if I can't even find the help menu, what is the benefit of the design?

Eelongate 5y ago
> There is a minimal GUI on MPV that doesn't show me anything for changing speed, it changes A-V delay when I try a -/+ command with CTRL, there is no right click menu, there is accessibility to helpful shortcuts that I shouldn't need to memorize keys for. It is true that mpv usually doesn't have a GUI menu for this (I believe it does on MacOS, but lets ignore that.) However it's not true that doing so requires using a command line. Speed is changed using the [ and ] keys, which is documented in the manual. Obviously this is not friendly to novices, but it certainly does not require using the command line. > Its minimalist for no good reason It's minimal for a very good reason: because some people like it that way. Obviously it's not for everybody, and there is nothing wrong with that. I would never consider recommending it for everybody, but I object to the implicit assertion that all software must aspire to be good for everybody. > what is the benefit of the design? To you? Probably none. So I don't recommend it to you.
- GhettoComputers 5y ago
  >However it's not true that doing so requires using a command line. Its very much like learning CLI, except you need to memorize the keys on a GUI medial player. >It's minimal for a very good reason: because some people like it that way. Obviously it's not for everybody, and there is nothing wrong with that. I would never consider recommending it for everybody, but I object to the implicit assertion that all software must aspire to be good for everybody. Its minimalist enough to not have a help menu or list of commands, where is the manual for it even? Even in shells I can type man. What is the benefit of not having a right click menu or something like F1 not bringing up help. I am not against learning how to use tools, but who do you recommend this player to? People who want to memorize keys for their media player? Is that not like a CLI user?
  - Eelongate 5y ago
    > Its very much like learning CLI, except you need to memorize the keys on a GUI medial player. It's very much like learning to play a piano by the same twisted logic. > where is the manual for it even? Here: https://mpv.io/manual/ https://mpv.io/manual/ Linked from straight from the mpv homepage. Also linked from the github page. You can also read it here: https://github.com/mpv-player/mpv/blob/master/DOCS/man/mpv.rst https://github.com/mpv-player/mpv/blob/master/DOCS/man/mpv.r... Or you can read the local manpage on your computer using the manpage reader of your choice (I prefer KHelpCenter, but you can use `man` if you like that more...) If you have trouble finding the manpage, then you've definitely taken a wrong turn somewhere and should > What is the benefit of not having a right click menu The mpv psuedo-gui is drawn using the libass subtitle rendering library. There are advantages and disadvantages to this. It's cross platform, so the same psuedo-gui code works the same on every platform (unlike the MacOS specific menu code.) It can be modified, extended, replaced or supplemented using Lua or JS user-scripts using the same libass techniques (the psuedo-gui mpv ships with is implemented as a builtin Lua script.) The biggest downsides to this are being limited to doing things subtitles can do (which doesn't include right-click menus) and the fundamental weirdness of using a subtitle library to render a GUI in the first place (personally I think it's endearing, but I acknowledge that it's weird.) > People who want to memorize keys for their media player? Is that not like a CLI user? No? Shortcut-focused GUIs and command line interfaces are not the same thing. Incidentally, mpv does have a embedded REPL if you do want to control it using a commandline interface. You can access it by pressing `. It is useful in some scenarios but you'll soon find it's a hell of a lot more convenient to use keyboard shortcuts instead. I virtually never use it except for testing when I'm writing mpv user-scripts. > but who do you recommend this player to? Only to people who are able and eager to hack on their media player. Suppose you want to control your media player from another application; vlc can support this with the telnet interface, but it's very limited and poorly documented. mpv's IPC interface is extremely powerful and well documented.
    - GhettoComputers 5y ago
      I asked not because I can't google them, but to open it from the player, is that at all possible or do I have to go online to the homepage, github, and open my terminal to find out how to change settings in MPV? >There are advantages and disadvantages to this. It's cross platform, so the same psuedo-gui code works the same on every platform I can't find it on iOS anyway but VLC is there, I don't know the benefit of having the same UI on mobile and desktop so its probably lost on me. Having a manual in the program or it bringing up a text file in the program can't be that against MPV sensibilities can it? >No? Shortcut-focused GUIs and command line interfaces are not the same thing. I agree, I can use shortcuts on VLC as well, but it has a GUI and help file, but MPV is like starting a program in your shell with no man files. >Suppose you want to control your media player from another application I can control through d-bus and control VLC with SSH with ncurses. https://wiki.videolan.org/Documentation:Modules/ncurses/ https://wiki.videolan.org/Documentation:Modules/ncurses/

Eelongate 5y ago

> There is a minimal GUI on MPV that doesn't show me anything for changing speed, it changes A-V delay when I try a -/+ command with CTRL, there is no right click menu, there is accessibility to helpful shortcuts that I shouldn't need to memorize keys for. It is true that mpv usually doesn't have a GUI menu for this (I believe it does on MacOS, but lets ignore that.) However it's not true that doing so requires using a command line. Speed is changed using the [ and ] keys, which is documented in the manual. Obviously this is not friendly to novices, but it certainly does not require using the command line. > Its minimalist for no good reason It's minimal for a very good reason: because some people like it that way. Obviously it's not for everybody, and there is nothing wrong with that. I would never consider recommending it for everybody, but I object to the implicit assertion that all software must aspire to be good for everybody. > what is the benefit of the design? To you? Probably none. So I don't recommend it to you.

GhettoComputers 5y ago
>However it's not true that doing so requires using a command line. Its very much like learning CLI, except you need to memorize the keys on a GUI medial player. >It's minimal for a very good reason: because some people like it that way. Obviously it's not for everybody, and there is nothing wrong with that. I would never consider recommending it for everybody, but I object to the implicit assertion that all software must aspire to be good for everybody. Its minimalist enough to not have a help menu or list of commands, where is the manual for it even? Even in shells I can type man. What is the benefit of not having a right click menu or something like F1 not bringing up help. I am not against learning how to use tools, but who do you recommend this player to? People who want to memorize keys for their media player? Is that not like a CLI user?
- Eelongate 5y ago
  > Its very much like learning CLI, except you need to memorize the keys on a GUI medial player. It's very much like learning to play a piano by the same twisted logic. > where is the manual for it even? Here: https://mpv.io/manual/ https://mpv.io/manual/ Linked from straight from the mpv homepage. Also linked from the github page. You can also read it here: https://github.com/mpv-player/mpv/blob/master/DOCS/man/mpv.rst https://github.com/mpv-player/mpv/blob/master/DOCS/man/mpv.r... Or you can read the local manpage on your computer using the manpage reader of your choice (I prefer KHelpCenter, but you can use `man` if you like that more...) If you have trouble finding the manpage, then you've definitely taken a wrong turn somewhere and should > What is the benefit of not having a right click menu The mpv psuedo-gui is drawn using the libass subtitle rendering library. There are advantages and disadvantages to this. It's cross platform, so the same psuedo-gui code works the same on every platform (unlike the MacOS specific menu code.) It can be modified, extended, replaced or supplemented using Lua or JS user-scripts using the same libass techniques (the psuedo-gui mpv ships with is implemented as a builtin Lua script.) The biggest downsides to this are being limited to doing things subtitles can do (which doesn't include right-click menus) and the fundamental weirdness of using a subtitle library to render a GUI in the first place (personally I think it's endearing, but I acknowledge that it's weird.) > People who want to memorize keys for their media player? Is that not like a CLI user? No? Shortcut-focused GUIs and command line interfaces are not the same thing. Incidentally, mpv does have a embedded REPL if you do want to control it using a commandline interface. You can access it by pressing `. It is useful in some scenarios but you'll soon find it's a hell of a lot more convenient to use keyboard shortcuts instead. I virtually never use it except for testing when I'm writing mpv user-scripts. > but who do you recommend this player to? Only to people who are able and eager to hack on their media player. Suppose you want to control your media player from another application; vlc can support this with the telnet interface, but it's very limited and poorly documented. mpv's IPC interface is extremely powerful and well documented.
  - GhettoComputers 5y ago
    I asked not because I can't google them, but to open it from the player, is that at all possible or do I have to go online to the homepage, github, and open my terminal to find out how to change settings in MPV? >There are advantages and disadvantages to this. It's cross platform, so the same psuedo-gui code works the same on every platform I can't find it on iOS anyway but VLC is there, I don't know the benefit of having the same UI on mobile and desktop so its probably lost on me. Having a manual in the program or it bringing up a text file in the program can't be that against MPV sensibilities can it? >No? Shortcut-focused GUIs and command line interfaces are not the same thing. I agree, I can use shortcuts on VLC as well, but it has a GUI and help file, but MPV is like starting a program in your shell with no man files. >Suppose you want to control your media player from another application I can control through d-bus and control VLC with SSH with ncurses. https://wiki.videolan.org/Documentation:Modules/ncurses/ https://wiki.videolan.org/Documentation:Modules/ncurses/