The Portable Freeware Collection Forums

Tried the 3.x.x nightly in portable mode. Font cache is still saved in "AppData\Roaming\vlc\". Only applicable if you watch videos with soft subtitles.

Version 3.0 is official out and seems portable when adding a "portable" folder to the installed location now.

Special wrote: ↑Sat Feb 10, 2018 9:38 am Version 3.0 is official out and seems portable when adding a "portable" folder to the installed location now.

Natively? Excellent

Yup!, it's in the changelog under "Core" https://www.videolan.org/developers/vlc-branch/NEWS

* Support portable version of Windows build (create a "portable/" folder)

and I haven't noticed any "vlc" folder in my AppData\Roaming folder since.

Should we change the entry?
What the algorithm? Install - copy - uninstall? Can it be extracted somehow?

https://www.videolan.org/vlc/download-windows.html

Click the little arrow on the download button, and select either zip or 7zip one to download, all that's needed afterwords is to manually add the portable folder.

There is also a x64-bit version of the zip and 7zip package but I got it from here. https://get.videolan.org/vlc/3.0.0/

It's more portable than before. Your vlc-qt-interface.ini and ml.xspf files will be contained in the portable directory instead of residing in APPDATA, so we won't have to move them back and forth for VLC Portable. Your vlcrc will be contained in the portable directory just as it would before with the command line switch. I did a quick check of a single video with subtitles in an srt file and it didn't seem to generate the cache locally.

On the bad side, you will get a dvdcss folder created in APPDATA with the name of every DVD you play in it. And your Open Recent Media entries will all be full paths so they'll all break as you move PCs (different drive letter with an external drive or sync a cloud folder to a different path).

I tried out VLC 3.0.0.

Its UI is as terrible as ever. I don't like it at all.

I need to leave MPC-HC though, as it's no longer being maintained. Maybe I'll switch to mpv even on Windows... (I'm already using it on GNU/Linux)

Whats the problem with the UI? Like VLC has a totally customizable interface, with tons of skins you can already download. Here. https://www.videolan.org/vlc/skins.html

I'm sure there are even more on deviantart and the like too. Edit: Yup. https://www.deviantart.com/customizatio ... whats-hot/

billon wrote: ↑Sat Feb 10, 2018 3:15 pmShould we change the entry? What the algorithm? Install - copy - uninstall?

Policy from way back dictates that we link to the natively portable version and then wrapper versions after (background on this). Still, this is one of those edge cases where path portability and privacy items are a concern. I'll do some testing in the months ahead and make a determination.

billon wrote: ↑Sat Feb 10, 2018 3:15 pmCan it be extracted somehow?

I'll try to get some testing on this down the road and come back to it. Still I'm way behind on a lot of items so if anyone can help out with this, I'd appreciate it.

webfork wrote: ↑Sun Feb 11, 2018 5:08 pmStill, this is one of those edge cases where path portability and privacy items are a concern. I'll do some testing in the months ahead and make a determination.

In previous cases, path portability for most recent files lists isn't taken into consideration as most advanced users will assume these break when an app is used portably. There are many apps in the PFC directory this applies to, but it doesn't affect regular operation of the app itself, just that most recent files function. As for the privacy concerns with a list of all DVDs left behind on a host PC, I think a lot of users here could go either way on this. Yes, it's a big privacy issue (especially for someone watching DVDs they shouldn't on a given computer), but how many people are using VLC carried around on PCs they don't own to watch DVDs? I think it's important to keep a note about it in the entry, though.

Special wrote: ↑Sun Feb 11, 2018 3:09 pm Whats the problem with the UI?

I guess it would be faster to answer what's not a problem...

First of all, getting video to show in true fullscreen (i.e. so that it really covers the entire screen, and there are no controls in the way) requires two keypresses. F11 to enter fullscreen mode, then Ctrl-H to hide the controls. In that order. If I press Ctrl-H first, F11 no longer does anything.

For reference, both MPC-HC (F11) and mpv (F) allow me to enter true fullscreen mode in one keypress.

----

Second, the use of space in the settings window. Whenever I open it, it looks like this:
The window uses way more space for the sidebar in the left than for its actual content! And for that matter, it's also extremely large in general. Fortunately I can resize the sidebar, but it doesn't remember its size, so that it will be as humongous the next time I open settings. I also dislike how the settings window shows the value as far away from the label as possible, instead of next to it like MPC-HC.

----

Third, I dislike the use of non-native menus. They use a different font than normal Windows programs and there is too much space between the options. VLC just stands out as a program where the menus are different.

Then I also have a bunch of smaller nitpicks, such as the fact that the options are organized in an extremely unintuitive way. I had issues finding the setting that controls the video scaling algorithm, for example.

Regardng the portability of the new version 3.0.0:
I tested the x64-version for some days now and decided to replace the PortableApps-version completely.
The 2 points in question:
1. Recent files paths - like mentioned above they're no big deal. And it's possible to switch recent files completely off.
2. The dvdcss folder in AppData\Roaming... for me it already was created with the PortableApps-version every time I played a DVD. Since the main folder is always called "dvdcss" and the name of the DVD appears in a subfolder I wrote a small batch and convered it with Bat-To-Exe-Converter into a portable Starter that deletes this folder if it exists.

Now i have to observe the stability of the new release, especially the x64-version - after watching a DVD and then closing VLC I already got an exception...

Not sure about v3 but v228...

Setting F11 as the fullscreen global hotkey works for me, and works with or without the menu present. The toggle fullscreen video... button is a one click affair as well and will hide the controls after a few moments. Move the mouse and the controls reappear to toggle the video back, seems pretty simple.

It's 2 actions I suppose but also double clicking the video will put it in fullscreen mode, I use this all the time after hiding the menu.

It's worth mentioning that F11 from View-Fullscreen Interface is a fullscreen interface which is why the controls show, the F11 global hotkey requires a video to be playing and fullscreens the video and not the interface, as in Video-Fullscreen from the menu.

zorro wrote: ↑Mon Feb 12, 2018 1:21 am2. The dvdcss folder in AppData\Roaming... for me it already was created with the PortableApps-version every time I played a DVD. Since the main folder is always called "dvdcss" and the name of the DVD appears in a subfolder I wrote a small batch and convered it with Bat-To-Exe-Converter into a portable Starter that deletes this folder if it exists.

This folder is specifically removed on exit with VLC Portable with any existing folder from a local install backed up and restored on exit. If you're seeing it left behind, please let us know ASAP as that would be a bug. Removal of the dvdcss folder has been a feature of VLC Portable since the 1.0 launch back on July 7, 2009.