Heh. Obviously as VLC's developer you know better, but FWIW I've been using VLC on Mac OS X extensively, as my primary video player. I don't think it's unusable, or ugly at all.. I can't be the only one, can I?
I don't understand the move to one window. I don't think the confusion is due to two windows, but rather because your library window looks like a player by default.
There's a 90/10 rule - only put the stuff you use 90% of the time in the UI. The other 10% goes in the drop menu.
In the case of your mockup, I doubt people are EQing every movie they watch. They don't really use the library, so prev/next/loop/shuffle and lib are all unnecessary in a player view. I expect in most cases people use VLC to play a single video, something that a native player won't.
Further, your time display doesn't show total time - only position. Most players show current position and a total time/countdown toggle. The best include an end clock (i.e. your movie will finish @ 1:32am).
What new type of user are you trying to attract? Once you know that, it's pretty obvious what to do. Ping me if you wish to discuss (radley@ cloud.tv / vj.tv). I'm a big fan of VLC and build/design UI/UX & media players for a living...
Much better. The VLC design on OSX has bugged me for a long time. In my opinion all the platforms should move towards the model where the only visible window by default is the player and the controls are temporary overlays over that player. One should always strive towards simplicity in design and optimize for the most used features. Most people will be using VLC to play one video at a time so including things like the video queue in the display by default is just time consuming and distracting.
P.S. Not just being a spoilsport here -- I do contribute to VLC, just through libavcodec.
Heh. Obviously as VLC's developer you know better, but FWIW I've been using VLC on Mac OS X extensively, as my primary video player. I don't think it's unusable, or ugly at all.. I can't be the only one, can I?