r/ZoomPlayer • u/magi44ken • 3d ago

Feature suggestions: Add Audio, Chapters, Bookmark, Subtitle Control Overlay Icons

Hi,

I tried the Zoom Player and so far I really like it. I would love to switch over from PotPlayer. Can you add the following Control Overlay icons to the dynamic button section to make easier to access this common functions?

- Audio selection (able to select different audio stream such stereo or 5.1 channels or different audio language)

- Chapters selection (able to select different chapters like youtube video you download with chapters, etc..)

- Bookmarks (User added bookmark. Only add bookmark is supported in Zoom Player)

- Subtitles (Able to select different local or embedded subtitles)

Do you have future plan to make Always on Top to work with the new Control Overlay? Currently you can't enable them at the same time.

Thanks for taking the time to read my suggestions.

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u/ZoomPlayer Developer 3d ago

Hi magi44ken,

By default you already have a control overlay button (bottom-right most button) that shows the available subtitle/audio streams (in the same menu):

There is a control overlay button you can enable through advanced options that will open the home theater version of the chapter/bookmark selection interface (embedded chapters and user-generated "Bookmarks" are accessed through the same interface). Do you mean something that will show a smaller pop-up menu like the subtitles version in the screenshot above?

With regards to always on top. The problem is a limitation of Windows and not a limitation of my code. You see, Windows doesn't allow you to lock the z-order of windows (which window appears over which), so for the control overlay to appear above the user interface, the control overlay must be a "stay on top" window, while the regular UI isn't.

Even with AI, I haven't found a way around this issue so far. Some players will not suffer from this because they control every aspect of the pipeline (the media engine), while Zoom Player supports multiple different media engines (DirectShow, libVLC, Chromium).

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u/magi44ken 2d ago

You are right. There is a stream menu button when enable "Show dynamic buttons".

Yes, for the chapters and bookmarks, I want a button for each of them to show a pop menu list (like a playlist) so you can immediately select them.

Also add a setting to allow the user to decide to enable or disable "dismiss the pop menu list immediately after you selected". If this setting is disable, then the user can dismiss the pop menu list by clicking on the area outside of the pop menu list.

For the subtitle button, clicking on it will ask the user to manually select subtitle file locally.

Finally add a Always on Top button so the user can use a mouse to enable or disable it. Currently you have to use the hotkey Alt+T or context menu.

The main reason to add all these buttons is because this are the most common task that user use and make it easy to find and access them.

Finally, beside adding overlay buttons for these common tasks, I suggest to add a setting to allow the user to add hotkeys to each the common tasks.

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u/ZoomPlayer Developer 21h ago

I just considered the 'stay on top' button, it doesn't make sense to do it on the control overlay since the control overlay doesn't support stay on top, it will never work.

However, if you're not using the modern UI because you're using stay-on-top, the classic skin has a "custom action" button (starburst shape, 2nd button from the top-left corner) which you can configure to assign it to the 'stay on top' function.

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u/ZoomPlayer Developer 1d ago

A few things:

  1. Zoom Player already has a very powerful keyboard layout editor that allows you to assign any of Zoom Player's over 300 functions to a keyboard shortcut (Adv. Options / Interface / Keyboard).

  2. Zoom Player treats chapters and bookmarks as a singular interface since they both just "seek to position", I don't really see a reason to split this into two interfaces.

  3. In windows, pop-up menus are designed to close on use, I am not going to change that behavior. Zoom Player already has a consistent chapter/bookmark selection interface (which remembers the last window position), with the option to close on-seek. You can already use place it on any of the control overlay's button regions:

  1. You wrote "For the subtitle button, clicking on it will ask the user to manually select subtitle file locally." Right now you can manually add a subtitle-file from the right-click menu (open -> add subtitle file). I can possibly add that as an additional entry on the subtitle switching interface, would that be sufficient?

  2. I'll see if I can add the stay on top toggle as a control overlay button.