Howto: Use VLC skins to change the way your VLC looks

VLC is one of the finest and most popular Media player and I have been using it for more than 2-3 years now, but didn't know, until a few months ago, that I could easily change the VLC interface(default skin) into whatever I like using various VLC skins. There are so many skins out there - cool, funny and some will change vlc completely into another player. Its really easy and fun, try it out.

Changing VLC skins hardly requires any effort. Just follow the steps below to change the interface skin.

1. First of all download the skin's .vlt file and save the file in ~/.local/share/vlc/skins2. "~" means your home directory i.e /home/username.

2. Now, open VLC, right click and go to interface -> preferences

3. In the preferences window, select the option of use custom skin under Interface category. And select the interface file, you want to use (don't worry this is just a one time thing).

4. Now, restart vlc and see the new interface. This is the Blissta skin, looks pretty cool.

5. Anyway, once you are already in the skin interface, it is really easy to change the interface. Place all your skin .vlt files in the same folder ~/.local/share/vlc/skins2 and restart vlc.

6. Open the VLC in the new interface and right click on the interface, same as step 2 and choose select skin. Now, you will see a list of all the skins(the ones you copied in the skins2 folder). Select the anyone and the interface will change automatically, no need to restart vlc.

This one is Blue Steel, it was tweeted by VLC earlier today. Its because of this that I thought of writing this small howto. That's all for this weeks TrendyTuesday, do try out different VLC skins and if possible, leave the links of screenshots of your favourites skins, as comments.