Mac UI: effects profile management enhancements
Right now video effect profiles have nice, but limited functionality. They auto-save, can be duplicated but not renamed, and the last selected profile persists over video changes and VLC restarts. The first profile is named "Default", although it gets no special treatment. In #11697 some desire came up for an automatic reset to defaults or on-the-fly changes (which might be the same thing). This ticket is intended to be a collection for enhancement ideas to the profile management - mainly for the video-effects, but maybe as well for audio-effects profiles.
== Functionality To have features like a startup-profile or a default-profile applied at every video change or on-the-fly profiles that do not persist (to the next video or next VLC start), there are two ways to go:
- special profiles with fixed names (e.g. "No effects")
- properties that can be applied to a profile (e.g. "Startup") I think the way to go is a combination of both.
=== Special profiles "No effects" and "On-the-fly" (or "Current settings" or "New profile") could be special profiles that cannot be deleted or renamed. Both can be "duplicated" to create a named profile. As a special case, when the selected profile is "No effects" (this might be even the default), and you change any setting, it automatically switches to "On-the-fly" (or "Current settings" or "New profile").
=== Properties===
"Startup" and "Forced Default" could be properties of any single profile or probably rather a VLC preference like VideoEffectSelectedProfile. In the UI you would have a popup with choices for "On VLC Startup select", containing ("Last profile used", "No Effects", "On-the-fly", "named profile 1", …). Another popup with the same choices would read "Every time a new video starts, select". These two selections could be saved to plist properties VideoEffectStartupProfile and VideoEffectForcedProfile.
=== Nature and name of "On-the-fly" or "Current settings" or "New profile" As all named profiles are auto-saving anyway (which is definitely a good thing), an "On-the-fly" profile would be different from those only because it is not persistent but resets automatically. But when and to what state? If you already have the option to reset to any profile (including "No effects") on Startup or video-start, then there is no additional need for a non persistent, self resetting profile. So it would rather be a new, persistent, but yet unnamed profile. This concept is more clear with the name "Current settings". In the context of the choices for the Startup-profile this might be somewhat confusing (having both "Last profile used" and "Current settings"), but I still like it generally less confusing than "New profile".
== User interface The "Manage profiles …" sheet could be expanded to allow renaming and the selection of Startup and Forced Defaults. Profiles might be displayed in a scrolling list with "+" and "-" buttons instead of a popup menu.
Instead of a sheet that is called from the profiles popup, profile management could also be an additional (last) tab "Profiles" in the "Video Effects" palette. The currently selected profile should have no effect on the contents of that tab (other than maybe a checkmark).
Topic open for discussion!