VLC Tracker

A system tray application that tracks your VLC media player progress and manages your watching history.

Features

• Tracks current playing media in VLC
• Shows watch progress with color coding:
  • Green: Watched
  • Yellow: Past halfway point
  • Red: Before halfway point
• Maintains a history of watched files
• Renames files with progress or [WATCHED] tag
• Minimizes to system tray
• Delete files directly from history
• Automatic crash logging and debugging

Requirements

• Python 3.8+
• VLC Media Player with telnet interface enabled
• Required Python packages:

  pip install PyQt6
  pip install psutil
  pip install cx_Freeze
  pip install appdirs

Building from Source

1. Ensure all required files are present:

   • tracker.ico - Application icon
   • tracker.png - Tray icon (16x16 or 32x32)
   • trash.png - Delete button icon

2. Build the executable:

   python build.py build

3. The executable will be created in build/exe.win-amd64-3.10/ directory

VLC Configuration

1. Open VLC Media Player
2. Go to Tools > Preferences
3. Show settings: All
4. Interface > Main interfaces > Check 'Telnet'
5. Interface > Main interfaces > Lua:
   • Set telnet password if desired (default: none)
   • Default port is 4212

Application Data

• All application data is stored in: %APPDATA%\VLCTracker\
• Files stored:
  • vlctracker.log - Log files with rotation (max 4MB total)
  • vlc_history.json - Watch history

Debug Logs

• Logs are stored in %APPDATA%\VLCTracker\vlctracker.log
• Log files rotate after reaching 1MB
• Keeps last 3 backup files
• Only errors and warnings are logged by default
• Full debug logs are captured during crashes

Startup Configuration

• Can be configured to run on Windows startup
• Settings are accessible from the Settings tab
• Startup configuration only works with the compiled .exe version