VLC Juxtopposed Redesign - 4.0.0-beta.5

Windows x86_64 portable build, macOS Intel and Apple Silicon app bundles, and Linux x86_64 portable archive
Git tag: 4.0.0-beta.5

Full Changelog: 4.0.0-beta.4...4.0.0-beta.5

This beta continues adapting Juxtopposed's VLC design for the native player. Work on the interface and settings workflow continues.

Changes since 4.0.0-beta.4:

• Browse local series and podcast episodes from the player, switch seasons, view episode details and saved playback progress, and play or resume an episode. Improve episode title parsing and keep podcast metadata and listening progress through feed refreshes.
• Show audio waveforms automatically for supported files and network shares, and build streaming waveforms as audio plays. Keep waveforms stable when an MP3 duration estimate changes. Improve seek tooltips, timestamp seeking and saved-position resume prompts, with “Continue listening” for audio.
• Improve media identity matching for subtitles, music and podcasts. Rank online subtitle matches using available media information, expose identity corrections, and show cue text in zoomed subtitle timelines.
• Resolve local artwork, compose folder previews and expose artwork choices throughout the library. Refresh generated playlist and collection artwork when their contents change. Improve searchable codec information, playback statistics, extra metadata and online tag lookup while preserving unsaved edits.
• Select media with a single click and play it with a double click. Retain library focus and saved playback progress while browsing, and keep library loading from stalling panel animations.
• Browse channels from opened and saved network playlists, apply podcast feed edits without restarting discovery, and keep sidebar navigation available when the media library is unavailable.
• Refine settings layouts, typography, help text and readability across themes and display scales. Apply more playback, audio, video, subtitle and proxy settings to the active player.
• Extend backdrop blur to more native video surfaces on macOS, X11 and Wayland, and improve software-rendered UI blur. Improve picture fitting, rotation, artwork layout, menu and player icons, and floating-panel rendering.
• Refresh native Open Media, capture, conversion, streaming and broadcast management dialogs. Preserve selected sources and settings when retrying, and improve destination and output validation.
• Modernize the Equalizer, Video Effects, detailed audio controls, camera settings and synchronization controls while preserving current values and saved filters.
• Improve Help search, Messages filtering and save recovery, plugin and extension management, bookmarks and the program guide. Make errors, warnings and text prompts clearer and easier to navigate.
• Preserve queue intent when reviewing multiple clipboard items, protect playlist exports from accidental replacement, and retain save choices when retrying an export.
• Check for updates directly from About, show optional release announcements, and improve the update window's release notes, browser links and dismissal behavior. Downloads and installation remain manual.
• Fix subtitle restoration after seeking in Matroska files, preserve subtitles in hardware video snapshots, improve audio encoder draining, and include upstream playback fixes. Honor filename-display preferences and configured shortcut feedback, and play newly opened files correctly when forwarding them to an existing Windows instance.
• Fix Linux Wayland EGL startup crashes caused by bundled libraries conflicting with newer host graphics drivers (#26). Keep the matching Qt plugins and use the host's Wayland libraries alongside its graphics drivers.
• Keep release downloads focused on the application archives and checksums. Build metadata remains available in the workflow artifacts.

Use:

• Close earlier VLC windows before starting this build. Keep each download's complete contents together.
• Windows 10 (1809 or later) / Windows 11, x64: extract vlc-juxtopposed-4.0.0-beta.5-win64.zip, then open vlc-win64/vlc.exe. The empty portable folder stores settings beside the app. To reuse portable settings, copy your previous portable folder while VLC is closed.
• macOS: choose macos-arm64 for Apple Silicon or macos-x86_64 for Intel. Extract the ZIP and move VLC Juxtopposed.app into a folder of your choice. If macOS blocks it, use System Settings → Privacy & Security → Open Anyway after attempting to open it.
• Linux: extract vlc-juxtopposed-4.0.0-beta.5-linux-x86_64.tar.gz, then run AppDir/AppRun. Keep the complete AppDir folder together. The build targets glibc 2.35 or later (Ubuntu 22.04 or equivalent) and does not require FUSE.
• Update notifications open the matching release page. Downloading and replacing the application remains manual.
• Verify downloads against SHA256SUMS.txt if desired. The table below identifies the exact source commit for each package; detailed build metadata remains in the workflow artifacts.

Current limits:

• The redesign is in progress. These are experimental builds; platform coverage does not mean every playback path has been tested.
• Windows executables have no trusted publisher signature. Mac apps are ad-hoc signed without a Developer ID signature or Apple notarization. Operating systems may warn or block the first launch.
• Mac downloads are separate native builds; choose the correct architecture. Build metadata records the minimum supported macOS version.
• Linux still uses the host's graphics drivers and desktop/audio services; behavior can vary between distributions.
• HDR and maximum resolution settings apply to the next video. Some advanced flows still use the existing VLC interface.
• Previews for large videos or network files can take time, and decoding can still fail.
• The media library database must be on a local drive; media folders may be on a network share.
• Episode and subtitle matching depends on the available filenames and metadata. Saved folder rules support local tracks for future episodes; future online subtitle searches are not automatic.

Package	Binary source commit	Download
win64	958859ebb3f02e526fc0ec8f99336434e6143739	download
macos-arm64	958859ebb3f02e526fc0ec8f99336434e6143739	download
macos-x86_64	958859ebb3f02e526fc0ec8f99336434e6143739	download
linux-x86_64	958859ebb3f02e526fc0ec8f99336434e6143739	download