Yaru VLC Skin Helps the Player Look at Home on Ubuntu 20.04

Want the VLC media player to look more at home onUbuntu 20.04 LTS? Check out the Yaru Dark VLC skin.

Created by NovaQC , the Yaru Dark VLC skin can be used to make the versatile video app blend in better on the modern Ubuntu desktop. It gives VLC a complete revamp, complete with with “mock” client-side decoration.

This particular VLC theme, which you can see in the screenshot header at the start of this post, also hides the standard titlebar (all of the options remain accessible from an overflow menu), moves the volume and progress bar to the top of the window, and hides some of the player’s superfluous buttons, including those for repeat and shuffle.

Full screen theme

This skin also covers the full-screen appearance, as you can see in the screenshot above. It themes VLC’s on-screen display (OSD) controls using the same Yaru dark colour palette (i.e. purple) as the standard UI.

For comparison here’s whatVLC 3.0.10 looks like by default in Ubuntu 20.04 LTS:

VLC’s default appearance on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS

It doesn’t look terrible, but it’s not especially “native” looking. Thankfully VLC skins make it easy to tweak the look in a (relatively) quick and easy way.

To rectify the theme disparity just download the Yaru Dark VLC skin from Gitlab using the following link:

Download VLC Yaru Dark Theme (.vlt)

To change VLC theme from the standard look to the Yaru Dark theme you just need to download the file above, open the player and go to Preferences > Interface > Use Custom Skin , then select the YaruDark.vlt file. Quit and re-open VLC to enjoy the new look.

To switch back to VLC’s standard theme go to Preferences > Interface and select the ‘Use native style’ option. Quit and restart the app.

You can find the project on Gitlab if you want to file a bug or contribute to its development.