To open media stored locally on your system click media open :menuselection:`media --> Open file` and navigate your local files or press control +o on the keyboard to open files stored locally on your machine. If you wish to open media from somewhere on the internet on :menuselection:`media --> open network stream` or press control + n. To open a whole directory use :menuselection:`media --> Open Directory` or press control +F.
To pause playback of a file press the button that look like two verical lines. To resume playback press the right playback button. To toggle fullscreen press the button which has the four corners of the screen to make it fullscreen and the four screens to have it back into windowed mode.
On the bottom right of vlc there is a bar that gets wider for volume. Click farther to the right to increase volume within vlc. Or hover the cursor over this bar and use the mousewheel to control volume. The button that looks like a speaker next to this toggles mute in vlc. Another way to mute the volume is to :menuselection:`Audio --> Mute`.
To make the same sound come out of both speakers go to :menuselection:`Audio --> Stereo mode --> Mono`. The sound to make a different left and right channel on each speaker will be :menuselection:`Audio --> Stereo Mode --> Stereo`. To make all sound come from the left channel :menuselection:`Audio --> Stereo Mode --> Left` and likewise for Right.
To see how long you have been watching the current piece of media counts up above the play pause button in a time. At the other side a number will show the length of the media you are playing and inbetween is a slider with the current time. Moving the slider to the left will rewind playback while moving it to the left will fast forward playback.
To open an equalizier press the button that looks like several physical slider swichtes and on the audio effects equalizer tab press enable on the equalizer. Then to increase or decrease the sound at each frequency up to increase the volcume at that frequency.
To view a playlist of music or videos you can view press the button that is several horizontal lines and then a trianglular play button on it. This will bring up a whole view of your playlist. To add more files to your playlist right click on the bottom of the playlist window and click add file to add an additonal file. To move the playlist to a particular file and to have that play double click that file. To change the view of the playlist right click playlist view mode to the version of the playlist you like the look of the best.
To speed up playback faster than normal press the + key or use :menuselection:`Playback --> Speed --> Faster`. To slow down playback slower than normal press the - key :menuselection:`Playback --> Speed --> Slower`.
