There are plenty of wrappers for it that are even older than it (because they were once for mplayer/mplayer2.)

If you're confused that the programmers of media playing and manipulating software aren't interested in GUIs that plenty of other people have volunteered to write, I don't know what to tell you.

My favorite (really the only one I've used for many years) is smplayer. It gets everything about GUI right that VLC gets horribly wrong. Notably, its developers only work on a GUI, and don't develop mpv. It's cross-platform, too.

edit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mpv_(media_player)#Interface_a...

> I have never understood why this player doesn't have a GUI where settings can be adjusted.

I'll start by saying that `mpv` is likely not for you.

Personally, I see little value in such complex GUI. 99% of the times I double click on a video and I want it to play. I don't need a fancy wizard to customise any settings.

I just have tiny config file I created in 2016 and it still works today -- and the fact that it's a text file means it's just been part of my dotfiles all this time and carries over onto new systems.

double-click? So you /do/ use a GUI! I type 'mpv filename' in my terminal. I don't need a fancy GUI to choose my files.

Sure. I use MPV on every machine I have so windows too - where I doubleclick.

There are GUIs based on mpv that provide a user-friendly interface and just use mpv for playback, see Celluloid [0].

[0]: https://celluloid-player.github.io/

I never invoke mpv from my command line shell, I invoke it through my file managers (Dolphin or dired). I configure mpv using my text editor to edit the configuration file at ~/.config/mpv/mpv.conf. If I want to make on-the-fly changes I use my mouse and keyboard to invoke key bindings. If I don't have a keybinding set for whatever I want to change and don't want to edit my config for it, then I can use the built-in REPL to change it (but I very rarely have a reason to do this.)

> correct interface for a video player.

That 'correctness' is subjective. It isn't correct for you, but it is for me.

Text is the universal interface. It can be easily be output and input by both people and computers.

That said, there are plenty of video players with very robust GUIs. What's wrong with having one that is focused on people who want to use the command line?

> I have never understood why this player doesn't have a GUI where settings can be adjusted.

I'm not into MPV, but as a MPlayer (http://www.mplayerhq.hu) user, I perfectly understand your point, however there's a reason some software still uses TUIs. Video players are different beasts compared to other apps; very often you end up changing one or more settings in a per video basis, which makes the text interface a lot more useable than having to look for that control to tweak among hundreds. Also, external interfaces can be added almost trivially; Mpv itself is embedded in a lot of GUI software without the user even noticing.

When I first started using MPlayer (ages ago, had to compile it every time, codecs back then had to be "imported" from Windows, etc.) I also thought the text interface was clumsy and old looking, then I familiarized with it, used it on a daily basis to transcode videos using the MEncoder companion encoding software, and after some time MPlayer became, and still is, my favorite video player under Linux.

> A video player is an interface for the human. Command-lines are better for things that need to interface with a computer.

I have memories of assistants learning Wordstar key sequences faster than many current geeks learn vi ones. It's wonderful how sometimes humans can adapt.

Just to clarify: I love well made GUIs; it's just that sometimes they're less necessary than we think.

The control trend lately is to have a global search in settings (and also commands).

You're not going to understand 95% of mpv's settings without a very detailed explanation anyway, unless you're one of its developers.

Anyhow, I configured mine back when I switched to it (probably around 2013), and never had to touch it again. Doesn't seem like a huge problem.

I think the man page for MPV is a little too detailed. Sometimes all you need is a list of flags and a brief description of what they do - but some documentation (looking at you rsync and mpv) is designed to teach you mastery over the tool - which is a little overkill most of the time.

The detailed manpage is great. The more details the manpage has for each flag, the easier it is for me to find the flag I'm looking for by searching for related terms. Longer descriptions means a greater chance of my related search term hitting a relevant result.

Common flags and short descriptions of them can be found with `mpv --help` or `tldr mpv`

rsync is another example of a manpage I love. Very detailed means very useful. With a detailed manpage, I don't have to waste my time figuring out where the real manual is.

> Sometimes all you need is a list of flags and a brief description of what they do [...]

$ mpv --list-<options|properties>

Pipe to a grep-like program for keywords.

>I have never understood why this player doesn't have a GUI where settings can be adjusted.

Have you ever had a look at how long the mpv settings documentation is?

https://mpv.io/manual/master/

mpv is not for you.

I think it's perfect.

If you want a GUI try IINA it is built on top of mpv and is polished.

That's what I use

I chose mpv (and before that, mplayer) exactly because it doesn't have all that bling.

I share your sentiment. People make GUIs for MPV but I'd rather just use a media player designed for GUI users out of the box. Got nothing against ffmpeg, wonderful tool, just some things I think need a proper GUI.

SMplayer is awesome frontend and cross platform.