Gesture controls and media keys: play without aiming

Windows 11 & 10 · Updated 28 October 2026 · 4 min read

Small buttons are fine at a desk and fiddly everywhere else: on a touchscreen laptop folded into a tent, on a tablet, or from the sofa with a wireless mouse. AIX Player lets the whole video act as the control. Tap the middle to play or pause; double-tap to go fullscreen or back.

Two gestures, on the picture itself

With Player gestures enabled, a single tap away from the centre shows or keeps the playback controls visible. A centre tap also toggles play/pause. Double-tapping the video toggles fullscreen; double-clicks on control bars are excluded from that fullscreen gesture, but buttons still perform their own actions.

Touchscreen, mouse or touchpad

The same two gestures work three ways, so you do not need a touchscreen to use them:

• Touchscreen: tap or double-tap with a finger.
• Mouse: click or double-click the video.
• Precision touchpad: tap or double-tap on the pad, with the pointer over the video.

That makes double-click to fullscreen as natural on a desktop PC as double-tap is on a 2-in-1.

Turn gestures off

To disable the centre-tap and double-tap actions, switch Player gestures off:

1. Open Settings and stay on the General tab.
2. Find Player gestures, described as “Gesture controls on the video”.
3. Switch it off. The controls on the player screen and the keyboard keep working as before.

Media keys

Many keyboards, and most headsets, have play/pause and track keys. Media keys is on by default. With it switched on in Settings → General (“Control playback with keyboard media keys”), those keys control AIX Player.

Keyboard shortcuts for everything else

For the rest, the keyboard is quicker than any menu. The essentials:

There are more, for A-B repeat, snapshots, chapters, audio and subtitle tracks, picture-in-picture and casting: the keyboard shortcuts guide lists common player keys.

Keep listening when the window is down

Media keys can be used with Background audio (AIX Pro, Settings → General): “Keep playing audio when the window is minimized”. Minimise AIX Player, keep the sound, and use the media keys to pause a talk or a concert film while you work. Need to keep watching instead? Picture-in-picture keeps the video in a small window on top.