With me too, pressing space starts playback... Must have started after the last update... (I also remember it happening 1-2 years ago, until the next update made it disappear again...)
Anyway, nice to see that others also use 'keyboard navigation', which browses the entire file list (unlike the ctrl+f search box does), and is usually quicker than opening the Quick Search field (ctrl+q) before you type...
I always use keyboard navigation to jump to titles in my movies' list... please try to restore the old space bar behaviour! Thank you.
Edit: The current default Resource.xml has this line for the Space key:
<Entry Key="Space" Command="10000" Param="-1" TranslateFlags="401" />
(Where Command="10000" is for Play/Pause) I guess if we changed the TranslateFlags, say to "8" (=fullscreen only, ruling out any others), we'd have the old behaviour back? Not sure what Param="-1" does though... (?)