[scarecrow420]

Oh cool, I didnt realise that XBMC.PlayerControl(Record) did the background currently playing show even when selecting a future EPG entry so yes this fix in gotham is much better. I guess I should upgrade to gotham one of these days (i have it on my dev machine but not my "production" machines)

[JazJon]

Ok, so what do I assigned to my Harmony record button to get the new <key>record</key> working? I'm not quite following what they added since no keyboard shortcut was listed.

[scarecrow420]

it looks like they have it in remote.xml (rather than keyboard.xml) bound to remote button "record". Not sure if this is the default IR code sent by an MCE remote or not? The name of the action is "record" so presuming I am understanding everything correctly you could still add a keyboard.xml entry binding whatever key you like (eg Ctrl-R) to the action "record" (rather than previous action of "XBMC.PlayerControl(Record)"). You would need to be on a new enough gotham version based on when this change was added though, looks like it was added around Feb 11th so a nightly after that point should include it.

[JazJon]

Ok now I understand what Bind a key means from another post I was reading when I was fresh off the newbie train.

Yes I'm on today Gotham build

Now I need to try and figure out what to do. Could you kindly spell it out here?

For starters, I'm confused why my keyboard.xml is a huge mess when viewed in notepad. Word wrap isn't working.


It looks normal when I paste the jumbled text to pastebin though.
http://pastebin.com/hGWu2BBr
Is there a better app for editing .xml files than notepad?

But yet not sure what to type to bind a key command to the new record. I'm done for now anyway I'll pick this up tomrorow.

[denz]

First thing is download notepad++ and then open the xml files. I am a newbie as well.

To find out which key you are pressing use showkey from this website

http://xbmccustomregis.sourceforge.net/remaptut.html

[JazJon]

First thing is download notepad++ and then open the xml files. I am a newbie as well.

There we go, thanks.

[LSU Jonno]

I've been having the same frustration as you and have been working on my own keyboard.xml file.

Some notes:
As denz posted above, the record key is fixed in the nightly Gotham builds. I mapped it to letter "a" on my keyboard, and then mapped the letter "a" to the record button on my harmony. Now I can record using one button push from the EPG.

Wordpad will open .xml files and display them properly as well. Wordpad should be installed in windows already.

Instead of editing your remote.xml file, I would recommend finding the default keyboard.xml file in your XBMC root directory and copying that file to your user data folder. Editing keyboard commands and mapping those to a harmony are much easier than figuring out what default button codes your remote is sending. The keymap configuration files that ship with XBMC are stored in the "/system/keymaps/" folder within the XBMC root directory. Check out this wiki page: http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=Keymap
You'll be copying your keyboard.xml file from the /system/keymaps/ folder to %appdata%\XBMC\userdata\
This new keyboard.xml file will take precedence over the default XBMC keymap.

So like I said, I mapped record to letter "a". Or <a>record</a> in my keyboard.xml file in the global section. Then I mapped letter "a" to my record button in my harmony software.

One other thing I've done is added some text to enable the guide button on my harmony to be pressed once to bring up my EPG:timeline view and pressed again to close it. First, I kept the default EPG keymap to letter "E" and then mapped letter "E" to my guide button in the Harmony sofware. Then I added this code to my keyboard.xml file:

<MyPVR>
<keyboard>
<e>Fullscreen</e>
</keyboard>
</MyPVR>

This allows the "e" keyboard key to toggle the guide if you are watching TV or in the PVR section of XBMC. However, if you are watching a movie and pull up your EPG, pressing guide again will not close the guide. This gets us pretty close to what we are after though.

I'd like to make a suggestion. Since we are all ex-WMC users switching to XBMC, we should make this keyboard.xml file a community project. I can post my keyboard.xml file on dropbox when I get home tonight and we can edit one file to give us the functionality we want. Or if someone else would like to host sooner, please post.

http://openelec.tv/forum/103-infared-rem...mitstart=0
This is a good thread to check out too, but in my opinion we are better off editing the keyboard.xml file and then mapping our keyboard presses to a harmony. It's not as sexy, but it's much easier.

[JazJon]

Excellent, I agree about making this an ongoing community project and I'm happy to help. (once I learn more about it) I'm on mars time right now, so time for bed. I'll dig in soon, thanks for the details.

[scarecrow420]

As I think alot of people already do, I remapped the direction keys in LiveTV view to small/big skip, just like it already is for video/audio anyway.

Another quality of life thing I found here on the forums is to do with channel +/- buttons. Since it takes a while longer to switch channels in XBMC, i want to discourage the wife "zapping" ap and down channels, so I have bound the channel -/+ harmony buttons to actually pop up the ChannelsOSD (like "c" does in LiveTV) then once that screen is up, the +/- will shift up and down in the list. So basically now when she wants to change up/down a channel the list comes up, she can scroll up/down to the channel she actually wants (using the same channel -/+ buttons or up/down arrows) then hit OK to change to it. This avoids the intermediate channel changes which take a fair few seconds.

I also made left and right direction on this ChannelOSD, change between ChannelGroups since there wasnt really anything else to move across to (and since replacing the default bindings with the skip commands, there was no longer anything bound to ChannelGroup actions, not that I use them particularly much).


Here are the commands to do the channel OSD changing thing. Note that on my harmony I had Channel -/+ bound to End and Home keys, so that's what i've used for the bindings. Substitute the correct key for your setup


As a final note, my custom keyboard.xml didnt seem to get picked up when in /userdata, i shifted it into /userdata/keymaps and then it was picked up. I mention that incase anyone else finds their customisations dont seem to be working

Code:

<FullscreenLiveTV>
    <keyboard>
      <!-- Remap direction keys to skip -->
      <left>StepBack</left>
      <right>StepForward</right>
      <up>BigStepForward</up>
      <down>BigStepBack</down>

      <!-- Channel +/- pop up OSDChannels -->
      <home>XBMC.ActivateWindow(PVROSDChannels)</home>
      <end>XBMC.ActivateWindow(PVROSDChannels)</end>
    </keyboard>
  </FullscreenLiveTV>
  <PVROSDChannels>
    <keyboard>
      <backspace>Close</backspace>
      <escape>Close</escape>
      <c>Close</c>

      <!-- Channel +/- shift up/down in OSDChannels -->
      <home>Up</home>
      <end>Down</end>

      <!-- left/right change ChannelGroups -->
      <left>PreviousChannelGroup</left>
      <right>NextChannelGroup</right>
    </keyboard>
  </PVROSDChannels>

---

I've been having the same frustration as you and have been working on my own keyboard.xml file.

One other thing I've done is added some text to enable the guide button on my harmony to be pressed once to bring up my EPG:timeline view and pressed again to close it. First, I kept the default EPG keymap to letter "E" and then mapped letter "E" to my guide button in the Harmony sofware. Then I added this code to my keyboard.xml file:

<MyPVR>
<keyboard>
<e>Fullscreen</e>
</keyboard>
</MyPVR>

This allows the "e" keyboard key to toggle the guide if you are watching TV or in the PVR section of XBMC. However, if you are watching a movie and pull up your EPG, pressing guide again will not close the guide. This gets us pretty close to what we are after though.

Wouldnt that "e" thing also make it so you cant popup the EPG when in the LiveTV section under say Recordings, Timers, etc (since "e" is bound to fullscreen at that point now)? Or is MyPVR specifically only the EPG grid screen (i dont think so, i think alot of the PVR windows are all under "MyPVR")

I applaud the effort to share keyboard settings, specifically with a PVR focus, ex WMC users, and using harmony remotes... however im not sure a single community version will suit everyone as we all have our personal preferences. Sharing the info/ideas though at least means we can pick and choose what we want (or perhaps if there was a central example, it could have different "options" commented out, allowing us to take it, then comment/uncomment the optional sections for the desired bits we wanted)

[krustyreturns]

I think an ex-wmc user (generic, commented), keymap is a good idea. If you guys get one together we could make it a sticky on this forum and add it to the wiki.

[LSU Jonno]

Wouldnt that "e" thing also make it so you cant popup the EPG when in the LiveTV section under say Recordings, Timers, etc (since "e" is bound to fullscreen at that point now)? Or is MyPVR specifically only the EPG grid screen (i dont think so, i think alot of the PVR windows are all under "MyPVR")

That was my same thought when I saw that code, but that is not how it functions in practice. MyPVR is not specifically only the EPG grid screen. If it were this should work when watching a movie or on the homescreen and it does not. I'd like to write a feature request that creates a "tag" (for lack of correct coding terminology) called <EPGview> or equivalent that would do exactly what you are talking about so that this functionality can be used globally across XBMC.

I applaud the effort to share keyboard settings, specifically with a PVR focus, ex WMC users, and using harmony remotes... however im not sure a single community version will suit everyone as we all have our personal preferences. Sharing the info/ideas though at least means we can pick and choose what we want (or perhaps if there was a central example, it could have different "options" commented out, allowing us to take it, then comment/uncomment the optional sections for the desired bits we wanted)

I hear you. I think there is some basic functionality that everyone is going to want (one touch recording from EPG, guide button toggle, etc.) and then some other custom functionality that everyone thinks is a cool feature but doesn't want to implement it. Personally, I'd like to create one file that we can all test, and then take the comment/uncomment route to enable individualization of the file. My main reason is this: I'd like to be able to enable all of our customizations without stepping on each other for key usage. If we create one file that we can all test, we can do that, and then comment out the sections that we don't want to enable on our individual set ups. Also, obviously, we'll be able to map each new function to different buttons on our individual remotes which will be added customization.

BTW, that channel change edit you made is pretty slick. I'm going to drop that in the file before I post. I also need to comment my existing edits better.

[scarecrow420]

Wouldnt that "e" thing also make it so you cant popup the EPG when in the LiveTV section under say Recordings, Timers, etc (since "e" is bound to fullscreen at that point now)? Or is MyPVR specifically only the EPG grid screen (i dont think so, i think alot of the PVR windows are all under "MyPVR")

That was my same thought when I saw that code, but that is not how it functions in practice. MyPVR is not specifically only the EPG grid screen. If it were this should work when watching a movie or on the homescreen and it does not. I'd like to write a feature request that creates a "tag" (for lack of correct coding terminology) called <EPGview> or equivalent that would do exactly what you are talking about so that this functionality can be used globally across XBMC.

So when you are watching a recording or LiveTV you can press "e" to get the EPG grid? I would have thought that "e" at that stage has been over-ridden to full screen. What does "MyPVR" tag represent in that case (ie on which active screens is this section enabled).

And yes I agree that having specific keymap regions for all the different PVR screens would be great... at the moment they are all hidden in one MyPVR window which is why the shortcuts to go to individual screens are magic numbers passed as parameters on the ActivateWindow call, eg
XBMC.ActivateWindowAndFocus(MyPVR, 34,0, 13,0)
XBMC.ActivateWindowAndFocus(MyPVR, 35,0, 14,0)

But this is why im saying i didnt think the "e" mapping posted would be good. Because i would want "e" to popup the EPG grid even when I was in the PVR section, but that keymap applied at "MyPVR" level Im assuming would now mean that "e" is fullscreen when on any PVR screen (recordings, timers, etc)

BTW, that channel change edit you made is pretty slick. I'm going to drop that in the file before I post. I also need to comment my existing edits better.

I certainly can't take credit for it, it's just something I read that others on this forum had posted, but that's the beauty of the community forum so it's great for us all to be sharing/comparing notes

[bluenote]

This subforum is beginning to be my catchall stop for support
I have a related issue that maybe you guys can shed some light on. I use the Random Trailers addon configured with Flixster new dvd releases to send items to couchpotato with the 'queue' command. My problem is that during playback I can't figure out what "window" I'm in so I can create my custom keymap entry to map queue to 0 key on the remote. I've been assuming that I'm in "Random Trailers" and that I need the ID# but maybe I'm wrong.

The keymap wiki mentions using <windowID#> "(Eg <window1113>)
I don't know whether there is a "friendly" version of the name for addons.

Do either of you guys know this off the top of your head?

[LSU Jonno]

So when you are watching a recording or LiveTV you can press "e" to get the EPG grid? I would have thought that "e" at that stage has been over-ridden to full screen. What does "MyPVR" tag represent in that case (ie on which active screens is this section enabled).

Yes. I just confirmed it. However, I was speaking from memory this morning when answering your original question and have since done more testing. This is the functionality of that code:

While watching live TV or recorded TV the "e" key on my keyboard toggles the EPG (this is the desired functionality)
While in a PVR section (browsing recordings, browsing channels, etc) pressing "e" once does not bring up the EPG. Pressing it twice usually does.
While in any other section of XBMC (movie library, add ons, etc) pressing "e" brings up the EPG, but pressing it again does not close it.

[scarecrow420]

ok cool, I think that Live TV is "FullScreenLiveTV" and recordings is "FullScreenVideo" (and shared with normal video watching) so it makes sense that those are not "MyPVR". Whereas the other PVR interface elements (EPG, channel list, search, timers etc) are "MyPVR" screens. It's interesting you say pressing E twice "usually" brings up the EPG grid. I would assume it just toggle fullscreen on and off so it wouldnt bring up the EPG grid unless the non fullscreen current place was the EPG grid anyway. Nevertheless it really does highlight the limitations of not having custom binding tags/regions applicable to each of these screens individually.