[jhsrennie]

My MCE remote plugin is released to an awestruck public!

Grab plugin.script.mceremote-0.0.2.zip from http://xbmcmce.sourceforge.net/ and save it to any convenient folder the install it using System, Addons, "Install from zip file".

The plugin only does two things. It can either tweak the eHome driver registry settings to make the MS remote send MCE keystrokes, or it can restore the standard settings that you get when Windows autodetects an MS remote.

The plugin checks that you do have an MS remote (or compatible) installed, so if the plugin tells you to bog off it probably means you don't have an MS compatible remote, or possibly that it's not using the MS eHome driver.

Dharma will have all the MCE keystrokes included as standard (these aren't in beta2) so using this plugin will mean your MS remote will work with the Windows XBMC without any further messing around.

Feedback is welcome, though the plugin is so simple it's hard to see that much can go wrong (famous last words).

JR

[Linus82]

Awesome, have to buy a remote.
Paycheck on friday so will test then.

[Homerboy]

can you get me a working IR receiver in WHS??!?!

[DrMedia]

can you get me a working IR receiver in WHS??!?!

Nope!!.. I tried for ages, hunted high and low.. and th OS itself simply doesnt support such a device! This was confirmed from a Microsoft forum I posted in also.. mo joy Im afraid!!! This would have been the perfect solution for me.. had to settle for a Asrock ION streaming from my WHS.. which works great....

[elitegamer360]

Thanks JR, I take it we have to wait for Dharma release then are we still going to require patched xbmc.exe for modifier keys or all will be officially supported now. I'm asking so that I can update my regs accordingly including the tutorial I'm doing

thanks.

[avus m3]

can you get me a working IR receiver in WHS??!?!

My reply to your thread:

Ask and ye shall receiver:

http://www.win2008r2workstation.com/...ir-transceiver

EDIT: Oh wait...your not running Vale right? Neverind then. Do a google search for ehome ir on windows server 2003.

I guess you need to use Vail as with Server 2003 (WHS) it won't work.

[jhsrennie]

Thanks JR, I take it we have to wait for Dharma release then are we still going to require patched xbmc.exe for modifier keys or all will be officially supported now. I'm asking so that I can update my regs accordingly including the tutorial I'm doing

thanks.

The aim is that it will be an "out of the box" experience in Dharma. Dharma now has the MCE keyboard shortcuts in the default mappings, even including obscure ones like ctrl-I for My Pictures. If you use the plugin and choose the option to install the MCE config (and there are only two otions :-) then your MS remote will just work. Some of the buttons, e.g. Live TV, don't have an obvious use at the moment so they will just pop up a little message to confirm you pressed the button.

The philosophy is a bit different from yours. The aim is to make everything use the standard Microsoft Media Center shortcut keys, as documented in http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb189249.aspx. This means that the vast majority of MCE remotes will just work. Users can of course tweak the config if they want, though I expect that most people won't bother.

If anyone wants to try the new keyboard mappings grab the latest keyboard.xml from http://trac.xbmc.org/browser/branches/Dh...yboard.xml. Scroll to the bottom of the page and click on the "Original format" link to download the file. Use it to replace the keyboard.xml in C:\Program Files\XBMC\system\keymaps.

JR

[Orbi]

John, this sounds great! Maybe I'll finally get my conceptronic RF remote to fully work. I got it to support the most basic functions but would like to be able to use all the buttons.

Thanks for your work!

[kulprit]

Whats the best way to go about tweaking this config now jhsrennie?

I know what I want all my buttons to do, is it just go through the keyboard.xml and try and edit the mce button bits?

Does this also stop the green button opening mce and can i remap it so it opens the context menu like i've got it set in Eventghost?

Thanks for all the hard work that has gone into this, look forward to being able to get the same setup i already have going, but without a third party program.

Cheers

[jhsrennie]

UPDATE: I've integrated the files previously in mceremote.zip into my plugin and put it on http://xbmcmce.sourceforge.net/ (as version 0.0.2). Until it gets added to the official repository this is now the place to get the latest version.

JR

[jhsrennie]

Whats the best way to go about tweaking this config now jhsrennie?

I know what I want all my buttons to do, is it just go through the keyboard.xml and try and edit the mce button bits?

Does this also stop the green button opening mce and can i remap it so it opens the context menu like i've got it set in Eventghost?

Thanks for all the hard work that has gone into this, look forward to being able to get the same setup i already have going, but without a third party program.

Cheers

The way to customise the button actions is to create a keyboard.xml in your userdata\keymaps folder and put your customised mappings there. If you grab the latest version of my addon from http://xbmcmce.sourceforge.net/ in the resources\data folder is a sample keyboard.xml and a script to copy the sample keyboard.xml into your userdata folder. Edit the file by pressing Windows-R and entering:

notepad %appdata%\xbmc\userdata\keymaps\keyboard.xml

You might want to grab an up to date copy of keyboard.xml from http://trac.xbmc.org/browser/branches/Dh...yboard.xml. Scroll to the bottom of the page and click on the "Original format" link to download the file. Use it to replace the keyboard.xml in C:\Program Files\XBMC\system\keymaps.

My addon will configure the green button to send the keystroke ctrl-shift-W, which means it will no longer start Media Center. To make the keystroke start XBMC right click the XBMC link in the Start menu, select properties, click in the "Shortcut" field and press the green button. You should see this put in ctrl-shift-W as the shortcut key.

JR

[jhsrennie]

John, this sounds great! Maybe I'll finally get my conceptronic RF remote to fully work. I got it to support the most basic functions but would like to be able to use all the buttons.

Thanks for your work!

RF remotes can be troublesome.

If your remote uses the eHome driver then my addon will configure it, but I suspect it won't.

JR

[elitegamer360]

The aim is that it will be an "out of the box" experience in Dharma. Dharma now has the MCE keyboard shortcuts in the default mappings, even including obscure ones like ctrl-I for My Pictures. If you use the plugin and choose the option to install the MCE config (and there are only two otions :-) then your MS remote will just work. Some of the buttons, e.g. Live TV, don't have an obvious use at the moment so they will just pop up a little message to confirm you pressed the button.

The philosophy is a bit different from yours. The aim is to make everything use the standard Microsoft Media Center shortcut keys, as documented in http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb189249.aspx. This means that the vast majority of MCE remotes will just work. Users can of course tweak the config if they want, though I expect that most people won't bother.

If anyone wants to try the new keyboard mappings grab the latest keyboard.xml from http://trac.xbmc.org/browser/branches/Dh...yboard.xml. Scroll to the bottom of the page and click on the "Original format" link to download the file. Use it to replace the keyboard.xml in C:\Program Files\XBMC\system\keymaps.

JR

Thanks for the reply JR thats what I wanted XBMC to do for ages now. Any ways I will download the xml file and have a play with it.

I checked the reg file in your plugin and seems that I need to make some changes. I really do not care about windows Media centre but I appreciate other people do and love to have both systems work.

Any ways I'll upload my updates after the Dharma release.

Note: I do not recommend setting the power button as "ALT+F4" it does not close XBMC properly and causes XBMC.exe process to continue running in the background hence will not allow XBMC to launch again when pressing the green button "CTRL+SHFT+W". Since I changed it to launch power menu I had now issues any more.

Great work,

Cheers

[jhsrennie]

Thanks for the reply JR thats what I wanted XBMC to do for ages now. Any ways I will download the xml file and have a play with it.

I checked the reg file in your plugin and seems that I need to make some changes. I really do not care about windows Media centre but I appreciate other people do and love to have both systems work.

Any ways I'll upload my updates after the Dharma release.

Note: I do not recommend setting the power button as "ALT+F4" it does not close XBMC properly and causes XBMC.exe process to continue running in the background hence will not allow XBMC to launch again when pressing the green button "CTRL+SHFT+W". Since I changed it to launch power menu I had now issues any more.

I think we've both started from the position that it was hard to modify XBMC, so instead we've worked on modifying the way the remote worked. Since I joined the XBMC team I've increasingly felt that we should build as much MCE rewmote support as possible into XBMC and try to avoid too much tweaking of the remote. As I'm sure you'll agree, things can get very complicated very quickly trying to support lots of difference ReportMappingTable setups :-)

When Dharma releases the support for the Media Center shortcut keys will be basically complete. Remotes like the VRC-1100 or AURC-001 that use MCE shortcuts should just work. For the Microsoft remote my feeling is that we should configure it to send the standard MCE shortcuts. That way it's a standard that everyone knows, and it will just work with Dharma without needing anything extra.

There will still be some tweaking necessary. For example as far as I know there are no standard shortcuts for the four coloured teletext keys. Also some users will want to modify the standard key mappings so they'll still have to edit their keyboard.xml files. Still, I think we've come a long way since v9.11 :-)

JR

[elitegamer360]

I think we've both started from the position that it was hard to modify XBMC, so instead we've worked on modifying the way the remote worked. Since I joined the XBMC team I've increasingly felt that we should build as much MCE rewmote support as possible into XBMC and try to avoid too much tweaking of the remote. As I'm sure you'll agree, things can get very complicated very quickly trying to support lots of difference ReportMappingTable setups :-)

When Dharma releases the support for the Media Center shortcut keys will be basically complete. Remotes like the VRC-1100 or AURC-001 that use MCE shortcuts should just work. For the Microsoft remote my feeling is that we should configure Wit to send the standard MCE shortcuts. That way it's a standard that everyone knows, and it will just work with Dharma without needing anything extra.

There will still be some tweaking necessary. For example as far as I know there are no standard shortcuts for the four coloured teletext keys. Also some users will want to modify the standard key mappings so they'll still have to edit their keyboard.xml files. Still, I think we've come a long way since v9.11 :-)

JR

Totally agree with you

I have your plugin installed and added some of my own tweaks and works perfect. Will focus on my tutorial now untill Dharma is released hopefully there will be no need for tweaks only minor editions here and there to satisfy one's taste