Killarny
2009-03-22, 08:10
I recently built a HTPC for running XBMC, but unfortunately I can't run linux on it because ALSA doesn't properly support my HDMI audio, so I've been forced to use Windows :)
I don't own a 360, but I bought a wireless controller for it a while back to play at friends houses, and I thought it would be nice to be able to hook it up to my HTPC with the 360 Wireless Receiver. Having a consistent control scheme is important to me, since I've used XBMC on and Xbox for years now. Anyhow, I was unable to find any support at all for this controller, despite people in #xbmc telling me that it should "just work" with the default XBMC keymap (it doesn't, with the official MS drivers in Windows).
After a few days of work, I've created a keymap.xml that works almost exactly the same as the standard Xbox 1 controller, with a few caveats:
The DPAD is completely unrecognized by XBMC in any fashion, so I've mapped the keyboard UP, DOWN, LEFT, RIGHT to the functions that the DPAD would normally be handling, and have set up an external program (EventGhost) to map the DPAD inputs to those keyboard presses.
The Xbox 360 controller joysticks are much more sensitive than the Xbox 1 controller, and the official MS drivers don't allow adjustments to the deadzone, so I've assigned the manual seek functions to the left joystick X axis instead of the proper X axis on the right joystick. It was just way too difficult to change the volume (with the right stick Y axis) without accidentally jumping all over the place in the playing media.
I've also set up EventGhost to launch XBMC when I press the blue button while XBMC is not running, and have xpadder activated when XBMC closes. This allows me to control the mouse on my desktop with the controller as well. There is no keyboard control though, unfortunately, because Windows requires admin permissions to launch the onscreen keyboard for some reason.
Anyhow, I'm linking to all of these files (which I've hosted on my site) for anyone else who is in a similar situation. Particularly, I hope that my keymap.xml can be merged into the official builds for XBMC at some point, and maybe a developer will be inspired to figure out why the DPAD isn't working. :)
If you use my EventGhost setup, you'll want to be sure to edit the path to your XBMC (if you installed it someplace other than Program Files/XBMC) and the path to where you put Xpadder.exe.
Let me know if anyone has issues ....
Keymap.xml (http://killarny.org/media/xbmc/Keymap.xml)
EventGhost_0.3.7.r851_Setup.exe (http://killarny.org/media/xbmc/EventGhost_0.3.7.r851_Setup.exe)
XBMC 360 Controller.xml (http://killarny.org/media/xbmc/XBMC 360 Controller.xml)
Xpadder.exe (http://killarny.org/media/xbmc/Xpadder.exe)
Xpadder.ini (http://killarny.org/media/xbmc/Xpadder.ini)
Wireless 360.xpaddercontroller (http://killarny.org/media/xbmc/Wireless 360.xpaddercontroller)
XBMC_Pad_360.xpadderprofile (http://killarny.org/media/xbmc/XBMC_Pad_360.xpadderprofile)
I don't own a 360, but I bought a wireless controller for it a while back to play at friends houses, and I thought it would be nice to be able to hook it up to my HTPC with the 360 Wireless Receiver. Having a consistent control scheme is important to me, since I've used XBMC on and Xbox for years now. Anyhow, I was unable to find any support at all for this controller, despite people in #xbmc telling me that it should "just work" with the default XBMC keymap (it doesn't, with the official MS drivers in Windows).
After a few days of work, I've created a keymap.xml that works almost exactly the same as the standard Xbox 1 controller, with a few caveats:
The DPAD is completely unrecognized by XBMC in any fashion, so I've mapped the keyboard UP, DOWN, LEFT, RIGHT to the functions that the DPAD would normally be handling, and have set up an external program (EventGhost) to map the DPAD inputs to those keyboard presses.
The Xbox 360 controller joysticks are much more sensitive than the Xbox 1 controller, and the official MS drivers don't allow adjustments to the deadzone, so I've assigned the manual seek functions to the left joystick X axis instead of the proper X axis on the right joystick. It was just way too difficult to change the volume (with the right stick Y axis) without accidentally jumping all over the place in the playing media.
I've also set up EventGhost to launch XBMC when I press the blue button while XBMC is not running, and have xpadder activated when XBMC closes. This allows me to control the mouse on my desktop with the controller as well. There is no keyboard control though, unfortunately, because Windows requires admin permissions to launch the onscreen keyboard for some reason.
Anyhow, I'm linking to all of these files (which I've hosted on my site) for anyone else who is in a similar situation. Particularly, I hope that my keymap.xml can be merged into the official builds for XBMC at some point, and maybe a developer will be inspired to figure out why the DPAD isn't working. :)
If you use my EventGhost setup, you'll want to be sure to edit the path to your XBMC (if you installed it someplace other than Program Files/XBMC) and the path to where you put Xpadder.exe.
Let me know if anyone has issues ....
Keymap.xml (http://killarny.org/media/xbmc/Keymap.xml)
EventGhost_0.3.7.r851_Setup.exe (http://killarny.org/media/xbmc/EventGhost_0.3.7.r851_Setup.exe)
XBMC 360 Controller.xml (http://killarny.org/media/xbmc/XBMC 360 Controller.xml)
Xpadder.exe (http://killarny.org/media/xbmc/Xpadder.exe)
Xpadder.ini (http://killarny.org/media/xbmc/Xpadder.ini)
Wireless 360.xpaddercontroller (http://killarny.org/media/xbmc/Wireless 360.xpaddercontroller)
XBMC_Pad_360.xpadderprofile (http://killarny.org/media/xbmc/XBMC_Pad_360.xpadderprofile)