Remapping IR-remote buttons to actions.

[jmarshall]

after making the discovery this morning that the xbox accepts remote button codes other than the 27 or so buttons on the ms remote, i think that implementing an xml sheet that can be used to map buttons (both on the remote and controller) to actions is something that should be looked at.

my current thinking is to have a bunch of actions defined and the config file then basically lists the actions and the buttons associated with that action.

this will require a well defined set of actions and modes in order to implement well. my current thoughts are that there should be a set of default or global actions that apply throughout, which can possibly be overridden, or reassigned in the different gui modes. things such as the arrow keys (move left, move right, select) etc. could be defined in the global or default section, and are then not needed to be defined in all of the various modes.

the modes i can think of straight off are:

gui
movie
music visualisation

others may include (for instance)
playlist
dvd menu

etc. etc.

the file might perhaps look something like:

<global>
<action>
<description>moveleft</discription>
<id>0</id>
<controller>dpad_left</controller>
<remote>left</remote>
<remotecode>86</remotecode>
</action>
...
</global>

<mode>
<description>gui</description>
other actions associated only with the gui mode
</mode>

other modes go here

we could allow multiple <contoller> or <remote> tags for each action. the <remotecode> tags simply allow the user to define a specific remote obc code for the action (86 is the obc code for left on a remote with the rc5 protocol)

i'd be interested in what other devs think, as well as what other users think. perhaps between us we can define a comprehensive + forward looking set of actions and modes so that this can be implemented in the best ways possible.

imo all this is a setup once type of thing, so an xml file would be best, but there is nothing to stop having this alterable from within the gui - other than the possibility of the user stuffing something up and not being able to change it back due to the select key no longer being functional!

cheers,
jonathan

[pike]

quick comments, more will follow later:

xbox remote mapping:
================
menu key: triggers back to rootmenu when you are in my videos/music/pictures/settings/etc
display key: is used to toggle between video/ui & visualizations/ui
info key: is used to show some sort of osd info when video/visualizations are active

[Frodo]

keymapping is on my 2do list
but if you wanna start with it, please be my guest
since i got zillion other things left on my 2do list

frodo

[onkel bouncy]

yes.
i hope that there are some changes on the rc-keys by default.
it's not very logically to select files with the play-button and play files with the select-button.
perhaps it's better to have the playlist on the menu-button and the vis on the display-button.

simply changing this buttons is hopefully not to hard.

[jmarshall]

onkel bouncy:

if you come up with a better keymap.xml file (which can already change all this) that you think should be the default behaviour, please let us know so that others can test it out and decide which is the most optimal setup.

thanks,
jonathan

[Gamester17]

Originally Posted by (jmarshall @ nov. 20 2003,20:19)

if you come up with a better keymap.xml file that you think should be the default behaviour, please let us know

if anyone decide to submite this please make based on the original dvd-remote from microsoft, as most popular remote

[onkel bouncy]

Originally Posted by (jmarshall @ nov. 20 2003,20:19)

juncy:

if you come up with a better keymap.xml file (which can already change all this) that you think should be the default behaviour, please let us know so that others can test it out and decide which is the most optimal setup.

thanks,
jonathan

ok, i will see what i can do better.
:d

this evening i will first upload a new german language file from a guy called darkzone.
i've to improve it first.

[onkel bouncy]

ok, i had a look inside the keymap.xml and found out that i can use a function double allocated.
nice.
for 'next picture' i can use 'skipplus' an 'right' on the rc.
the zoom-function uses also 'right' (functioned then no more) so it would be nice to have seperate key-layouts for some functions like zoom.

second i want to use the select-button in my files to select files (instead of play), but it's already used to go inside a dir.
so i can't change it.
it must be checked by xbmp if it's a dir or a file.

[san9jay]

why not set the defaults to use the same as what was setup for xbmp. i think as a starting point the xbmp remote setup was pretty good.

[ragawu]

Originally Posted by jmarshall

after making the discovery this morning that the xbox accepts remote button codes other than the 27 or so buttons on the ms remote, i think that implementing an xml sheet that can be used to map buttons (both on the remote and controller) to actions is something that should be looked at.

Has anyone looked into how many different codes are available, and if any "learning" remote controls can be used to utilize them? Is XBMC already coded to take advantage of this?

According to this post the XBOX DVD Remote sends out standard RCA signals.
http://www.xboxusersgroup.com/forums...php/t-827.html

I know on linux many things can be done with LIRC and different remotes, however I'm looking to do this with the M$ kernel. I'm seriously looking into PVR functionality for XBMC, and what is possible.

XDK Docs seem fairly useless on this, as to be expected.