Wiimote (Nintendo Wii Remote Control) support as joystick/mouse?

[bmfrosty]

Originally Posted by wiki

# Xbox 360 controller on Linux - experimental device driver for Xbox360 Wireless/Wired controller on Linux computers.

* Interesting fact is that Linux kernel 2.6.19 supports for the original XBOX DDR pads (not Xbox360) out-of-the-box.

I noticed that you were contemplating support for 360 wireless controllers in the Linux version, and I was wondering if you'd also consider Wiimote support, not just as a pointer, but possibly also as a Joystick interface?

http://www.wiili.org/Wiimote

http://www.wiili.org/index.php/CWiid

[SneakerElph]

Which brings up an interesting point:

If we ever got Linux running on a Wii, could XBMC be used?

Ah, thought crossed off, the Wii uses ATi for graphics. With PC ATi support for linux being as crappy as it is, the Wii is hopeless.

[Nickman]

Originally Posted by SneakerElph

Which brings up an interesting point:

If we ever got Linux running on a Wii, could XBMC be used?

Ah, thought crossed off, the Wii uses ATi for graphics. With PC ATi support for linux being as crappy as it is, the Wii is hopeless.

The biggest no-no would be the underpowerd wii hardware though.
We have the linux port because the xbox hardware is showing its age. The Wii is even less powerful then the xbox so that would be a crazy target.

[szsori]

The Wii has almost the exact specs the Xbox does:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wii
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xbox#Te...specifications

Since it has more memory and would be running linux, which means making proper use of the GPU would be easier, it would probably be able to run XBMC as well as the Xbox. However, it still can't do high def video and has a PowerPC processor, so I'm not sure how easy XBMC would transfer over or if it's worth the effort.

The idea of using a Wiimote with XBMC-Linux is pretty cool, though. Would make a decent controller for most emulators as well.

[Asteron]

I cant think of a way using it comfortably within XBMC-Linux as anything but a very good pointing device.

Is there really anything in xbmc you want to control with the tilt? Gesture support might be good, like a flick to the left/right to scroll through items. I think though there are third party applications which would do this.

[szsori]

Originally Posted by Asteron

Is there really anything in xbmc you want to control with the tilt?

You could either use it for fast scrolling (page up/down) or you could do simple submenus. Tilt left and it brings up a context menu where you can tilt up/down to select the item you want. Tilt right and it hides the menu.

For video, music, and pictures you could do the same with context menus. Or you could do any number of other things (volume control, fast forward/rewide, zoom in/out, pan left/right, etc).

Alternatively, with certain skins (Xephyr, for example) you could use tilt to move sideways through a navigation and then tip forward to go into that submenu and tip backward to go to the previous submenu. It would be very intuitive if done properly.

[Skindred]

I think it would be better to asign these 'extra menus' to a keyboard button, and then use some python script if you want the wiimote to do those buttons,
the dev team doesn't have to be wasting their time on this, and certainly not now that we they are still working really hard on it!

Someone else can make that .py script

[bmfrosty]

A very good pointer was all I was looking for. Enough buttons on there for a pretty good set of controls too. There will have to be some context sensitivity too..

[hexydes]

Well this is for Linux, right? There's lots of things you could do with the Wii remote.

Assuming Compiz-Fusion is installed, you could use the Wii remote as a quick means of rotating the desktop cube. The handy reason for this would be to quickly switch from full-screen XBMC, to a standard desktop. The function for doing this would be something like hold the remote sideways (like in Excite Truck), pull the trigger underneath, and then tilt the remote. Left rotates the cube left, right rotates right, etc.

If you built some semblance of file-management into XBMC, you could use the Wii remote as a way to select multiple files and move them around.

It was already suggested that tilting would make a good way to scroll up/down the list in menus.

I'm sure some homebrew games would come out that could use it.

You could build something like iTunes' "Cover Flow" function, that lets you choose and album and spin through an album listing, like a jukebox.

Lots of different possibilities. Doesn't the Wii remote already work in Linux (I know I've seen people playing around with Compiz-Fusion with the remote before). Would it really take a lot of effort to just build that functionality into XBMC somehow?

[babazoid]

Actually using Cwiid or WMD the Wii remote should work in XBMC fine. Since XBMC already has mouse support built in you can just use it like a mouse. I'm pretty sure you can also just map the extra buttons to whatever functions you like in either driver (the button will send a keyboard command).

The only thing that might be tricky is using the Wiimotes accelerometer -- but as the drivers mature I'm sure you'll be able to do things like emulate scroll, etc.