audio adjust volume does not work with MARMITEK remote (1 Viewer)

[jgvonk]

We (my family and I) realy enjoy Mediaportal for half a year now.
We are on 0.2RC2

The problem is that audio volume adjustment via MARMITEK remote (art no 09528 / UR86E with X10 MouseRemote software) does not work.
All other mediaportal functions could easily be mapped to buttons and work fine.
Audio volume adjustment via keyboard using "-" and "=" works fine.

Sending karrakters to notepad showed that hotkeys defined as a,b,c,..1,2,3,...F1,F2,F3,.. are passed on to the application o.k. However, passing "-" or "=" in the same way does not work, nothing is received by notepad, no errors shown.

The only way to adjust volume via the remote controle is the following (bizar) way: Select a button that is mapped to "Virtual Keyboard". Pop up the virtual menu. Navigate to "-" (or "="). Enter this karrakter one or more times. Select stop virtual menu. Select send entered karrakters.
The latter works fine for MediaPortal volume adjustment.
(If the bizar sequence is used on notepad, the "-" and "=" are also passed ok.)

So it looks like this - and = are only swallowed if mapped as hotkey.

So I don't think Mediaportal itself is causing it, although Mediaportol does not seem to offer me a way out by redefining the adjust volume controle karrakter to a alpha-numeric karrakter.

Hoop somebody can help, thanks in advance.

 

[NLS]

I have a Marmitek PC Control myself, but I don't use MP to control volume anyway (since MP doesn't allow me to change SPDIF volume) and use a girder script (in fact I was using girder for many other jobs with my previous HTPC software but MP renders it virtually uneeded and I will probably keep it just for volume control and maybe VFD display).

I say you should look for different control software for your remote. I know I use some different software/drivers than what came with the remote, but I cannot remember where I found those.

I think the software for Niveus is the same?

 

[jgvonk]

Thanks for the suggestions NLS.

Using Girder looks like a perfect solution, however I would like to continue searching for a solution without additional costs. SPDIF is not yet a problem for me, the onboard audio is the only d/a converter in my audio chain. (I just finished a www.hypex.nl analog amplifier, sound is great!)

I realise I need to find out exactly what software is involved in my remote controle setup. I know things start with the CM21A wireless x10 USB receiver driver. The UI end is a controle panal applet called X10 RemoteMouse.

I keep hoping somebody can tell how to get adjust audio volume via MARMITEK working with the software that came with the remote (or open source software).

 

[jgvonk]

Solved with EventGhost

I found a very simple solution:
I Installed EventGhost (http://www.eventghost.org) and simply run it side by side with RemoteMouse. The default configuration of EventGhost already maps the Marmitek -volume+ button(s) to windows xp master volume increase/decrease. To make it bit more responsive, I lowered the autorepeat times.
I hope this helps others strugling with simular problem.

I am a bit surprised that this works, can somebody give me a bit of background on how pushing a button on a x10 remote leads to the receival of an event by 2 applications at seemingly the same time.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Bitmonster]

I am a bit surprised that this works, can somebody give me a bit of background on how pushing a button on a x10 remote leads to the receival of an event by 2 applications at seemingly the same time.

Well, I can, because I wrote the X10 EventGhost plugin.

Every X10 device driver installs a service (x10nets.exe) that actually handles the low-level-part of the process. To this service mutiple application can dock through ActiveX and get informed about every event the driver receives. So theoretical you can use an unlimited number of applications with one receiver.

However the driver seems to get a bit "sluggish" if you use it with more than one application.

BTW: What is this "RemouseMouse" thingy? I didn't found any clue on google.

 

[NLS]

remousemouse you will never find (well not until someone actually writes something with this name)

remotemouse on the other hand...

 

[Bitmonster]

Ah, is this the software that comes with the marmitek?

Is there anything this software can do, that EventGhost doesn't?

 

[NLS]

I don't know... when I got my Marmitek 2.5 years ago, I don't think it came with this (and I don't use it anyway).

 

[jgvonk]

Thanks for your explainations Bitmonster and sorry for my typo.

Sorry for asking, but you wrote that you wrote the X10 EventGhost plugin.
Why do you refere to it as a plugin, why not as an applcation?

So EventGhost as well as RemoteMouse connect to an ActiveX componenet that provided by the x10 device drivers. I guess this means that COM is involved. I'm studying that since it still seems to be all over any windows machine and I need to understand more about it. It seems that C#/.net devellopments will not push it out soon.

This RemoteMouse software came with my MARMITEK pc control. I bought in a Handyman shop in the Netherlands for just under 30 euro. Great prize I would say considering it can not only controle x10 equipement but also IR systems like my Philips TV.

I'm not sure wether this RemouseMouse can do more than EventGhost, I don't think so. The differens is (I think) that RemouteMouse can be configured via the UI. A picture of the remote is shown and key mapping is just a matter of clicking a button and specifying a hotkey (or combination of) system events or windows event. So the software is dedicated for a specific remote only.
To be honest, I haven't figured out yet how to map key's with EventGhost, but from what I have seen in the documentation, I guess changing configuration files or Pyton scripting is involved?

An absolute great job is done in creating EventGhost!
With respect to the documentation I see excellent frameworks as well but for somebdy with as little experience as me, a bit more explainations and examples on how to do things like key-mapping would be helpfull.

Keep up the good work!

 

[Bitmonster]

Caught, I wrote a bit more than the X10 plugin.
But some EG plugins have been written by other authors, so not everything is done by me alone.

Well, what EventGhost is mostly missing is english documentation. There you are surely right. But most people have found out how to configure it without documention. To give a hint: you can drag&drop the events (the yellow stars) from the left panel (logger) to the right panel (configuration tree). The rest is done with "Add Macro..." and "Add Action...". Python scripting is not needed for anything from the user, but he can use it if he wants to do really complex gimmicks.

COM-interfacing in Python is very "high level", so it does nearly everything that has to be done automatically. I don't know how complex this is in C#. If you want to learn how this works, you can look at the source of the X10 plugin (the EG setup.exe includes all sources). There are also some VB sources on the net that show how to interface the X10 COM object.