Control Girder/Mediaportal via Bluetooth (1 Viewer)

[dodo]

Hi all.

If anyone's interested, I've written a J2ME Midlet (for mobile phone) that interacts two-way with Girder to control Mediaportal. Using the ExternalDisplay plugin it also displays information on your phone's display (eg. current song playing, etc.)

It uses Girder's serial port plugin to interact with the phone through Bluetooth's serial port emulation.

Get it from here: http://rmcqualter.veritel.com.au

Wasn't quite sure where to post this...

 

[xurr]

I tried it but I couldn't configure it with Girder (I never used Girder before, I download the trial of version 4 from their site). Can you provide some more detail (eg. how to import the .ini file, I couldn't find any way to do this, also the Serial Plugin already seemed to be in Girder without having to download it, maybe I need a different version)?

Don't know if this is the right place to discuss this topic but I'd like to try it with MediaPortal and this may be of interest for other users...

 

[dodo]

Hi xurr.

I've only used Girder 3.2, the last free version that no longer seems to be freely available for download.

Here's a brief step-by-step guide (not sure how this will go in Girder 4, this is for Girder 3):
1. Download and install the Generic Serial Support plugin from Girder's website.
2. Go to File->Settings, click on Generic Serial Support plugin and then click on Settings.
3. In the "Choose a device" window, click on Import, and select the MobiMote.ini file.
4. Click on Choose in the same window and set up the correct COM port for your bluetooth device (you will probably have 2 COM ports associated with your Bluetooth device, you would normally select the higher-numbered one).
5. "OK" out of all the dialogs.
6. Open the supplied Mediaportal.gml file in Girder. If you have configured the JAR file to include the Mediaportal skin (sorry its a bit crude at the moment, a nice skinner might like to provide icons and background....), then it will probably just start working. If not, you select which event you want, then click on Learn Event. Press a button on your phone and it should detect it as an event.
7. To get feedback to your phone, you enable the ExternalDisplay plugin and select the Girder module. You will then get selection and playback information displaying on your phone. In fact, it gives you enough information that you can use the Mediaportal UI from your phone only (if you have to... like you're outside and want to change to a different artist and are too lazy to walk inside).

The Girder group and phone skin are a bit crude at the moment (I think more functions could be supported). I'll improve it over time, but its all configurable yourself as well.