Increase the number of key that can be used (2 Viewers)

M

metalmasterx

Guest
Hi *,

first of all, I want to thank anyone working on this fantastic project. GREAT WORK!!!!!!!

No to my (little) feature request. Although it's not really a new feature but an extension of an existing one...

I have a USB remote control from shuttle (PN31, see http://eu.shuttle.com/en/DesktopDefault.aspx/tabid-123/554_read-1622/). It is a great one because you don't need a driver, it's just like a combination of a wireless keyboard and a mouse in one control.

Of course, not all keyboard keys are available on the remote, but just a subset of the most commonly used ones (0-9, enter, backspace, esc, tab, volume+, volume-, pageup, pagedown). Additionally, it features a some of the "multimeda keys" that are also available on modern keyboards.

It would be very nice if I could configure them in MediaPortal! Otherwise, they are quite useless... If I press these buttons in the keys configuration dialog, the keystroke is recognized, but a weird special character is displayed. Also the ".", "-", "+" keys available on my remote (and my keyboard as well!!!) are not recognized correctly.

Technical note:
In the .NET System.Windows.Forms.Keys enumeration (see http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/d...tml/frlrfSystemWindowsFormsKeysClassTopic.asp), the following keys are the ones that I meant:

MediaTrackNext
MediaPlayPause
MediaTrackPrevious
MediaStop
Decimal

Other people might want to use e.g.
BrowserBack
BrowserSearch

or other "special" keys on the keyboard.

All these keys are recognized in the keys configuration dialog, but displayed as some special character. And, they cannot be used when they are configured (just ignored).

Do you see a chance to include these keys???

Technical proposition: I think (correct me if I'm wrong) in .NET any keystrokes are handled using this Keys enumeration mentioned above.

Why not use the following pieces of c# code to convert between a key and its string representation that can be used in the xml file and in the config dialog?

#1: key->string
System.Windows.Forms.Keys key = Keys.MediaTrackNext;
string stringRepresentation = key.ToString();

#2: string->key
string stringRepresenation = "MediaTrackNext";
System.Windows.Forms.Keys key = System.Enum.Parse(typeof(Keys), stringRepresentation);

By this, you could avoid a "hardcoded" list of supported keys and any key you can think of could be used and configured. (Maybe it's just rubbish that I'm writing, correct me if I'm wrong!)

Thanks for reading this LOONG post. What do you think?

metalmasterx
 

Tainted

Portal Member
February 12, 2007
20
0
yeah I'm diggin up old post from the grave!!

Did anyone ever come right with this. Sitting with the exact remote trying to configure it!
 

mbuzina

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  • April 11, 2005
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    Did you enable the General HID Device on Remotes? This will capture the common Multi-Media Keys and use them "usefully". I am not sure if you can reconfigure them, but I know that they work from my keyboard.
     

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