Problems with remote/keyboard mapping (1 Viewer)

doveman

Portal Pro
February 12, 2008
2,326
178
Home Country
United Kingdom United Kingdom
MediaPortal Version: v1.2.1
MediaPortal Skin: StreamedMP
Windows Version: Win7 Ult 64
Hardware: See Old HTPC in sig.

I've been trying to setup an Emprex Vista MCE Remote (which doesn't actually work as a real MCE remote, so I'm having to use AutoHotKey) with MP and encountered quite a few problems.

Firstly, there's a few inconsistencies in the default key mapping. I can modify the keymap.xml to correct these, but it then gets overwritten if I open MP Config, which is a major problem for me, so hopefully there's a way to disable this.

1) SPACE is mapped to pause everywhere except in Pictures, where Enter is mapped to this function.

2) F5 & F6 are mapped to rewind everwhere except TVGuide, where they're mapped to decrease/increase time which is fine. However F7 & F8 are also mapped to the same thing. As these are mapped to Skip Back/Forward everywhere else, it makes more sense to me to map these to Previous/Next Day in TVGuide. Under Fullscreen TVs F7 and F8 are mapped to Previous/Next Tv Channel, so I also had to change these to assign Pageup and Pagedown to those functions (see 3)

3) Globally, Pageup and Pagedown are mapped to Previous/Next Page, which I like to use my Ch+/CH- rocker/buttons for (CH+ is on top on the remotes I've seen). Under Slideshow/Picture View specific actions, Pageup is mapped to Zoom Out and Pagedown is mapped to Zoom In. This would make my CH+ key Zoom out and my CH- key Zoom In, so it makes more sense to me to swap these (+/up Zoom In, -/down Zoom out). This would also be consistent with the OSD Keys section, where Pageup/Pagedown are mapped to Value Plus and Value Min.

4) Under Global, X is mapped to Toggle between GUI and fullscreen. However, under Fullscreen Video specific actions ESC is mapped to this. It makes more sense to me to have X always mapped to this function (so I can assign one remote key to this and have it work everywhere). Also under OSD Keys, TV OSD Keys and Fullscreen TV OSD keys ESC is mapped to Exit OSD (as is Y) and ESC is mapped to Back/Exit everywhere else, so it's more logical to only use ESC for this, so I can use my Back remote key consistently.

5) Under Global, F9 is mapped to Context Menu, whilst under Fullscreen TVs and Fullscreen Video specific actions Y is mapped to Toggle the OSD. With my Hauppauge remote, the Info button first shows the OSD and then shows the Context Menu, but I guess this is done using layers so I won't be able to recreate this with AutoHotKey. I think I can work around this by changing Y to F9 (mapped to Info button with AHK) under Fullscreen TVs and Fullscreen Video (to open the OSD) and change the Exit OSD sections under OSD Keys, TV OSD Keys and Fullscreen TV OSD keys to map F9 to <id>106</id> to open the context menu, but as there's no Context Menu section, I don't think I could then have the same button exit the Context Menu as it does with my Hauppauge remote, so I'll just have to use the Back/Exit button for that.

I don't want to use Y as it's also mapped to add/remove item to/from playlist and Select/Deselect a File, which I want to use my Yellow button for (I plan to map Blue to Toggle Playlist, so the Playlist buttons would be together). Yes, I realise that not everyone has coloured buttons ;)

Apart from those issues, I found the Keys and Sounds section much too difficult to use to find out which keys were mapped to what function and it was easier just to search and edit the keymap.xml (but as I said, that gets overwritten by MP Config). I suggest it could be made much more user-friendly if the user could just select a key from a dropdown box and it would show a list of all functions that key was currently assigned to, and allow them to be changed, added, removed. I think this would simplify the remote config section as well as Keys and Sounds. I've attached a rough mockup image of what this could look like. This would also deal with the issue that Keys and Sounds can't currently map a key to a Window command, only to Actions, so currently I'm having to map my remote's shortcut keys to HID commands like {Browser_Stop} and then use the General HID remote config to assign these to the Window commands.

The window "Music Menu" doesn't appear to work either. It displays a screen with icons for Last.FM, Music, Radio, etc but I can't navigate or do anything from there other than exit out with ESC, but perhaps this is a StreamedMP bug.

 

doveman

Portal Pro
February 12, 2008
2,326
178
Home Country
United Kingdom United Kingdom
Well I've moved to EventGhost in conjunction with the MP MessagePlugin now, which is a lot simpler to setup, particularly considering the issues with keymapping in MP. fesarius's post https://forum.team-mediaportal.com/remotes-116/win-7-mp1-1rc1-emprex-remote-79709/#post596550 was a great help.

The only issue I had was that the Power button was still putting the PC to sleep. I tried various things to stop this, such as disabling the HID service, installing Intelliremote (which supposedly traps this key), and adding

"CodeSetNum0"=dword:00000000 ;
"CodeSetNum1"=dword:00000000 ;These four values put the standard global windows keys out of function. These are
"CodeSetNum2"=dword:00000000 ;volume +, -, mute and .... windows sleep mode. I so hated that button
"CodeSetNum3"=dword:00000000 ;

to the RC6 registry key as suggested here, but in the end I just had to change Windows Power Options to set the Power/Sleep buttons to "Do Nothing" and now I can use that key with EventGhost.
 

doveman

Portal Pro
February 12, 2008
2,326
178
Home Country
United Kingdom United Kingdom
Is no-one interested in fixing the inconsistencies in the keymapping I identified?
 

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