Skip Steps with mouse and touch (1 Viewer)

paulot

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January 16, 2017
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MediaPortal 1.15 works great with an MCE remote control. It's pretty good too with a mouse and touch interface using PureVision HD, except for the inability to use Skip Steps in Recorded TV. When I click or touch on the Previous ( |< ) and Next ( >| ) buttons on the top menu, nothing happens. As a result, I can't skip through commercials unless I have a keyboard or remote handy. (I find Fast Forward too imprecise). I have tried with several different skins. Any suggestions (other than ComSkip, which I will try later)?
 

RonD

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  • December 20, 2011
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    MP1 is not real mouse friendly since you can't scroll time in EPG, do time skip left/right, or adjust volume.

    I use a Logitech M510 mouse that has a few extra buttons. The US price is around $40, but I see them from on sale for $20 sometimes. Seems like I wear out the "wheel left/right" after 6 to 12 months and buy a spare when I see it on sale. M510 Wireless Laser Mouse - Logitech

    With the Logitech Setpoint SW you can program mouse buttons to send keystrokes. I do the following

    Mouse 2 side buttons send "left arrow" "right arrow", for time skip or EPG scroll time
    Mouse Wheel left or right do volume up and down
    Mouse Wheel "click" sends "Enter"

    Not great but with a little hands-on time I can do all normal EPG functions, watch TV, time skip, adjust volume, etc. Takes a little practice to get used to controls.
     

    paulot

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    Thanks for the tip. Here is how I ended up fixing this to my liking:
    In each Skin folder, there is a file called topbar.xml. This is where all the buttons and actions for the topbar are specified - the xml is easy to understand. Using Notepad, I changed the "action" attribute for Previous ( |< ) and Next ( >| ) buttons so that the SkipSteps function is invoked rather then the default Previous and Next (details below). I also made some other changes to the topbar to make it (in my view) more intuitive:
    • Changed the Action tag of the Previous (called 'Skipback' in the xml) button from 15 to 21 [to enable the SkipStep Back function]
    • Changed the Action tag of the Next button from 14 to 20 [to enable the SkipStep Forward function]
    • Changed the Action tag of the Videowallpaper button [a bracketed square] from 101 to 104 [to enable FullScreen on/off toggle]
    • Removed the Shutdown button [to prevent shutting down the computer via the GUI]
    • Changed the order of the buttons in the topbar so that Rewind, Fast Forward, Previous and Next are together
    • Changed the width of the control to 814 from 872 since there is one less button to display
    I found the list of Action tags here: https://forum.team-mediaportal.com/threads/i-need-a-list-of-action-command.56610/

    I would have liked to keep the original Previous and Next functions and just add Skip Steps buttons, but it would have made the topbar too wide, and I could not figure out how to force a 'line wrap' in the xml... If anyone knows, please chime in.
     

    paulot

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    Thanks. I don't suppose you would know how I can force a line feed in the topbar.xml? (So that I could have a second row of buttons below the first one.)
     

    catavolt

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    There is no possibility for line feed in top bar ;)
    BUT: You can add a second line to the topbar - just make a new button group and give it the correct position and content ;)
     

    CyberSimian

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    I don't suppose you would know how I can force a line feed in the topbar.xml? (So that I could have a second row of buttons below the first one.)
    I have never used this, but the Wiki shows a function called "GridLayout", which looks as though it might create a multi-row button grid. There are 15 occurrences of it in the "Titan" skin. This is the function description:

    GridLayout(columns, rows, horizontalSpacing, verticalSpacing, orientation)

    The "GridLayout" function is used with the LAYOUT tag. Apologies if I have completely misunderstood what "GridLayout" does. o_O

    -- from CyberSimian in the UK
     

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