Vista MCE Remote Control VRC-1100 (2 Viewers)

[joecrow]

I really like the new version, congratulations, great work. All problems on the previous versions now seem to be fixed.

Just one customisation I would like be able to make is for the Browser Home button/action to also work from within MP. I tried commenting out the If/Else code for the button in the .ahk but that made no difference and I have no idea what the action (if there is one) would be to map to the button. Please let me know if this is possible.

 

[CyberSimian]

Just one customisation I would like be able to make is for the Browser Home button/action to also work from within MP.

Using the default configuration, the BROWSER_HOME button should behave like this:

When MP Is Running And Has The Focus
(1) If the current panel is the "TV Guide" or "Radio Guide" panel, BROWSER_HOME scrolls the guide to display the programmes for the current time.
(2) On all other panels, BROWSER_HOME starts your default browser and displays your home page.

Are you seeing a different behaviour? If you don't want the scroll action in "TV Guide" and "Radio Guide", you can use the "Mapping" panel in "MP Config" to change the actions defined for BROWSER_HOME (simply delete the entries for the "TV Guide" and "Radio Guide" panels).

Note: there isn't an MP function for BROWSER_HOME, so the default configuration uses the window called "Wikipedia" to mean BROWSER_HOME. If you are using the Wikipedia plugin, and want the "Wikipedia" window to show a Wikipedia page, modify the INI file "Centarea HID.ini" to specify some other window/action to mean BROWSER_HOME, and then select that window/action when using the "Mapping" panel. See the explanation of BROWSER_HOME in the TXT file for further details.

-- from CyberSimian in the UK

 

[joecrow]

Using the default configuration, the BROWSER_HOME button should behave like this:

When MP Is Running And Has The Focus
(1) If the current panel is the "TV Guide" or "Radio Guide" panel, BROWSER_HOME scrolls the guide to display the programmes for the current time.
(2) On all other panels, BROWSER_HOME starts your default browser and displays your home page.

Are you seeing a different behaviour?
-- from CyberSimian in the UK

Yes, with default config. and the TV Guide open pressing the Browser Home button does roll it back to the current time but from anywhere else in MP (main home gui,TV, Music etc,) pressing the button does nothing at all. With MP closed or the AutoHotKey script not running it works fine. I even tried with the mapping for TV/Radio Guide removed so just "No Condition" and Wikipedia mapped but still no go. It looks like the Wikipedia window is just not working for me, I have never used it and the plugin was disabled in MP config but enabling it made no difference either. This problem is happening on both my 1.16pr (Madvr branch) and The release version of 1.15. Hope you can help.

BTW you may want to ammend your otherwise excellent documentaion text files to indicate that the install folder C:\ProgramData\Team MediaPortal\MediaPortal\InputDeviceMappings\ will only be present if the user has changed the mapping of a device in the past, i.e from a fresh install or no changes it won't be there. Then MP will use the default InputDeviceMappings located in ProgramFiles(x86)\Team Media Porta\MediaPortal\defaults and I guess only saves it to Program Data when changes have been made and thus preserve user config. through an upgrade etc.


C:\ProgramData\Team MediaPortal\MediaPortal\InputDeviceMappings\ is absolutely the right place for the install but you may want to inform people that it may need to be generated by making a mapping change first.

UPDATE
After a bit more playing arround I mapped the * button to Wikipedia and with the plugin enabled it did go to the Wikipedia page but the Browser Home burtton did not. With the the plugin disabled there was no action.

 

[CyberSimian]

Yes, with default config. and the TV Guide open pressing the Browser Home button does roll it back to the current time but from anywhere else in MP (main home gui,TV, Music etc,) pressing the button does nothing at all. With MP closed or the AutoHotKey script not running it works fine. I even tried with the mapping for TV/Radio Guide removed so just "No Condition" and Wikipedia mapped but still no go.

I tested this again on my system, and it does work as intended. But I am using MP 1.12 final. The MP HID processing has changed since MP 1.12, and perhaps there is some unexpected side effect of those changes. Unfortunately, I overwrote my 1.16 pre-release test partition, and will need to re-install it (which I cannot do until tomorrow) .

One check: make sure that you have deselected all tabs in "Remotes and Input Devices" except for the "Sceneo" tab. Also, on the "Sceneo" tab, check that only "Centarea HID" is selected.

BTW you may want to ammend your otherwise excellent documentaion text files to indicate that the install folder C:\ProgramData\Team MediaPortal\MediaPortal\InputDeviceMappings\ will only be present if the user has changed the mapping of a device in the past

Thank you -- I had forgotten about that. I will update the TXT file appropriately.

I will post again when I have tested MP 1.16 pre. Thank you for reporting this problem.

-- from CyberSimian in the UK

 

[CyberSimian]

with default config. and the TV Guide open pressing the Browser Home button does roll it back to the current time but from anywhere else in MP (main home gui,TV, Music etc,) pressing the button does nothing at all.

I have installed a version of MP 1.16 pre-release in my test partition, and it works correctly.

What version of AutoHotKey are you using? I am using 1.0.48.05, which I now realise is quite old. I have just downloaded the current release, which is 1.1.24.03. Possibly there is some difference in the way that these two versions work.

Also, is your system 32-bit or 64-bit? And which version of Windows are you using? Thanks.

-- from CyberSimian in the UK

 

[joecrow]

Yes very strange. I'm runningAutoHotkey ver. 1.1.23.01 with Win 10 pro x 64. Also double checked settings under Remotes and Input Devices and all is as it should be.
I'll install the latest ver. of AHk and redo the complete install of your scripts and get back to you. (most likley not till tomorrow)

UPDATE:-
It did not take as long as I thought it would, reinstalled as per above but still the same.

 

[CyberSimian]

It did not take as long as I thought it would, reinstalled as per above but still the same.

I have updated my 32-bit Vista system to the latest AutoHotKey release, and the result is the same -- it still works correctly. May I ask you to perform the following?

(1) Reset your "InputDeviceMappings" to the files as provided in the package (no personal edits).

(2) Modify the INI file "Centarea HID.ini". In the "[debug]" section at the end, set "run_mode" to the value "TEST".

(3) Start MP. You will now get numerous message boxes appearing displaying various values. Press the ENTER key on the keyboard, or the OK button on the remote. You will have to do this about 30 times. We don't need to look at the information at this time.

(4) Eventually an AutoHotKey window will appear. At this point the script is paused, and the values of the variables are displayed. Click "File" (top left) and then click "Pause". This will unpause the script, which will run to completion. MP will start.

(5) On the "Home" panel, press the BROWSER_HOME button on the remote. Another message box will appear. What does it show? It should show:
"Is button native: [1]"
If you get:
"Is button native: [0]"
it indicates that there is an error in the processing performed by the script. If you get the expected result, the error resides elsewhere. Thanks.

-- from CyberSimian in the UK

 

[joecrow]

OK actually deleted the entire contents of the InputDeviceMappings folder, turned off virus protection, (for the complete exercise just in case) extracted and reinstalled the scripts and moded the .ini to test. The result was:-

"Is button native: [1]"

If you get the expected result, the error resides elsewhere.

Any suggestion of where elsewhere?

UPDATE:-
Tried changing the settings in AutoHotKey as per the screenshots below (normally 64bit) but still no go.

 

[CyberSimian]

If you get the expected result, the error resides elsewhere.

Any suggestion of where elsewhere?

At this moment I am stumped. Recapping what I think we know:

(1) If MP is not running, BROWSER_HOME starts the browser.

(2) If MP is running without the AHK script, BROWSER_HOME starts the browser.

(3) If MP is running with the AHK script, BROWSER_HOME results in "Is button native=1", which causes the AHK script to send BROWSER_HOME , but this produces no result.

(4) On 32-bit Vista this all works correctly.

A couple of possibilities:

(5) I read periodically on the WMC forum about users who have remotes with some buttons that stop working. This mostly seems to be caused by other applications "getting in the way". Two that come to mind are the Chrome browser and iTunes, but there may be other applications. Are you using either of these applications, or perhaps similar applications? If so, try closing the visible part of the application, and stopping the server part of the application (if it has one). Does this change the behaviour of BROWSER_HOME?

(6) Six people have downloaded the latest version of the support package. Is anyone else using Windows 10? If so, can you please try pressing the BROWSER_HOME button when on the MP "Home" panel, using the uncustomised files (i.e. as provided in the package). Does the browser start? Please let us know. Thank you.

-- from CyberSimian in the UK

 

[joecrow]

Questions, 1-3 the answer is yes that is what I see.

Question 4, sadly Vista is not an option for me.

Question 5, my default browser is Firefox, I'll give Edge, or whatever MS is offering these days, a try but no Chrome or Itunes. On my HTPC I do use the CEC Remote plugin to put the AVR and TV to sleep/resume and a number of other plugins, but on my desktop, where it also fails in the same way, the MP install is very basic with just the Online Videos plugin. MP on both PCs use the Default Wide HD skin.

I have now commented out all references to Browser Home in both the ,ahk and .ini files and the Browser Home button works from within MP without loss, as far as I can tell of any other function other than the rollback in the guides, which is no problem.

UPDATE:-

I tried with the default browser set to be MS Edge but still no change. My guess is there has been a change in Win 10 on how the default browser is defined. Note that unlike Win 7 and earlier versions, Win 10 does not allow the browser to set itself as the default, you have to go into Win 10 Settings/Default Apps and specify which one you want as the default.