Webbrowser: FirefoxIntegrator (4 Viewers)

[zunixnuz]

Have red you posts again. Are you saying that FFI (mouse mode and text mode) only can act upon keystrokes sent with an iMon remote??

No, FFI act with MediaPortal keyboard shortcuts.
iMon remotes control MediaPortal with keyboard shortcuts, e.g. if press [Rewind] on iMon remote
the keystroke [F5] will be send to MediaPortal (see also KeyboardShortcuts - MediaPortal Manual Documentation).

So every remote which is able to produce simple keyboard keystrokes can act with MediaPortal and also with FirefoxIntegrator.
With [F3] you can switch through all input modes in FirefoxIntegrator and if input mode "Mouse control" is selected,
you are able to move your mouse cursor with the number keys:
[1],[2],[3],[4],[6],[7],[8],[9] ...Mouse cursor move to all directions
[5] ...Mouse click left
[0] ...Mouse click right
=> you also can try this very simple with your keyboard keys

 

[hallergard]

When I use the keyboard the "standard keys" mentioned in FFI.txt function as stated and for all other keys the Firefox keyboard shortcuts seem to work. Eg. F6 in Firefox is tab to next frame and not Zoom-, which i Firefox is is {Ctrl}-, which also works as it is not among the "Standard keys". This is the same regardless of if I have configured MP to Haupauge or MCE remote. And it is the same regardles of mode (keyboard, SMS or mouse) except of course for the number keys, which function as expected. This is fine.

So why does not Hauppauge remote work. I send the same key strokes as above, but nothing happens. Same if
I have configured to Haupauge or MCE remote. Is there some kind of translation process going on through MP?? Could you please explain. Thanks in advance, zunixniz

 

[zunixnuz]

So why does not Hauppauge remote work.

With iMon you have to link the application (e.g. MediaPortal.exe) with a free configurable remote-key to keyboard-key translation table.
So if MediaPortal is in focus (most foreground window) iMon uses this table.
You are able to create different remote-key to keyboard-key tables for different applications.
So in our case, if FirefoxIntegrator starts Firefox, Firefox is the most foreground window and iMon needs
a own remote-key to keyboard-key table for Firefox.
For iMon you simply have to link the application Firefox.exe with the same table which is also used with MediaPortal.

I am not familiar with Hauppauge remotes but maybe this is similar and you only need to configure the same
remote translation table with Firefox.exe which you use for MediaPortal.exe!?

 

[hallergard]

Thanks, zunixnuz. We have problems understanding eachother, but we are getting there. I think that the FirefoxIntegrator is a very interesting concept. Today computers and TV:s are merging technologies. The first TV:s with internet are in my opinion approaching this from the wrong side - they are adding a mobile phone operating system rather than a proper system. So be it, but they run into the problem of how to surf the internet with a remote controller. What they have so far come up with is getting partners (YouTube & Picasa) to write special sites that are easy to tab with the direction keys - but it means you don't get their full service. Best so far is Panasonic, but not good enough in my opinion. I believe the the TV should become just a very good one montior on the home network at least as far as internet goes. But you have to be able to use the remote as a mouse and be able to text (sms) your searches. I am surprised that Philips doesn´t push their Pronto concept with their Net-TV. Anyway, this is why I am trying to understand how FirefoxIntegrator works.

When I configured MP to use the Hauppauge remote, the MP itself works perfectly with the remote without any mapping whatsoever, but starting the FFI there is nothing the remote can do. I have concluded that the FFI is written to work exclusively with MCE codes. So I changed the MP config to using the MCE remote.

The first problem I encountered is that MP does not work anymore with my remote, not even up, down, and enter the menu. I am sure that's rather easy to fix, at least the essentials, but this is not my priority right now.

Then starting FFI the remote of course doesn't work with my old (Haupauge) mappings. My remote has 45 buttons, problem areas:
a. 0-9 and VolUp and VolDown do have the same codes!
b. 12 of the buttons send codes that MCE doesn't recognise, eg the OK button sends code59 which is not recognized by MCE (which uses code34 for OK - and H cannot send code 34) - so I cannot use the OK button.
c. 22 of the codes are in common with MCE, but for different buttons - so quite some remapping has to be done. Believe that I will be able to keep the most important navigation commands, but this requires the mouse to function - otherwise I will loose to much of the Firefox capabilities.
d. The 22 buttons in c) will not be good enough to manage my (non internet, non-FFI) multimedia menus written in simple HTML. E.g. I have to use F6 to move to next frame but FFI recognizes F6 only as Zoom in. Using the H mode command I am hopeful to create a [firefox] mapping for FFI and a [mozilla] mapping for my family videos.

I just managed to get the mouse to function with the remote - so I feel quite optimistic about this right now, though I have a lot to do to wrap it up.

 

[hallergard]

Done most of it and it seems good, but have this issue left: You have remapped F6 to mean Zoom in. I am using the Firefox F6 to move focus to the next frame. (I have written HTML menus based on frames for my media lirbrary of family videos and music videos - I use the Firefox {Ctrl}+ to Zoom in).

Is it possible to make a patch?

 

[zunixnuz]

Is it possible to make a patch?

If you want to have special shortcuts you can easily change the original source file which is included in the download package
and create a new exe file with AutoHotkey.

 

[hallergard]

Yes, you can control the mouse cursor and you can text/sms with a Hauppauge remote control, using the FirefoxIntegrator (FFI)! Enclosed are the relevant parts of my Hauppauge configuration file, irremote.ini, and an Excel file showing the mapping used. This applies to the 45 button silver Hauppauge remote control.

If you configure MediaPortal (MP) to use the Hauppauge remote, you don't need any entries in the irremote.ini for MP, but the FFI will not respond at all. So configure MP to use Microsoft MCE instead! First you loose 12 buttons, and then you'll have to include a section with mappings for MP in the irremote.ini. Actually, most of the important functionality is still there for MP.

As to FFI I was intending to use two application settings, one for my own firefox [mozilla] and one for FFI [firefox], and use the mode commands to steer. This was more difficult that I had anticipated, and though I got it working fairly well, I decided to only have one section [mozilla]. Had used the number keys to start various applications and these I now moved to the Picasa section. Had to make room for two additional keys for FFI (F3 for the SMS/Keyboard/Mouse toggle and "h" for the MP Home.

Then I had a very nice surprise: on the Excel sheet you can see the empty spaces for keys not working with MP-MCE, but they did work with FFI. E.g. the button >>Forward cannot find a mapping in FFI but then Firefox picks it up and opens in a new window. I wanted the Prev Ch button to be F6 to move to the next frame, but FFI interprets F6 as Zoom In. So I had the bright idea to put F6 in one of the empty places, such as >>Forward, but alas it still Zooms In.

I will try to learn how to hack the source code and to compile a new exe-file, to amongst others find a solution for the F6 command, as all the multi-media menus I have written in HTML are based on using frames.

Thanks for your help, zunixnuz!

 

[hallergard]

It was easier than I thought to edit the source and recompile. Got my F6 at PrevCh as I wanted. Took away the F11 full screen start, which I found was blocking at least some of the keys. Cheers

 

[Crabstick]

Hi,

I use MCE remote and I too have problems with all buttons except arrows and numbers which work ok.

I solved this by setting *=browser back and #=SMS/mouse control. This allows me to use the most basic features of the browser without the need to dig up the keyboard. I also made a change so that when entering letters in SMS-mode, the character is displayed on screen. I added @-sign to the set of characters for button 2. This is in case you need to log in to some forums with email address or something.

Hope this helps anyone with MCE remote. At least now I can use it.

 

[hallergard]

Hi Crabstick,

I liked the way the caracters are display, and I wish the numbers also were displayed in the same way! It is now quite easy to copy your script to add more caracters like / \ * etc.

Did not quite understand the *=browser as I did not see any sign of that in your script. Or did you mean that separately from the script you have dedicated the * button to reset the mode to browser?

Am not sure if I can or would want to do that. Am using the Hauppauge remote and there are 9 buttons that are not recognized by MediaPortal, but FFI picks up the Firefox settings in my irremote.ini for those buttons. The only problems I have is when the MediaPortal settings conflict with my Firefox settings, but it is quite easy to cut those away (F5, F6, F7 and F8) from the script.

Thanks!