[mythtv-users] WAF remote... Apple Remote?

[Stroller]

On 20 Jan 2007, at 10:00, David Whyte wrote:

> On 1/20/07, Michael Lynch <lynchmv at gmail.com> wrote:
>> OK, I couldn't resist this:
>>
>> http://www.woot.com/
>>
>> How much simpler could a remote get, any wife would love one.
>
> True, whilst it is simply, I don't think it is overly practicle.  What
> do you have to do to bring up the menu?  Tap play, pause and stop?
> And to bring up the guide you tap stop, pause, play?

I mentioned the Apple Remote in a previous post, but only as an aside  
and I didn't hear from anyone using one with a MythTV system. It is  
twice the price, but has 50% more buttons, 6 in all. Might these  
additional buttons be sufficient for bringing up the menus & guide?

I haven't built my MythTV, yet (and have in fact never used Myth) so  
can't asses how likely it is that the Apple Remote (or the Kensington  
one in the OP's link) will be usable for Myth, but there's a big bit  
of me that wants it to be. I guess I'm a fanboi, but I like the idea  
of a nice simple remote and not having to remember that I've mapped a  
function onto a button with an entirely different label (I can  
imagine that this is possible or likely in Myth?). I can see the  
argument that says "why have many buttons on the remote when you can  
have all the buttons you need - contextually, too - on the GUI?"; the  
ideal remote & on-screen UI should give one exactly the number of  
buttons / functions one needs at any time, and never have an  
overwhelming number of functions or unused buttons. To be honest I'd  
probably be quite happy using a standard 30-button remote, but I like  
the idea of using the Apple Remote with Myth.

I have found a LIRC config for the Apple Remote, but I gather LIRC  
can be used to control other Linux apps than Myth, so don't know if  
anyone's actually using an Apple Remote with Myth on Linux. I have  
found a patch to make Myth more friendly to the Apple Remote (and  
this has been in SVN since 21/8/2006) but the author was using the  
Myth frontend on a Mac Mini (running OS X, I think), so I'm not sure  
how this behaves on Linux.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Remote
http://tinyurl.com/267rfn
http://lirc.sourceforge.net/remotes/apple/
http://svn.mythtv.org/trac/ticket/2017

Stroller.R