[mythtv-users] FF/Rew Sticky keys gone?

Michael T. Dean mtdean at thirdcontact.com
Wed Oct 27 04:56:27 UTC 2010


  On 10/26/2010 11:37 PM, DaveD wrote:
> Sticky keys in ff/rew doesn't work very well in 0.24.  When 
> fast-forwarding or rewinding, pressing the play button to exit the 
> ff/rew mode takes several seconds before it responds and hitting a 
> specific location is impossible.  It has greatly degraded the 
> usability of the player.  I'm guessing support is being phased out (or 
> just plain dropped) for the sticky key ff/rew mode since the new 
> version doesn't have a checkbox for sticky keys in the setup.  Without 
> this setting I don't know how to turn it off in my upgraded system.  
> My new frontend doesn't use the sticky keys and there does not seem to 
> be any way to turn it on.  Anyone know how to turn it off?

No, there are no plans to drop support for it.  Sticky /keys/--like so 
many of the other "settings" we have/had--is not a setting.  It's really 
just a key binding.  Therefore, before 0.23, it's configuration was 
moved to use key bindings.

  * If you want to use the old sticky keys behavior:
     - make sure Left/Right keys are /not/ bound to SEEKRWND/SEEKFFWD or 
RWNDSTICKY/FFWDSTICKY in the TV Playback context, so that you fall back 
to using the LEFT/RIGHT keys bound to the Global context.***
  * If you want to use the old non-sticky keys behavior:
     - make sure the keys you want to use (Left/Right) are not bound to 
RWNDSTICKY/FFWDSTICKY in the TV Playback context and bind those keys to 
SEEKRWND/SEEKFFWD.  The keys you bind may be the same keys used by 
LEFT/RIGHT in the Global context.
  * If you want to use both sticky and non-sticky keys (this is the 
default configuration of the key bindings):
     - bind the keys you want to use for sticky usage to 
RWNDSTICKY/FFWDSTICKY in the TV Playback context (by default , or < for 
RWNDSTICKY and > or . for FFWDSTICKY).
     - bind the keys you want to use for non-sticky usage to 
SEEKRWND/SEEKFFWD in the TV Playback context (by default Left for 
SEEKRWND and Right for SEEKFFWD).

(And, yes, there is a difference between using RWNDSTICKY/FFWDSTICKY and 
using LEFT/RIGHT key bindings.  If you only have one set of keys on your 
remote and want the sticky behavior, you will /not/ want those keys to 
be only RWNDSTICKY/FFWDSTICKY because doing so will change the way 
seeking works.  So, do as above and use SEEKRWND/SEEKFFWD if you're only 
providing access to one set of keys on your remote.)

In the future it will get better/more intuitive, but I have to unroll 
all the key bindings overloads (where a key binding meant for one thing 
has different effects in different circumstances) before I can make it easy.

In other cases (like the System Exit Key setting), it's more 
straightforward (so, for 0.24, you will simply map the key or key 
combination you want to use to exit mythfrontend to the EXIT binding in 
Main Menu context--and, yes, using real key bindings allows you to use 
*any* key to exit).  Unfortunately, the code that deals with /all/ of 
arbitrary, incremental, and absolute seeking as well as fast forward and 
rewind is likely the most complex of the key binding overloads we had, 
so the interim solution outlined above will likely require a "cheat 
sheet" for people to figure out how to configure their systems.

>   Or, better yet, make it work like it did in 0.22?

There are known issues with responsiveness during fast forward and 
rewind.  For now, you get what you get.  :-\

Mike

*** Technically, you can use any keys you want to use for the 
"traditional" sticky keys functionality, but they have to be mapped to a 
key binding called LEFT/RIGHT.  So, if you want to use some key that 
differs from your Global LEFT/RIGHT keys, you'd create a LEFT/RIGHT key 
binding in TV Playback context that overrides the Global definition.  
Unfortunately, there is no UI that allows you to override a Global key 
binding in a non-Global context, yet.  There will be as soon as I get a 
chance to put that UI in place.


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