[mythtv] Mythtv & Lirc

Xavier Hervy xavier.hervy at bluebottle.com
Thu Jan 31 19:48:48 UTC 2008


Ronald Frazier wrote:
>>> Doesn't it already work that way?
>>>       
>> volume up/down/mute are the exception rather than the rule
>>     
>
> Actually, now that I think of it, I wonder if they even are an
> exception. It just dawned on me that those might not be for lirc at
> all, but for the extra buttons on those multimedia keyboards with all
> the buttons across the top. I wouldn't know, because I've never had a
> keyboard with more than 104 keys :-)
>   

I have a remote control recognise by the X serve like a multimedia 
keyboard (only half of the key does work :( )
I did use xmodmap to map those key to some key find in 
/usr/share/X11/XKeysymDB but some of them doesn't work as not all 
multimedia key are supported by qt :(
>
>   
>> try using myth for a while with a remote and you will pretty soon find
>> how difficult it is.
>>     
>
> Actually, I use it exclusively with a remote. I have one that came
> with my Hauppage PVR-350:
> http://gbpvr.com/pmwiki/uploads/Hardware/new_remote_medium.jpg
>   
I have the same
> and I've also got it mapped to the DVR-2 setting of my TiVo remote.
>
> I find that I manage to accomplish most of the things I need to do
> without problem, but I've done a bit of tweaking to get it to that
> state. For a few of the keys, I've written a perl script that monitors
> lirc for certain remote event and then connects to mythfrontend via
> the telnet port and issues command.
>
> For instance...the guide button. I tried mapping it directly to bring
> up the program guide but ran into a problem. I couldn't figure out a
> way for it to use the LiveTV guide while watching LiveTV, but use the
> regular guide when not in LiveTV. What my script does is watch for the
> key, connect to the telnet port and query the current status of
> mythfrontend, and then issue commands to switch myth to the
> appropriate version of the Guide.
>
> Also, my wife is in love with the TiVo, and I'm still having trouble
> getting her to switch. I'm trying to make things behave as similarly
> in myth as I can. Thats why I setup the TiVo remote to control myth.
> I've also used my script to do a similar mapping with the TiVo button.
> If you are not in the menu, it takes you to the main menu. If you are
> already in the menu, it takes you to the watch recordings screen, just
> like it does on the TiVo with the main menu/now playing screen.
>
> If you are interested, I can follow up with further details and
> provide a copy of the script.
>   
I might be interested in this script too.
About myth behaving like Tivo. I don't think it is the problem.
At the moment we configure the remote fit the need of myth when myth guy 
should reflect the remote. Then it would feel more natural to use myth 
for a (new) user.
A simple example, is those remote control which have a meaningless set 
of buttons like red, green, yellow, blue buttons. It would improved Myth 
usability if the gui was aware of this and make use of it (visually).
For example in the recording menu, having on the bottom of the screen 
something like:
<red>Delete</red><green>Mark as 
watched</green><yellow>Info</yellow><blue>what else ?</blue>
Configurable of course, so the user can pick up the action he use the most

>
>
>   
>> but there are a whole lot of keys which are only defined for one usage.
>> for a button challenged remote, this can get quite difficult.
>>     
>
> I certainly understand not having as many buttons as you wish, so no
> argument there. However, I don't quite follow you on this statement.
> You can reuse the same key in the different sections, so reusing
> buttons is not a problem. And within a given section, it doesn't make
> much sense to have a button do multiple things, unless you wanted to
> to pop up a custom menu....which might not be a terrible idea, if you
> mapped 1 button to the custom menu to get access to all of the less
> often used functions.
>
>   
In fact I think it is a very clever Idea !!!!
(thanks for the idea might to test it to see if it is good or not)
Xavier

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