[mythtv-users] Overloading the JUMPPREV and PREVCHAN key bindings

Yeechang Lee ylee at pobox.com
Sun Oct 22 16:00:44 UTC 2006


I'm a big fan of overloading keybindings. Doing so whenever possible
and sensible not only simplifies the mental process of "What do I
press to do that?", it preserves valuable keystroke/remote-button real
estate. (As a reminder, I use a Home Theater Master MX-500 trained
with an IR keyboard; see
<URL:http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/mythtv/users/170450#170450>
for details.) Some examples, and a suggestion for improvement at the
end:

* I long ago bound TV Frontend|DETAILS and TV Editing|INVERTMAP to the
  same key as Global|INFO. This way, the same DIS button on the remote
  (see <URL:http://www.remotecentral.com/mx500/photo1.htm> for a
  closeup of the remote) pulls up the OSD when in TV Playback (playing
  back a recording or in Live TV) mode, shows program details outside
  it, and "I"nverts cutpoints in editing mode.
* MythTV intelligently interprets Global|PAGEDOWN and PAGEUP to act as
  TV Frontend|PAGEDOWN and PAGEUP even without explicitly binding the
  two sets of settings with the same keys. I've bound the CH + and CH
  - remote buttons to emit PgUp and PgDown keystrokes and thus
  can use the buttons to scroll up and down pages of info (program
  guide, program listings, etc.) almost everywhere. (I've filed a
  ticket on one surprising omission; see
  <URL:http://svn.mythtv.org/trac/ticket/2602>. I've also added the
  same keystrokes to the TV Playback|CHANNELDOWN and CHANNELUP
  bindings, in order so that the CH + and - buttons actually change
  the channel in Live TV mode!)
* Similarly, although there's an explicit TV Playback|CLEAROSD
  binding, I've never needed to use it because MythTV properly
  interprets Global|ESCAPE (the Stop button on my remote) as CLEAROSD
  when the OSD is on the screen.
* I have two of the programmable remote buttons set to the
  Global|Program Finder and Global|Program Guide bindings. I just
  began using John Poet's patch to have MythTV prefer local bindings
  over global
  (<URL:http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/mythtv/dev/231202#231202>),
  and like him have set TV Playback|FINDER and TV Playback|GUIDE to
  the same keys as the Global bindings. Now, the same button that
  normally jumps me to the "regular" Program Guide and Program Finder
  screens will, within recording playback and Live TV modes, take me
  to the "special" versions of these screens that let me return
  instantly to what I was watching when done.

Now, my request: See the PREV CH remote button? I've, naturally, bound
it to TV Playback|PREVCHAN. I'd also like to bind TV Playback|JUMPPREV
to the same button because the Jump to Recording function in
recording-playback mode doesn't appear in Live TV, and Live TV's
previous-channel function doesn't appear in recording-playback
mode. This could be done either by permitting the two bindings to
share the same key, or by getting rid of one and having the other act
as both functions depending on the context. (PREVCHAN should probably
be the survivor in the latter case because it's been around a lot
longer, and I'll bet a lot more people have keys and buttons bound to
PREVCHAN than to JUMPPREV.)  Heck, I'd bet that even a single SQL
command to manually set the two bindings and thus bypass the
safeguards built into MythControl would work.

-- 
Yeechang Lee <ylee at pobox.com> | +1 650 776 7763 | San Francisco CA US


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