[mythtv-users] Raspberry Pi 4 FrontEnd Remote Control Issues

[Stephen Worthington]

On Sat, 16 May 2020 11:37:33 -0500, you wrote:

>
>Hi Stephen!
>
>
>> I would not declare success with just the arrow keys working, but it
>> is definitely a good start.  It is probably better not to tweak Edit
>> Keys but rather to edit the $HOME/.lirc/mythtv file.  That way you can
>> just copy that file to the other MythTV boxes.  When you use Edit
>> Keys, you are also changing what the keyboard keystrokes are. Altering
>> the $HOME/.lirc/mythtv file only affects the remotes.
>
>Follow-up to this – a bit of editing to the /.lirc/mythtv file and got 
>the basic functions to work; had to make a few concessions as don’t have 
>101 keys to play with like on a keyboard, plus preferring to use the 
>semi-basic remote that came with the TV just so nothing extra on the 
>counter. (Could use a programmable remote.
)
>
>At this point have the Seiki TV’s remote able to control play/pause, 
>delete, bookmark, closed captioning, information as desired; the Fast 
>Forward and Rewind functions – acceptable. Probably assign another key 
>other than the arrow keys as they work properly for everything else 
>(menu selection, etc.).
>
>Only thing I haven’t figured out is how to get MythFrontend started from 
>the remote (!). Maybe load-at-boot. (Hint?!)
>
>Barry

You use irexec for that.  You have to edit the /etc/lirc/irexec.lircrc
file first.  In you case, comment out or delete everything in the
file, then select one key from the remote to start mythfrontend with
and put the config for that one key in there.  What irexec does is to
run the command you put in the "config = " line whenever you press
that key.  What you will need to do is get it to run a command or
script file that changes to the mythfrontend user then runs
mythfrontend from that environment.  I think this might work, but I
have not tried it:

config = "su -l <your mythfrontend user> /usr/bin/mythfrontend
--service"

(all on one line)

It is possible that it will need a DISPLAY=:0 environment setting as
well, in which case you would probably need to run a script from the
su -l command and put the environment setting in there.

Once you have irexec configured, do these commands to enable and start
it:

sudo systemctl enable irexec
sudo systemctl start irexec

If you want mythfrontend to load at boot, doing that depends on what
desktop you are running.  If it is XFCE4, then you can run
mythfrontend at boot by setting it up from the GUI.  Go to the Setup
menu, then run "Session and Startup" and click on the "Application
Autostart" tab.  Click on the Add button and in the "Edit application"
window that pops up, fill it in like this:

Name: MythTV Frontend
Description: A frontend for all content on a mythtv-backend
Command: mythfrontend --service

That is what is installed automatically when you install the
mythfrontend package on Xubuntu.  It may already be there - if so,
just tick it to enable it to be run at boot.