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[WINDOWS] HOW-TO use a Logitech Harmony Remote with XBMC - Printable Version

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+---- Thread: [WINDOWS] HOW-TO use a Logitech Harmony Remote with XBMC (/showthread.php?tid=77519)



- StefanM - 2011-02-18

harvey21 Wrote:I'm having the same problem as StefanM. MCE remote works fine but keyboards commands don't work for some reason. Any help is greatly appreciated.

The best solution i have found, is getting a custom keymap. Hereby you can ignore keyboard shortcuts, and just use Windows Media Center function.

You can find the best solution here

My problem is that still, i cant get keyboard functions to work proper. f.ex i want XBMC to start by pressing F7, but this keystroke will not work through Harmony.


- bodhi - 2011-02-18

StefanM Wrote:The best solution i have found, is getting a custom keymap. Hereby you can ignore keyboard shortcuts, and just use Windows Media Center function.

You can find the best solution here

My problem is that still, i cant get keyboard functions to work proper. f.ex i want XBMC to start by pressing F7, but this keystroke will not work through Harmony.

F7 is available in MCE Keyboard and works fine.


- harvey21 - 2011-02-18

StefanM Wrote:The best solution i have found, is getting a custom keymap. Hereby you can ignore keyboard shortcuts, and just use Windows Media Center function.

You can find the best solution here

My problem is that still, i cant get keyboard functions to work proper. f.ex i want XBMC to start by pressing F7, but this keystroke will not work through Harmony.

I got it to work. For some reason, when I was testing it, the remote was too close to the IR receiver. Once I got farther (about 6 ft.), it started working well.....strange.


- ItzMar - 2011-02-22

Just want to say thanks to vanOert for creating this thread, the process of using my Harmony One with my HTPC was one that I knew could be done but having this guide made the whole process so much easier.


- sufreak - 2011-02-23

All,
vanOert and I have been speaking. This Harmony thread had gotten a bit long in the tooth and our methods have evolved and grown over time. We will be taking the next few weeks to create this thread properly, including properly step by step instructions, featuring screen shots.

In addition to the general setup, we will have "How To"s for optional things such as sleep, advancedxml tips (SMSkeys), Hulu integration, and other perks. The idea will be to use a clean Win7 system, with as little extra software as possible. (my setup has no extras).

Thank you for your patience. Please post your suggestions in this thread while we build this new one, located here: http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?p=732919#post732919


- bodhi - 2011-02-23

sufreak Wrote:All,
vanOert and I have been speaking. This Harmony thread had gotten a bit long in the tooth and our methods have evolved and grown over time. We will be taking the next few weeks to create this thread properly, including properly step by step instructions, featuring screen shots.

In addition to the general setup, we will have "How To"s for optional things such as sleep, advancedxml tips (SMSkeys), Hulu integration, and other perks. The idea will be to use a clean Win7 system, with as little extra software as possible. (my setup has no extras).

Thank you for your patience. Please post your suggestions in this thread while we build this new one, located here: http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?p=732919#post732919

Kudos sufreak and vanOert!

Suggestion:

- Have a section for keyboard.xml. A real simple one that shows how to add a key to the user-defined keyboard.xml, put this customized file in the appropriate directory in Windows XP, 7, ... and how to program that as a soft key in the Harmony LCD screen. Example: Cycling through Subtitles. This simple addition seems to be asked most often, and can serve to be a guide to add any kind of action that the Harmony database does not provide.


- sufreak - 2011-02-23

Absolutely. We'll have the keymaps section (not sure if I added it yet), which will have all those features. If you already have it set up, can you post how you did it, so we can save the research?


- balforth - 2011-02-23

Hmm.. sorry about posting in the new thread. I thought you meant that this thread was getting closed out and we should all start using the new one. Anyway, here is what I posted over there:

****************

Well I guess I'll take the first post in the new thread

The original thread helped me a lot and I'm thrilled to have my remote controlling XBMC and SlingPlayer. I'm having a couple of issues though...

1) For XBMC, I have skip forward mapped to "." and skip back mapped to "Comma" in the MCE Keyboard. However, skip back doesn't work, and it's the only thing that doesn't work for XBMC. Any ideas what could be causing this? Is it something wierd in that it doesn't show "," but instead the word "Comma"?

2) Power issues -- I have 4 devices: My TV, receiver, MCE Keyboard, and Media Center SE. Both keyboard and SE are set to not have power buttons, while the TV and receiver are set to have a single power toggle button. My activities are configured to leave everything on when not in use. I have one activity for XBMC and one for SlingPlayer. I have soft buttons to start each app using Win+num key and to close using Alt-F4... they don't start/shut down automatically, which is the way I want it. I leave my HTPC on all the time, so I thought with this configuration the power button on the remote would shut down the TV and receiver, however it does nothing. How can I make the power button control the TV and receiver only?

3) Any advice on custom key combinations? SlingPlayer uses silly stuff like Ctrl-Shift-R for record. My only thoughts at this point are having to use EventGhost, add some off the wall device like an old VCR, assign one of the functions to the record button in my SlingPlayer activity, and use EventGhost to map it to Ctrl-Shift-R. Second option is finding an infrared keyboard (would it have to be Microsoft?) and programming the remote with the key combo. The first option adds yet another taskbar icon and application running in the background which I loathe, and the second requires another purchase for a one-time learning session. Is there a third, more convinient option perhaps?

Many thanks to all who have contributed to the priceless info on getting this set up. I have a gaming HTPC which requires all kinds of special attention to cooling to keep it quiet, on top of the specs of building a gaming rig inside of an HTPC case. All that being said, chosing the right remote was by far the hardest, most difficult, and longest task out of the whole process. Fortunately, I only went through 2 pieces of crap before I found the Logitech, and I think I've found a real winner with the Harmony One.


- vanOert - 2011-02-23

Thanks for that, we'll implement most of that. The new thread was considered to be a more organized version of compiled information from this thread, we can still use this one for discussion. :-)


- bodhi - 2011-02-23

sufreak Wrote:Absolutely. We'll have the keymaps section (not sure if I added it yet), which will have all those features. If you already have it set up, can you post how you did it, so we can save the research?

Sure, will do.


- ronhash - 2011-02-24

vidor Wrote:Hi all!

Hope that someone has a idea what should I set further to get proper funcionality of my setup. Been trough all the posts...googled a lot!

I have Chieftec case with imon inside,I use a Harmony One remote (MCE remote and MCE keyboard combo)
All the commands that I use as "MCE keyboard" get stuck in an infinite loop.
Where should I set that ? I press it once and get subtitle on,off,on off...loop...

Where should I make further settings ? IMON manager ?
I allready did the delay settings for keyboard input on the WIN 7 home premium.

Any ideas ?

Hey, have the exact same problem - did you ever found a solution for it?
I think it's not related to XBMC, as I opened notepad, clicked the Info button I assigned to i, pressed the i, and I get endless i key presses in the notepad...
It seems that iMon does not know that the key was released, which is weird.


- sufreak - 2011-02-24

I posted this elsewhere, but I wonder if you guys may be to help.

I have 2 activities set up on my Harmony remote. XBMC and Hulu Desktop

To power on:
XBMC - Win+3
Hulu Desktop - Win+4

To power off:
XBMC - Alt+F4
Hulu Desktop - Alt+F4

When I go from a powered off system to either activity, it works fine. When I switch from XBMC to Hulu Desktop, The Win7 shutdown screen pops up, then Hulu Desktop opens. XBMC stays open in the background, and the whole system is unresponsive until I use the keyboard to Alt Tab between open programs.

Any suggestions to fix the inter-activity switching?
I may have to write a batch script to do everything, but I'd rather avoid any 3rd party implementations.


- bodhi - 2011-02-24

sufreak Wrote:I posted this elsewhere, but I wonder if you guys may be to help.

I have 2 activities set up on my Harmony remote. XBMC and Hulu Desktop

To power on:
XBMC - Win+3
Hulu Desktop - Win+4

To power off:
XBMC - Alt+F4
Hulu Desktop - Alt+F4

When I go from a powered off system to either activity, it works fine. When I switch from XBMC to Hulu Desktop, The Win7 shutdown screen pops up, then Hulu Desktop opens. XBMC stays open in the background, and the whole system is unresponsive until I use the keyboard to Alt Tab between open programs.

Any suggestions to fix the inter-activity switching?
I may have to write a batch script to do everything, but I'd rather avoid any 3rd party implementations.

The Alt+F4 approach always causes this problem whenever the desktop has focus (Alt+F4 at the desktop will bring up the Win7 shutdown screen). To avoid this, you can create 2 activities: XBMC-to-Hulu, and Hulu-to-XBMC. While in XBMC, use the 1st one to shutdown XBMC and start Hulu, and vice versa. The XBMC-to-Hulu activity can be implemented in many ways: Alt+F4 - Hulu, or XBMC's Shutdown - Hulu, or Esc-Esc-End - Hulu. The Hulu-to-XBMC activity is: Alt+F4 - XBMC.

However, switching activities like this is never foolproof, because once in a while, the windows focus is not where you'd want it to be, so things will get out of wack. I'd recommend using Bluecop plugin to run Hulu from inside XBMC. It's a very good plugin, I have not had any problem and I've been using it everyday for a few weeks. I still keep the 2 switching activities as back up, in case I want to watch Hulu and the plugin is briefly out of service (once in a while Hulu threw a curve ball and bluecop had to keep up).


- User 82703 - 2011-02-25

Guys,

Great work on putting this all together - it's been very helpful so far. One small issue I just ran into... I added the keymap.xml file as described in the new Harmony thread, and while the JumpSMS functions now work, they have "taken over" my number keys completely. So for example if I am watching a movie and want to jump to 15:00, I can't because the 5 is mapped to JumpSMS5. I think this is because those keys are mapped in the global section.

Is there a way to have the # keys only function as JumpSMS when in a video list view and revert to normal number keys anywhere else?

Hope that makes sense!

Oh - one other thing I'd like to see that I'm pretty sure can be done... mapping a key to jump directly to Movies, TV, or Music.


[How To] Bind a Harmony key with an XBMC action - bodhi - 2011-02-25

How to bind a Harmony key with an XBMC action

Here is the procedure for binding a key with an XBMC action. The following example is to bind the key H to the XBMC command AudioNextLanguage. This action allows users to cycle through all audio streams in a movies and select a desired stream to play. For example, a lot of non-English-speaking movies contain a native language audio stream, and a English audio stream. The same concept applies when you want to assign any XBMC action to a key.

1. Create a keyboard.xml file. Put the following XML code in it.

Code:
<keymap>
  <global>
    <keyboard>
      <h>AudioNextLanguage</h>
    </keyboard>
  </global>
</keymap>

2. Put this keyboard.xml file in the "userdata" folder. For Win XP, where userName is your login name, the location is
C:\Documents and Settings\userName\Application Data\XBMC\userdata\keymaps. For Win 7, the location is
C:\Users\userName\AppData\Roaming\XBMC\userdata\keymaps.

Also refer to these Wikis for other systems and information:
http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=Keymap.xml


3. On the Harmony remote setup screen,

- Select the XBMC activity (or whatever name you have for the XBMC activity),
- Choose Customize Buttons
- Select the Additional Buttons tab. This will bring up the LCD pages for soft key.
- Scroll down to an empty slot, and type AudioNext in the box for Label (1st collumn). This is the name that will appear on the LCD screen, so choose whatever name you'd like for this Label.
- Select MCE Keyboard from the pulldown list in Device (2nd collumn)
- Select H in the pulldown for Command (3rd collumn).
- Click Done to save the button.

From now on, you have a soft key named AudioNext on the LCD page that you've created it. During XBMC activity, go to the LCD page for the command and press the button to cycle through all audio streams.

To assign another XBMC action to another key. Look at the wiki page for all possible actions: http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=Action_IDs.

Using the procedure above, you can also assign these XBMC built-in functions to a key http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=List_of_Built_In_Functions

This is the wiki page for XBMC default mapping of keyboard.
http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=Global_Keyboard