[WINDOWS] XBMC, Harmony One and generic remote

Hi everyone,

I'm putting together a HTPC and I've been searching for two days now for a way to use XBMC with my Harmony One.

I've read and tried various tutorials on how to have it working properly but all i have at my disposal is a cheap generic remote like this one since the original Microsoft MCE remote seems to be quite hard to find where i live.

The following commands are working:

- up, down, left, right
- Enter (= ok)
- Backspace (= gets me back on the previous page)
- Esc (= gets me back to startup page)
- Mute
- Page up/Page down
- Vol +/- (= manages the volume in Windows, not in XBMC)

... and that's it.

I guess the main issue here is that i don't have a genuine MCE remote, but is there a way to get pass this and still have the Harmony One communicating correctly (as it did when i was using it on my Xbox)? I don't even use advanced functions - i mainly listen to music and watch movies, so as long as play, pause, stop, next and prev are there, plus the basic commands, i'd be happy.

This is the last remaining problem i have to fix before the HTPC is complete, so it's kinda frustrating.

Any idea ?

Try eventghost to setup your generic remote once you have that working map the functions you need to the harmony .

That's what puzzling me, actually: i can teach the commands my cheap remote sends to my Harmony. But what about the commands I do not have?

What do you mean commands you don't have . Are you talking about functions on the generic remote that don't correspond to the harmony? If so you can map more functions to the touchscreen.

Hmm no, i'm talking about the simple play-pause-prev-next-stop functions. They don't even work using the cheap remote, so how can i or Eventghost know which signal should be sent?

Yarok Wrote:Hmm no, i'm talking about the simple play-pause-prev-next-stop functions. They don't even work using the cheap remote, so how can i or Eventghost know which signal should be sent?

Can you not map the buttons to keystrokes on the Harmony? As for setting up eventghost, there's probably about 10 different threads on setting up eventghost to work with xbmc

Actually i tried that, setting the Harmony as a MCE Keyboard like i read in a tutorial: all i wanted at first was to have the contextual menu (keystroke "c") and it didn't work.

I can't get my head around the fact that i need the genuine MCE remote, one way or another, but i don't know if this statement is correct or not.

Yarok Wrote:Actually i tried that, setting the Harmony as a MCE Keyboard like i read in a tutorial: all i wanted at first was to have the contextual menu (keystroke "c") and it didn't work.

I can't get my head around the fact that i need the genuine MCE remote, one way or another, but i don't know if this statement is correct or not.

You shouldn't. From what I understand (I don't have the logitech harmony), but you just set it as the mce keyboard, then set up the keys using the logitech software.

I found it easier to setup the generic remote first through eventghost then once I had all the XBMC functions I wanted I setup the harmony.

Yarok Wrote:Hmm no, i'm talking about the simple play-pause-prev-next-stop functions. They don't even work using the cheap remote, so how can i or Eventghost know which signal should be sent?

You need to use the Generic HID device. I'm using a remote just like the one in the picture, and I got it working just fine. When you got the right device hooked into eventghost most keypresses will generate log entries which you can drag and drop to events on the right hand side of the eventghost window as you please. Fiddle around with it and you will figure it out, it is not difficult.

There are a few keys which are hard to map unless you get a little creative. I'll give you a couple of pointers:

- the top row buttons are pretty much un-remappable, atleast I could figure out how to prevent the events it generates to reach the OS, so you can map them, but every time you press them you will launch your browser etc too, which is not very usefull.
- Leave the volume + mute key alone. They work just fine like they are.
- Some keys generate win-x keystrokes. Google how to disable win shortcuts, and then you can use these buttons too (i.e. the one that says My Computer and opens explorer when you press it (Win-E))
- You can emulate win-x shortcuts with eventghost inside the keyboar emulation context folder if you need them. search forums.
- The numlock key doesn't generate any event, it just toggles between directional keys and number internally on the remote.

Tusse