[jhsrennie]

Thanks for your help! The thing is, that every button is working in Showkey, except the 4 given buttons. :/

In that case the remote is not sending any keystroke when you press those keys. Unless the remote can be configured through the registry (which is unlikely) the only way you'll get those four buttons to work is by using a helper app like Eventghost or IR Server Suite. Sadly this can be a complicated business.

JR

[LarsJ3]

In that case the remote is not sending any keystroke when you press those keys. Unless the remote can be configured through the registry (which is unlikely) the only way you'll get those four buttons to work is by using a helper app like Eventghost or IR Server Suite. Sadly this can be a complicated business.

JR

Okay, im sorry to hear that.
Can you help me what i should change in the registry so the green MCE button would work? (<x mod="ctrl,shift">Notification(Key, x, 3)</x>)

And again, thank you so much for your help, its been very usefull!

[jhsrennie]

Okay, im sorry to hear that.
Can you help me what i should change in the registry so the green MCE button would work? (<x mod="ctrl,shift">Notification(Key, x, 3)</x>)

And again, thank you so much for your help, its been very usefull!

Aha!

If the green button is sending control-shift-X then your remote must be Microsoft compatible and you have run the Remote-XBMC.reg file. A quick way to confirm this is to use ShowKey to see what happens when you press Play and Stop buttons. These should show "<p>etc" and "<x>etc" respectively. This is good news because it means you'll be able to get the four keys working.

But first, that green button. The green button is sending ctrl-shift-X so you need to configure ctrl-shift-X to be the shortcut key for the XBMC icon in the Start menu. This is easy. Click the Start button then Programs then XBMC, then right click the XBMC icon and choose Properties from the bottom of the shortcut menu. You should get the config dialog for the icon, and one of the fields is labelled "Shortcut key" and by default shows "None". Click in this field, so it shows a flashing cursor, then press the green button on your remote. The field should now contain "CTRL + SHIFT + X". Click OK and it's done.

Test by pressing ctrl shift X on the keyboard and XBMC should start. Assuming this works try the green button on the remote and XBMC will start.

NB if XBMC is minimised then the green button will restore it, but only for recent builds of XBMC as there was a bug in the 9.11 release that stopped this working. My custom build of 9.11 on xbmcmce.sourceforge.net has the bug fixed, as do recent development builds like 28256.

OK, now for those other keys. In mceremote.zip is a config file called CreateTestConfig.reg. This config is no use for running XBMC, but it allows you to identify the coloured buttons because it assigns a unique keystroke to each of the 256 possible buttons an MCE remote could have.

So run CreateTestConfig.reg and reboot. Now run ShowKey, press the buttons you want to identify and copy and paste the XML that ShowKey produces. Post the results here. Once you've done this run Remote-XBMC.reg and reboot, and XBMC will be working again.

JR

[LarsJ3]

No problem with the green button, it works!

The four buttons are:
Radio (Is there a way to get live radio internet streams as a part of the menu?): <i mod="shift">Notification(Key, i, 3)</i>
Music: <zero mod="ctrl">Notification(Key, zero, 3)</zero>
Pictures: <b mod="shift">Notification(Key, b, 3)</b>
Movies: <c mod="shift">Notification(Key, c, 3)</c>

And thanks again, your help is much appriciated!

[jhsrennie]

Go to xbmcmce.sourceforge.net and grab mceremote.zip. I've updated the zip so it contains a new registry config file called Remote-XBMC-Asrock.reg. Run this file and reboot, then fire up ShowKey and you should find the four buttons now send ctrl-shift-1to ctrl-shift-4.

Assuming the buttons do now work, you need to find your userdata folder (search for the file xbmc.log and the userdata folder will be in the same folder as xbmc.log). Open the userdata folder and create a new folder called keymaps (the folder may already exist). Open Notepad and paste in the following text:

Code:

<keymap>
  <global>
    <keyboard>
      <one mod="ctrl,shift">ActivateWindow(music)</one>         <!-- music -->
      <two mod="ctrl,shift">ActivateWindow(pictures)</two>      <!-- pictures -->
      <three mod="ctrl,shift">ActivateWindow(video)</three>     <!-- movies -->
      <four mod="ctrl,shift">Notification(Key, Radio, 3)</four> <!-- radio -->
    </keyboard>
  </global>
</keymap>

and save this to the userdata\keymaps folder as keyboard.xml (make sure Notepad doesn't helpfully add .txt to the end!). Run XBMC and the buttons should be working. It should be pretty obvious how this keyboard.xml maps the ctrl-shift-etc keystrokes to XBMC actions.

I couldn't think of anything obvious for the Radio button to do, so I've left it just displaying a notification.

NB there is a bug in the keyboard handling in builds less than 29181 that means ctrl-number combinations don't work. This bug is fixed in my custom builds on xbmcmce.sourceforge.net.

JR

[LarsJ3]

I see the keys in showkey.exe, but the problem is now that, first, i cant find xbmc.log. I found the userdata folder ind /Programs/XMBC folder and followed your guidelines, but they are not working still.

[jhsrennie]

I see the keys in showkey.exe, but the problem is now that, first, i cant find xbmc.log. I found the userdata folder ind /Programs/XBMC folder and followed your guidelines, but they are not working still.

When you install XBMC is asks if you want Default or Portable mode. Unless you specifically choose otherwise it will use Default mode, and the C:\Program Files\XBMC\userdata folder is only used in Portable mode. So you've almost certainly put the keyboard.xml in the wrong place. In fact the absence of xbmc.log is a giveaway because if there's no xbmc.log you've found the wrong userdata folder.

In Default mode the userdata folder is in your profile. Annoyingly this varies depending on the version of Windows. In Win7 and Vista the userdata folder is:

C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\XBMC\userdata

where <username> is your Windows username. In WinXP the userdata is (from memory - I don't have an XP installation to hand):

C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Application Data\XBMC\userdata

You should find the xbmc.log in the XBMC folder above the userdata folder.

JR

[LarsJ3]

This is very strange. I dont even have the AppData (or anything like that), and when i search the computer for XBMC it doesn't even find the folder from /Program files.
And i am 100% sure that i installed XBMC in Default, not portable.

[jhsrennie]

This is very strange. I dont even have the AppData (or anything like that), and when i search the computer for XBMC it doesn't even find the folder from /Program files.
And i am 100% sure that i installed XBMC in Default, not portable.

Open a command prompt and type:

Code:

set appdata

and you get back something like:

Code:

APPDATA=C:\Users\renniej\AppData\Roaming

This gives you the location of your application data folder.

JR

[LarsJ3]

Am i doing i wrong or is this odd?

See the picture for info.

http://img64.imageshack.us/img64/7370/aaaaywh.jpg

[mitul103]

Am i doing i wrong or is this odd?

See the picture for info.

http://img64.imageshack.us/img64/7370/aaaaywh.jpg

Just put %appdata%\xbmc into the explorer bar to go directly to where the xbmc.log is. And yes, the path displayed there looks correct for appdata.

[steelman1991]

Am i doing i wrong or is this odd?

See the picture for info.

http://img64.imageshack.us/img64/7370/aaaaywh.jpg

IIRC AppData is a hidden folder - go to Control Panel/Folder Options/View and make sure that the radio button 'Show hidden files, folders and drives' is checked. Then check to see if it appears in explorer.

[LarsJ3]

Just put %appdata%\xbmc into the explorer bar to go directly to where the xbmc.log is. And yes, the path displayed there looks correct for appdata.

Thanks, it worked!

[SemajYarg]

OK after reading extensively through all 11 pages I can see that some people have got the .reg file to work and others haven't.

I've got a Asrock 330HT-BD running and wanted the MCE remote which came with it to work properly with XBMC.

I downloaded the mceremote.zip went through the processes and backed up my original .reg file and used the remote-XBMC-asrock.reg. Before i did this i had minmal key presses working in XBMC now i have nothing.

Im using Windows 7 64bit. I went into the reg file and checked the hex coding in the reportmappingtable in my registry to see if it matched that of the .reg file supplied. When checking I found that the registry had 8 bytes not the 7 that are in the .reg file supplied.

My Reg file under reportmappingtable reads:
00 00 00 00 04 00 27 01
00 00 00 04 00 1E 02 00
00 00 04 00 1F 03 00 00

and so on until the end, so its not creating the bytes as the remote-XBMC-asrock.reg file has it.
00 00 00 00 04 00 27
01 00 00 00 04 00 1E
02 00 00 00 04 00 1F

The remote is a RC6 remote, I altered the file as per all the instructions. Just wondering if i have done something wrong or its just doesnt work with Win 7 64bit, although one of JR' earlier posts said he tested and it work.

Wanted to add that the Asrock comes with Nuvoton CIR drivers for the IR sensor which I had installed. I tried with these drivers initially installed. Then i tried with MS EHome default Drivers. Neither gave me any success.

[jhsrennie]

The ReportMappingTable registry entry is just a long stream of bytes. In my .reg file I split it up into lines of seven bytes to make it more readable. The listing of your registry is laid out as eight bytes per line, but if you rewrite it as seven bytes per line you'll find it matches what is in my .reg file.

So it looks as if the registry has been set correctly, which means the problem must lie elsewhere. You say "I altered the file". Does this mean you edited the .reg file? In that case try with the original unedited .reg file. Also try Remote-XBMC.reg and see if that works. Use the Showkey app to see what if any keystrokes the remote is sending.

I'd be nervous of 3rd party drivers for the remote. Win7 should detect it automatically without needing extra drivers.

JR