[BradSinner]

Hello.

I have been trying to get my Harmony 525 remote to work as a Microsoft MCE keyboard together with a HP USB IR to control XBMC (Ubuntu standalone application and Live version).

I have read on several forums that this setup should work, but I cannot get it to work at all.

When I have installed the Live version I can get the remote to work as a MS Media center remote or extender but not as the keyboard.
When installed on a clean Ubuntu I cannot get the remote to work at all.

Has anyone really done this with these devices, and if so can you please give me some advice.

I have followed several guides with using lirc and downloading lirc_mce_mod, but it do not respond to the MCE Keyboard configuration at all.

The IR flashes red so it does indeed receive signals..

I have spent several days with different guides, reinstalling XBMCbuntu, XBMC Live and is soon giving up on this.

I would really like to be able to send keyboard key commands instead of remote codes. (Specify the Harmony buttons to be keyboard letters, instead of remote buttons).

Anyone?

This is the IR receiver:
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?V...0372669040

[Ronner]

BUMP. I'm wanting to do the exact same. anyone?

[fshagan]

What keys specifically? If you are only looking to add some keyboard keys like "Enter", "Esc" etc., then the Harmony database includes some of them already, and you can specify them in the remote configuration program. I didn't that to map "Enter" to the "OK" button on my Harmony 880.

[waverz]

I am trying to do the same with my Harmony 880. I would like to add "full screen" and OSD functions but have no idea how to do it.

[DougJ]

I have never been able to get my Harmony One to replicate keystrokes using the MCE Keyboard setting from the harmony software wizard. As the first post indicated I too can get red lights to blink on my IR receiver but nothing responds in XBMC.

I am running an Acer Revo 1600 with an USB IR receiver from Newegg.

I would love to see this problem get solved as i think the buttons on the Keyboard allow better manipulation of XBMC than does a media center remote. Also I remember reading that the response time is quicker with Keyboard keys than media center remote keys.

[DougJ]

After some searching I found an interesting thread (and fairly new) about this issue in windows xbmc.

http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=72240 (post#5)

[romanodog]

I've also been trying to get this to work with no success. If I run it as the MCE Remote it works perfectly but if I try to run it as MCE Keyboard I get no response from ubuntu. I've tried the lirc_mce_mod module as well and a few different suggestions but nothing seems to work for me.

I plugged the receiver into my windows desktop to make sure it was actually sending the keyboard commands and it does indeed work in windows, but not in ubuntu.

This seems like an ubuntu issue, not really specific to xbmc, but the thread is here...

[alexpigment]

Not to resurrect a zombie thread here, but has anyone found a workaround for this yet? I'd like to have all the keyboard buttons at my disposal, but I'm not sure what to do given that the "MCE Keyboard" device on the Harmony doesn't work in live.

[BORIStheBLADE]

Not to resurrect a zombie thread here, but has anyone found a workaround for this yet? I'd like to have all the keyboard buttons at my disposal, but I'm not sure what to do given that the "MCE Keyboard" device on the Harmony doesn't work in live.

From what I have seen in linux versions of XBMC you can only get MCE remote functions out of the remote. Keyboard strokes are different.

I have setup XBMC on a windows pc and configured the remote and MCE keyboard and you can add specific keyboard strokes.

I have been wanting this for a while, but it doesn't seem like its a big enough feature for them to work on.

Features I think would be nice on the remote

- Subtitle toggle or audio setting menu
- video settings menu

[morgoth67]

I was able to replicate the keyboard with the Harmony perfectly well using Windows, everything worked fine.

But when I turned to Ubuntu, the keyboard stopped working; whenever I pressed a key, it was repeated until I pressed escape. No matter what I did (changing repeat times, setting macros to end up with the esc key...) it didn't work. So in the end I simply discarded using the keyboard with Ubuntu.

What I did was setting up my remote to perform all the actions needed by configuring Lircmap.xml and remote.xml (http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=45972). The result is the same, although it takes some more time to set up.

And if you go that way, remember to backup your config BEFORE upgrading xbmc. I've lost mine when upgrading to Dharma!!!

Hope this helps.