Whilst i agree that mouse support isn't wholly desirable when using XBMC as a media centre.... I have to admit that using alaska and other skins with an MCE remote isn't always as straight forward as the wiki makes out to be!
being able to sit back and watch, well pretty much anything you like! Is a great feeling, and having the ability to play and organise music at your fingertips is fantastic
But the wiki puts forward the idea that all MCE remotes are compatible pretty much out of the box, this is not wholly true...
I use xbmc from a headless ubuntu based box which is under my stairs and a long old cable to the TV - makes it interesting when i have to reboot!
I have battled for weeks, got bored, let it be for a while, gone back to it, read and re-read the wiki pages.... got frustrated and actually asked on the forum... to be directed back to the wiki page, to get my MCE remote to work how i want to with XBMC.
The functions i require can be accessed (even in Alaska... with the threatening red x of a cursor!!) by using a mouse, and i can see no other way of accessing them other than re-mapping buttons on the MCE remote! but when i re-map the buttons... nothing.
example:
Simple, i want to map say the green "start" button on the remote to the Tab key. This is so that when i'm using tvcatchup i can go back to the list of channels and if i don't want to change i can go back to fullscreen... or when playing music so i can go straight to visualisation
So i edit the remote.xml in my home directory - no difference - something like:
from
<start>PreviousMenu</start>
to
<start>Tab</start>
or
<start>FullScreen</start>
I edit the core remote file in /usr/share/xbmc/system/keymaps/ - no difference. Same arguments tried...
i find it very odd as above "start" in the .xml is:
<display>FullScreen</display>
But i cannot find this button on the remote? And when i try to map this function to the start button nothing comes of it
also the following section from the
remote.xml here does nothing:
<myvideo>XBMC.ActivateWindow(MyVideos)</myvideo>
<mymusic>XBMC.ActivateWindow(MyMusic)</mymusic>
<mypictures>XBMC.ActivateWindow(MyPictures)</mypictures>
<mytv>XBMC.ActivateWindow(Home)</mytv>
<red>XBMC.ActivateWindow(Home)</red>
<green>XBMC.ActivateWindow(MyVideos)</green>
<yellow>XBMC.ActivateWindow(MyMusic)</yellow>
<blue>XBMC.ActivateWindow(MyPictures)</blue>
all very frustrating. I have enough going on in my head trying to get python straight for a plugin i'm working on without trying to figure out the inner workings of xbmc right now, so for the moment whilst this is annoying.... it can be lived with by using the right click menu from the remote - if i set the mouse in just the right position i don't even have to see the red cursor for more than a moment !
Oh! and after my long moan.... I cannot say a bigger THANX!! to all the people who keep xbmc alive with hours of effort put into making it THE best media center software out there