[owtroid]

Hi!

I've developed a small app that lets you start XBMC remotely from your Android device with a single click (you can also use it to start any other program, shutdown/restart the computer or run a custom script but XBMC was the use case that I needed it for originally). It's a nice complement to the XBMC remote control.

To use Remote Launcher you need to install the Remote Launcher Server on your PC. Downloads, installation instructions, user guides and examples are available on the project wiki:
http://sf.net/apps/mediawiki/remotelauncher/

The Remote Launcher server is written in Java so it should work on any pc with the Java Runtime Enviromnment installed (version 1.6 or later), be it Linux, Windows or Mac OS. It has been tested on Ubuntu and Windows 7.

It's also possible to automate Remote Launcher using Android intents. That makes it possible to use it together with tools such as Tasker. A possible use case would be to automatically shut down XBMC and your computer when you leave the house.

A free version is available on the Android market:
http://market.android.com/details?id=com...uncherfree
The free version is limited to having one single server configured.

A $1.99 version without limitations is also available:
http://market.android.com/details?id=com...telauncher

If you're interested please give it a whirl and let me know if you find any bugs or have feature requests!

[Abdn]

Hi!

I've developed a small app that lets you start XBMC remotely from your Android device with a single click (you can also use it to start any other program, shutdown/restart the computer or run a custom script but XBMC was the use case that I needed it for originally). It's a nice complement to the XBMC remote control.

To use Remote Launcher you need to install the Remote Launcher Server on your PC. Downloads, installation instructions, user guides and examples are available on the project wiki:
http://sf.net/apps/mediawiki/remotelauncher/

The Remote Launcher server is written in Java so it should work on any pc with the Java Runtime Enviromnment installed (version 1.6 or later), be it Linux, Windows or Mac OS. It has been tested on Ubuntu and Windows 7.

It's also possible to automate Remote Launcher using Android intents. That makes it possible to use it together with tools such as Tasker. A possible use case would be to automatically shut down XBMC and your computer when you leave the house.

A free (ad supported) version is available on the Android market:
http://market.android.com/details?id=com...uncherfree

A $0.99 version without ads is also available:
http://market.android.com/details?id=com...telauncher

If you're interested please give it a whirl and let me know if you find any bugs or have feature requests!

Tnx mate. I will try this out. Gotta ask though, is there anything like this for Windows? The wifey dont have Android or Iphone.

[ralob]

Awesome app! I am going to test it tonight and will report back the results.

[owtroid]

Tnx mate. I will try this out. Gotta ask though, is there anything like this for Windows? The wifey dont have Android or Iphone.

Hi!

Cool, let me know what you think!

Unfortunately no, the app is only available for Android, atleast right now. The server part however works on both Linux and Windows (and should work on OS X too but I haven't testet that).

[owtroid]

Awesome app! I am going to test it tonight and will report back the results.

Excellent, thanks!

[ralob]

Excellent, thanks!

I like it quite a bit. It is certainly easier than VNC'ing into the machine to start up XBMC.

I found the program takes up 50mb - 70mb of RAM. It seems kind of heavy, tbh.

Also, when minimized the program goes to the notification-bar in Linux. However, there is no way to restore the window. Double clicking and so on does not work. You have to close the server then restart it.

[owtroid]

I like it quite a bit. It is certainly easier than VNC'ing into the machine to start up XBMC.

I found the program takes up 50mb - 70mb of RAM. It seems kind of heavy, tbh.

Also, when minimized the program goes to the notification-bar in Linux. However, there is no way to restore the window. Double clicking and so on does not work. You have to close the server then restart it.

Hi!

Well, 50-70MB sounds like alot... I've never seen it go any higher than ~20 here and that is mainly because of the java virtual machine that has to be started to run it. I would assume that Remote Launcher itself consumes very little memory, though I haven't profiled it in any way (so there can most definately be lots of bugs)... Could you give me some details on how you got that number so that I can see if I can reproduce?

Hmm, double-clicking the systray icon should bring it back... What WM are you using? I have only run it in KDE myself.

[ralob]

Hi!

Well, 50-70MB sounds like alot... I've never seen it go any higher than ~20 here and that is mainly because of the java virtual machine that has to be started to run it. I would assume that Remote Launcher itself consumes very little memory, though I haven't profiled it in any way (so there can most definately be lots of bugs)... Could you give me some details on how you got that number so that I can see if I can reproduce?

Hmm, double-clicking the systray icon should bring it back... What WM are you using? I have only run it in KDE myself.

I am using PinguyOS 10.10, which is Gnome 2. And I use Java 6.24.

And I did find out I was not clicking on the icon, rather just below it. The color scheme blended the whitish icon into my toolbar and I thought it was larger. I just changed my theme to black, so it should make it easier to find the little bugger.

As for the RAM usage, I used gnome's system information. Just now it is at 46mb, sometimes it jumps, and others it ebbs. Not too bad since I have plenty of RAM, but just something I saw as odd.

[owtroid]

I am using PinguyOS 10.10, which is Gnome 2. And I use Java 6.24.

And I did find out I was not clicking on the icon, rather just below it. The color scheme blended the whitish icon into my toolbar and I thought it was larger. I just changed my theme to black, so it should make it easier to find the little bugger.

As for the RAM usage, I used gnome's system information. Just now it is at 46mb, sometimes it jumps, and others it ebbs. Not too bad since I have plenty of RAM, but just something I saw as odd.

Yeah the systray icon looks awful in Linux. There seems to be a bug in java (http://bugs.sun.com/bugdatabase/view_bug...id=6453521) that prevents it from using transparency properly. So there is an ugly background to my icon when used in Linux... Guess I should look around for another systray implementation or make the icon square.

About the RAM, one annoing thing with java is that the vm will take quite alot of RAM. So even the smallest application will get a quite large memory footprint. I think I still should do some profiling to make sure I'm not leaking alot of objects and stuff but unless the RAM usage is continuosly increasing I don't think that is happening.

[ralob]

Yeah the systray icon looks awful in Linux. There seems to be a bug in java (http://bugs.sun.com/bugdatabase/view_bug...id=6453521) that prevents it from using transparency properly. So there is an ugly background to my icon when used in Linux... Guess I should look around for another systray implementation or make the icon square.

About the RAM, one annoing thing with java is that the vm will take quite alot of RAM. So even the smallest application will get a quite large memory footprint. I think I still should do some profiling to make sure I'm not leaking alot of objects and stuff but unless the RAM usage is continuosly increasing I don't think that is happening.

I do not believe there are any memory leaks. I left the server running all night and it remains at 49.3 mb when idle.

All in all, I love this little program. It makes life just a little bit simpler.

[owtroid]

I do not believe there are any memory leaks. I left the server running all night and it remains at 49.3 mb when idle.

All in all, I love this little program. It makes life just a little bit simpler.

Excellent, I'm glad you like it!

[ralob]

One thing I found that would be helpful is a confirm dialog on the Android side. If you have several launchers, including shutdown, you may accidentally tap one you do not wish to launch. Having an "are you sure: yes/no" would be prudent.

[owtroid]

One thing I found that would be helpful is a confirm dialog on the Android side. If you have several launchers, including shutdown, you may accidentally tap one you do not wish to launch. Having an "are you sure: yes/no" would be prudent.

Yes that is a good idea. Especially for shutdown and similar commands it would be annoying to launch accidentally. I've added that to the code together with an option on the settings page so you can decide whether you want the confirmation dialog or not. My only question is if I should change the behaviour to default showing the confirmation dialog or if the user should have to enable the option?

Thanks for the suggestion!

[ralob]

Yes that is a good idea. Especially for shutdown and similar commands it would be annoying to launch accidentally. I've added that to the code together with an option on the settings page so you can decide whether you want the confirmation dialog or not. My only question is if I should change the behaviour to default showing the confirmation dialog or if the user should have to enable the option?

Thanks for the suggestion!

I would make it default, then allow the user to turn it off in the options. The last thing someone wants is to shutdown their htpc when they meant to turn on XBMC.

For now, I only use the program to launch XBMC, so I won't need a confirmation. But when I add the shutdown launcher, having it ask me would be nice to prevent any mishaps.

[e2zippo]

This is great, been looking for a way to start xbmc from my phone!

Great job!