Consistency

[jasonf]

Quote[/b] (reven @ Feb. 10 2005,09:37)]also users could submit a remote.xml file like they do with language.xml file, which will have all the buttons mapped out to each remote.

Exactly. And if you need to switch between remotes (or to your "keyboard" remote.xml file), it's a configuration swap, not a remapping of all actions to new keypresses....

Well, maybe it is. There's still the issue of what to do if the action mapping points to "RED" and you swap to a remote.xml that does not have "RED" defined.

[reven]

if you dont map the color buttons, just the functions eg "PageUp" and not "Green", this wont be a problem, however every single plugin will have to be updated to work with this. The only one i know that might be a problem is "musicalbums" since i think the developer left.

[KingArgyle]

Yeah, any new implemenation will probably require some sort of redesign. But we do need to get some consistency. Either in what functions do what, and then on what the actions typically get mapped to. Otherwise, if we just provide key assignment to remote buttons, we will still have chaos in plugin naviagtion.

Forget the coding and implemenation aspects of this for a while. We need to approach this as if it was starting from scratch. Designing actions for a parituclar remote is not what we need to decide, but what actions are common across plugins, and how is something going to work. Page Up should always move you up a list, Page Down should always move you down a list (i.e, a displayable group at a time). Up moves up one item, Down moves you down 1 item, etc.

I think we kinda got off the point. Once we standardized what each of these functions do, then doing a remote mapping shouldn't be to hard, and I think this really needs to be tied to the keyboard control, not what buttons a remote has.

[KingArgyle]

For reference here are the standard GBPVR keyboard sequences and the function they implement:

Up Arrow : Up
Down Arrow: Down
Left Arrow: Left
Right Arrow: Right
CTRL-Left Arrow: Skip Back
CTRL-Right Arrow: Skip Forward
Home: Main Menu
Esc: Main Menu
PageUp: Page Up
PageDown: Page Down
Enter: Select/OK
CTRL-G: Mini Guide
CTRL-K: Record
CTRL-Q: Pause/Unpause
CTRL-R: Rewind
CTRL-F: Fast Forward
CTRL-O: Catch Up
CTRL-Y: Last Channel
CTRL-B: Display Toggle
CTRL-X: Increase Vol
CTRL-Z: Decrease Vol
CTRL-P: Play/Skip Commercial
CTRL-S: Stop

The main thing is making sure that each plugin follows this standard. From this, it becomes a user preference on how they want it to map to their remote keys. The big point is making sure that everybody follows the same functionality from the keyboard, because that is the most common thing between all systems.

The above keyboard mappings were taken from the wiki.

[smeghead]

Good discussion, hopefully something will come out of it.......

BTW KingArgyle, Is Skip forward and Skip back the right way around?

[KingArgyle]

Good catch. I fixed this in the key post.

[colin]

Better to think about this now and fix up a few plugins rather than in a years time where there could be a large number of plugins to change,

Cheers,
Colin.

[smeghead]

So what's the way forward on this - I followed the discussion, it looked like it was coming to a conclusion and then there was no way forward - reminded me of where I work - very frustrating

Is it something that sub could put on his to do list - somewhere in the middling priority maybe

[reven]

at the end of the day its up to sub, we were just discussing it, hopefully giving sub an idea or two.

[sub]

Dont worry, I have been reading these posts and I am thinking about it.

I think jasonf's idea for a helper class which abstracts the actual keycode out to an xml configuration file is a good idea, and I'll try to add some adaptation of it into the next release (hopefully), but I'll need to think about this some more. I'll probably only use the second half of suggested approach.

Our biggest problems are lack of buttons on the remote, and the combined navigation/volume/channel buttons on the old Hauppauge remote.

I agree that use of SkipForward/SkipBack/Pause/Play/Stop should be avoided, since this will interfere with the playback of music. Play can be used for starting playback of a video/audio file, since it will stop playback anyway.

I have no way to know what the user intended to happen when they pressed the combined navigation/volume/channel buttons on the old Hauppauge remote, so this is just something we'll have to live with, and plugin developers will just have to be aware issues with these buttons.

THIS MAY BE CONTROLVERSIAL: An area of confusion has been PageUp/Down. On the MCE remote, and the new Hauppauge remote (which is quickly becoming the standard), there are separate buttons for channels +/- and volume +/-. I am going to map the channels buttons to the PageUp/PageDown keys, and from now on I'm going to use these for page up/down (and channel +/- in live tv). The volume buttons will be used for volume. I recognise that not all remotes have these keys, but they make good sense for this task, and I dont want to be hamstrung by the old remote design.