Wow mate. That brought a tear to my eyes. I never even thought about how some folk need an app such as this. I'm sure Ryan must be delighted that he is able to help.

And you made me laugh at the Dr Phil anecdote - all the best to you.

:)

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Gordon
VMC1:CM4, i855-GMEm-LFS, PeM 1.6, 2g 333, 200g+400g PATA, Rad9600, NovaT500(+PVR150MCE), s/c TB Riviera, VGA-SCRT+PStrp (3.4)

VMC2:Shuttle SD11G5(915GM), P M 740 1.73, 2g 533, 300+500gPATA, NvidGForceNX7300GT (256 ddr2), Terratec2400iDT (3.6)

Steve-

I'm really sorry to hear about your disease - that really sucks...

I'm glad you've found this program so useful, and that makes me really happy to see that it's helped you in such a way.  It also means a lot that you actually went out of your way to create an account here just to comment about it . 

As for the stop button, I'll find a way to add one (without press and hold) within a few days... Anything I can do to turn off Dr. Phil...

I'm kind of curious about Smartnav, are you using the voice click for it, or do you click the mouse some other way?  I'm curious if the right clicking works for you.

Thanks again for your comments Steve, and please don't hesitate to provide more feedback on this program.

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Just my $0.02.

Thx guys for nice sentiments

 

I was thinking what else would be handy. If the stop button could be put on the bottom of the media panel along with a live tv button and maybe an editable. After all when you hit stop you need to return to the navigation page. Editable button could be used for things like the JHT addin. A mute button might be handy  but were do you stop, maybe making it into a yahoo widget, or is that a job for me, off to java school I go.

 

 

Smartnav – I use the dwell click and the click-n-type keyboard its good for most things, that voice click sounds really good but my voice is just another thing that doesn’t work properly anymore [much to my kids delight]. We have 5 systems on the network and I login on them using the termsvr.dll patch. I use those other pc’s for storage and xvid conversions.  So the Smartnav has given me a new lease on life, but as I type this one of tuners in my mce box is playing up, I think it just needs pulling out and reseating, when I mentioned it the family have disappeared.

 

cheers Steve

sBucko:

I was thinking what else would be handy. If the stop button could be put on the bottom of the media panel along with a live tv button and maybe an editable. After all when you hit stop you need to return to the navigation page. Editable button could be used for things like the JHT addin. A mute button might be handy  but were do you stop...

Exactly .  I want to keep this thing as simple as I can, but still provide good functionality - not an easy thing to balance.

Also Steve, just looking briefly at that click app that you are using for the mouse, it seems you should be able to press and hold the buttons by doing a click and drag (just don't move the mouse much).

That being said, I actually was working on the next version before I even read your last post, and I already added the stop and mute button

Tell me what you guys think cause I'm not sure about the button placement (I added the buttons on the number area).

I'm gonna post the update in just a min.

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Just my $0.02.

I hate to do another beta release before releasing a new official version, but I just finished making changes and I'm not sure if I like the new buttons or not, so I decided I'd release v0.15 as another beta, sleep on it and make the decision in a day or two.

Current changes:

• Added timer on number mode (about 1 minute before returning to normal mode)
• Added stop & mute buttons under number mode
  • If stop is pressed, within a few seconds, it will go back to normal mode
  • If any number, channel up/down, or mute is pressed, timer starts over
• System tray icon won't show up until the program is actually running
• Saves window position @ exit (places remote there next time you open it)

If you are currently using a version v0.13 or older, then you must delete "settings.ini" before using the new version. *Edit - you no longer need to delete settings.ini for the new version to work*

Download v0.15 Beta Here. *Edit - this version is no longer current, please see more recent postings or the front page for the current version.*

v0.16 will be released by the end of the week as an official release (after I decide for sure on the new buttons).

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Just my $0.02.

Ryan,

On the surface, the request I'm about to make makes absolutely NO sense, but...

Is there any chance of you developing some kind of MCE 2k5 interface for this remote?  OK...now, why in the world would anyone want to use a remote to control a remote, right?  Well..it just might be possible to leverage this app with the Virtual machine solution for XBox V1 extenders to spoof live TV.  Check this thread out and see if you understand what I'm talking about.

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Ghostlobster
Very happy convert to SageTV! Finally, watching ESPN-HD in real HD on my HTPC without having to deal with the CableCARD fiasco!

UNREAL I"M IN HEAVEN

yep try'd the drag ,but dosn't work

thx again

cheers steve

ghostlobster:

Is there any chance of you developing some kind of MCE 2k5 interface for this remote?  OK...now, why in the world would anyone want to use a remote to control a remote, right?  Well..it just might be possible to leverage this app with the Virtual machine solution for XBox V1 extenders to spoof live TV.  Check this thread out and see if you understand what I'm talking about.

I don't know how to program MCML, though I might force myself to learn (slowly), so I really couldn't do this right now .  Perhaps if I can force myself to sit down and really learn how to program apps. for within Media Center then I could do this, but no promises here, and it will likely take me quite a while.  Sorry.  The other potential issue I see here is that I would have to do the remote as a sort of overlay as I would imagine it wouldn't be too useful to have a full screen remote since you would no longer be able to see what you are controlling.

Steve, I'm glad you like it so far - also, right now the only press and hold buttons are the directional arrows and vol+/vol-, no other buttons currently have press and hold features.

For the people who have been asking about smartphone stuff, what should I look at?  Should I look at Pocket PC, or Windows Mobile 5?  I have no experience with smartphones, so I don't really know where to start for that.  Any advice would be appreciated.

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Just my $0.02.

Windows Mobile 5 would be my suggestion as Smartphones don't have touch screens, so your app would be more manageable? However, if you changed your view of navigation to the up/down left/right okay navigation control to highlight buttons you could work that way as well.

As far as mcml is concerned, it is a very steep learning curve and also it isn't trivial to hijack the remote button keys.

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Gordon
VMC1:CM4, i855-GMEm-LFS, PeM 1.6, 2g 333, 200g+400g PATA, Rad9600, NovaT500(+PVR150MCE), s/c TB Riviera, VGA-SCRT+PStrp (3.4)

VMC2:Shuttle SD11G5(915GM), P M 740 1.73, 2g 533, 300+500gPATA, NvidGForceNX7300GT (256 ddr2), Terratec2400iDT (3.6)

ryan.tollefson:

Steve, I'm glad you like it so far - also, right now the only press and hold buttons are the directional arrows and vol+/vol-, no other buttons currently have press and hold features.

thx Ryan I check that drag button on the volume & it worked, I had tryed it another application & it didn't work in that & I just assumed ,,, having said that using the Smartnav like that is difficult. Mind you don’t not put those features in, I still remember how to use the mouse ,I think the long click on the pause is a great idea, as in Windows there’s a stack of ways to do the same thing.

cheers Steve

 

Alright, v0.16 is out - see the front page for the updated download link.  On the surface it is very similar to the last 2 beta releases, but I made a lot of minor changes that I think make it a bit better . 

Summary of differences between this and v0.15:

• Added - press and hold "Pause" to send "Stop".
• Added - option under settings to hide/show the mute & stop buttons in number mode.
• Added - gives tray notification when trying to connect (so now you know it is doing something, rather than just waiting to see if you get an error).
• Fixed - before during initial setup if "Cancel" was pressed at any point it wasn't recognized and just kept opening the program
• Updated - now checks for an old version and prompts you if the "settings.ini" file needs to be deleted - you no longer need to do this on your own.

I hope everyone likes this version, and thanks for all of the feedback so far, keep it coming.

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Just my $0.02.

ryan.tollefson:

For the people who have been asking about smartphone stuff, what should I look at?  Should I look at Pocket PC, or Windows Mobile 5?  I have no experience with smartphones, so I don't really know where to start for that.  Any advice would be appreciated.

My vote is Pocket PC (since that is what my phone runs), but a Windows mobile Smartphone platform may have more users.  Once you have a version written for one the other shouldn't be a whole lot more trouble (main difference being that one has a touchscreen and one dosen't).

I haven't done any win mobile programming, right now I mainly do mssql database stuff and some c# .net web pages.  But I would really like to develop stuff for my phone.  A phone based remote would be a great project to get me motivated to learn it.  Any chance of sharing your code?  I may be able to port it over or at least use it as a starting point in learning how to communicate with the MCE Controller program.

Well, I'm a bit busy right now with other projects (and work), so I don't really have time to try and learn either of the mobile platforms at the moment.  Perhaps I will in the future, but who knows...

jeepguy04:

A phone based remote would be a great project to get me motivated to learn it.  Any chance of sharing your code?  I may be able to port it over or at least use it as a starting point in learning how to communicate with the MCE Controller program.

I don't really want to share my code yet, though I probably will in the future.  For now I am still having fun with the development of the program and want to maintain control of its development (for the time being).  Also I need to clean up the code a bit before I share it with others (not as clean as it could be). 

As for communicating with the MCE controller program, it actually isn't that hard.  What you need to do is send a TCP packet to the right IP & port #.  The TCP packet is just a simple text command followed by a Line Feed character.  For all of the commands you can  use with the MCE Controller program see the following: http://www.kindel.com/products/mcecontroller/1.0.4/Readme.htm.

Just recently I found another site that you might want to check out for doing a phone app.  It uses MCML to make a controller for your phone - I haven't really sat down to try this yet, but it seems like it could be a neat way to get started.  Here is the website: http://blogs.msdn.com/coding4fun/archive/2007/05/14/2632164.aspx

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Just my $0.02.

wow, really good link.

I totally understand not wanting to share your code until you have it cleaned up and until you've done everything that you want to do with it.

I'll definitely sit down and follow the steps in that link.  It seems like an excellent starting point.

 

Perhaps one way is if someone wanted to write the code stubs for the interface on mobile or smartphone and then pass on the solution file to Ryan. It would give him a head start and he could add the interface stuff. Just a thought.

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Gordon
VMC1:CM4, i855-GMEm-LFS, PeM 1.6, 2g 333, 200g+400g PATA, Rad9600, NovaT500(+PVR150MCE), s/c TB Riviera, VGA-SCRT+PStrp (3.4)

VMC2:Shuttle SD11G5(915GM), P M 740 1.73, 2g 533, 300+500gPATA, NvidGForceNX7300GT (256 ddr2), Terratec2400iDT (3.6)