Kodi Community Forum

Hello, some PCs do have so called HID hardware buttons. Also an MCE remote control could be (partially) such a HID (Human Interface Device). Some keyboards have extra HID buttons. Some are assigned by Windows by default to some functions, like the Play/Pause/Stop/... buttons on Gyration MCE remote control, and some are not assigned automatically or can be reassigned to other functions.

For example for Winamp and Windows Media Player there is a piece of Software called "HID Plugin". it's configurable inside WinAmp and Media Player to assign some player functions to buttons of such deives. Here is it: http://www.deepsoftware.ru/hidplugin/

The free version supports only one HID while the (cheap) pro version supports many at the same time. So one can assign multiple HID to one application (WinAm or Mediaplayer) to control it without using mouse and keyboard. I have assigned the play/pause/next/prev/etc. buttons of my Gyration MCE remote control and the FSC Activy Mediacenter integrated front panel buttons (integrated in Futuba MDM140GINK VFD) with this HID plugin to Mediaplayer and WinAmp with the Pro version and that works just fine.

Now the question: Is there something similar for Kodi which can assign such standard functions to HID buttons on any HIdevice? I want to assign specially the HID buttons of the Futuba display of my (rebuild) Activy Mediacenter to be used with Kodi.

Eventghost will do this - and it's free.
It's not dedicated to XBMC, but it will allow you to map any HID buttons to functions (keypresses, window actions etc).

I found something else. It's in the SuperRepo for Kodi, it's called "Keymp Editor". I could at least assign many keys like play, stop, pause, prev, next, vol up/down, ch+/- and so on, so most important ones, and it works quite similar to Winamp/Mediaplayer HID plugin. Interestingly Keymap Editor seems to work on a different level as HID plugin. HID plugin can differenciate between the buttons on different devices (example: the play button on the Gyration has different code that the play button on the front panel of the Activy, so they can be assigned to the same or different action. But in Keymap Editor, they produse the same code, so they only can be assigned once and have always the same function. But also this makes sense for Kodi. The only important key I could not assign is the Record button, it does not produce any code in Keymap Editor. .

Eventghost is still a better option as it can work outside of Kodi too - thus is can launch Kodi, Kill Kodi, Bring to front etc.
It can also differentiate between devices.