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+---- Thread: [WINDOWS] HOW-TO use a Logitech Harmony Remote with XBMC (/showthread.php?tid=77519)
- johnny87au - 2011-07-31
Can someone steer me into the right direction please, I just want a remote which works and is dead easy to setup.. There are so many on ebay i dont know which works and which dont? thanks
- bodhi - 2011-07-31
RavenNL Wrote:Well the first 5 steps are clear, but i dont know what to choose from step 6 and below. I have the impression that you need to add both devices (remote / keyboard) into the activity but somehow i cannot do it. (might be me, am never like the logitech program to config everything)
You only need MCE Keyboard device to use XBMC. MCE Remote device is only useful when you want to use the remote to control Windows Media Player or other player while staying in XBMC activity.
To have Ctrl, Alt, Win,... and other combination keys, you will need MCE SE Keyboard device. It's all described in this thread.
It's simple to add a device to an activity. Note that you should use the Windows apps for Harmony setup. Some people who use the web-based Harmony setup have run into problems and found that it's not as flexible as the Windows apps.
- bodhi - 2011-08-01
johnny87au Wrote:Can someone steer me into the right direction please, I just want a remote which works and is dead easy to setup.. There are so many on ebay i dont know which works and which dont? thanks
The ones that for sure will work are RC6 receivers. Search for RC6 on eBay and post the link back here if you need our confirmation that it will work before buying.
- svinyard - 2011-08-01
Will using harmony remote with this mc6 reciever still give me WOL abilities? I only sleep my HTPC and wake with android remote but would like harmony to be able to do it
- bodhi - 2011-08-01
svinyard Wrote:Will using harmony remote with this mc6 reciever still give me WOL abilities? I only sleep my HTPC and wake with android remote but would like harmony to be able to do it
If you can do it with android from within XBMC, then it would be possible with Harmony. However, that's an important caveat, if you're sending WOL outside XBMC, then I'm not sure.
- johnmerrick - 2011-08-01
If XBMC all of a sudden minimises to the desktop (win7 x64) is there a button i can program to bring it back to the front?
It doesn't happen often and i'm not sure what causes it but i can't get it to maximise again from the harmony.
I also have eventghost installed if that is needed.
thanks
- >>X<< - 2011-08-01
johnmerrick Wrote:If XBMC all of a sudden minimises to the desktop (win7 x64) is there a button i can program to bring it back to the front?
It doesn't happen often and i'm not sure what causes it but i can't get it to maximise again from the harmony.
I also have eventghost installed if that is needed.
thanks
Something else is grabbing focus that's why it happens find out what it is then you can stop it, using a full screen window might also stop it from happening
If you give the xbmc shorcut a shortcut key then pressing that will bring it back into focus should be easy with a harmony you could use one of the F keys
- johnmerrick - 2011-08-01
>>X<<' Wrote:Something else is grabbing focus that's why it happens find out what it is then you can stop it, using a full screen window might also stop it from happening
If you give the xbmc shorcut a shortcut key then pressing that will bring it back into focus should be easy with a harmony you could use one of the F keys
Thanks. not sure how to find out what is doing it. I now have XBMC starting with eventghost because the shortcut keys keep resetting and switching between F7 and F9 so i had to stop using them. The shortcut key is still set so I will see if pressing either of those keys brings it back.
- >>X<< - 2011-08-01
Like I said using full screen window instead of true full screen is probably the quickest solution if you search on here there are lots of posts about this problem
Not sure why you have a shortcut problem works fine for me in win7 64bit have you tried setting them all back to none then maybe even delete all the current ones and reboot, create new shortcut and new shortcut key
- johnmerrick - 2011-08-01
>>X<<' Wrote:Like I said using full screen window instead of true full screen is probably the quickest solution if you search on here there are lots of posts about this problem
Not sure why you have a shortcut problem works fine for me in win7 64bit have you tried setting them all back to none then maybe even delete all the current ones and reboot, create new shortcut and new shortcut key
yes i have tried everything with the shortcuts but every now and then they reset and then revert back!
Eventghost works better for starting it. It's smoother and more reliable.
I was wondering if the mce keyboard/mce remote has a shortcut button to maximise xbmc if it minimises to the taskbar. ie: xbmc toggle full screen etc.
may be eventghost has a feature in it.
- >>X<< - 2011-08-01
johnmerrick Wrote:yes i have tried everything with the shortcuts but every now and then they reset and then revert back!
Eventghost works better for starting it. It's smoother and more reliable.
I was wondering if the mce keyboard/mce remote has a shortcut button to maximise xbmc if it minimises to the taskbar. ie: xbmc toggle full screen etc.
may be eventghost has a feature in it.
I doubt it would help if XBMC wasn't in focus
How are you starting XBMC using eventghost using a button or at startup because mapping a button in eventghost to start XBMC would also bring XBMC back to focus if its minimised
- svinyard - 2011-08-01
bodhi Wrote:If you can do it with android from within XBMC, then it would be possible with Harmony. However, that's an important caveat, if you're sending WOL outside XBMC, then I'm not sure.
I'm using the Magic Packet capabilities of the Android remote. My Android remote is also a member of my network being that it connects via WiFi where as my Harmony remote will not so there is a significant different in configuration/capabilities there if I'm not mistaken.
That being said, yes I'm only using it to wake from within XBMC.
- Mckron - 2011-08-01
I had the focus dropping issue too and I just setup "alt+tab" under my Media Center SE device and it seems to be a good quick fix. Still haven't found out what's pulling it out of focus yet as I've haven't been in the position to do anything about it when it happens. It only seems to happen when I have people over, what's up with that? Maybe it's shy.
Cheers.
- bodhi - 2011-08-01
Mckron Wrote:I had the focus dropping issue too and I just setup "alt+tab" under my Media Center SE device and it seems to be a good quick fix. Still haven't found out what's pulling it out of focus yet as I've haven't been in the position to do anything about it when it happens. It only seems to happen when I have people over, what's up with that? Maybe it's shy.
Cheers.
Since you have MCE SE device, the better way to manage this is to use Win+1, Win+2,.... to bring it back in to full screen. Win 7 has the task bar shortcut feature where you would "pin" a shortcut to the task bar (this is the replacement for quick launch in Windows XP). So if you have pinned the XBMC shortcut to task bar position number 1, when use Win+1 to start XBMC (or Win+2,... so on, depending where the XBMC shortcut was pinned to). If XBMC is already running, pressing Win+n will bring it back into focus, and vice versa. I assigned an LCD soft key on the 1st page to my Win+3 key for quick access to start/minimize/maximize XBMC and never have any problem.
The focus grabbing problem usually occurs during starting XBMC. So to eliminate it, you might want to look for any app running in system tray or Task Manager to see which program was doing that. One quick work around is to delay starting XBMC for something like 10 seconds, using Harmony delay feature in the activity. IOW, in XBMC activity, you would specify that the Win+3 key should be sent at the end of the activity, and the device MCE SE would need 10 seconds before receiving input.
- bodhi - 2011-08-01
svinyard Wrote:I'm using the Magic Packet capabilities of the Android remote. My Android remote is also a member of my network being that it connects via WiFi where as my Harmony remote will not so there is a significant different in configuration/capabilities there if I'm not mistaken.
That being said, yes I'm only using it to wake from within XBMC.
Indeed, it is very different (apple and orange). When you use Harmony, you would use the IR receiver which is in line of sight of the remote to bring the HTPC out of the sleep state, or put it to sleep (this would need the HTPC to be capable of S3 sleep). You're using Android remote to send WOL magic packet to the network to wake up a machine with a certain address, and this occurs outside of XBMC.
The answer would be yes, with the following configuration: the Harmony remote is in the line of sight of the IR receiver, the receiver is RC6 type, and the HTPC is capable of S3 sleep.