[Live] MCE Remote Discrete Suspend/Wakeup
#1
One of the issues I had with my Live install was how to get discrete suspend/wakeup from my remote.

I use a Philips TSU7000 that I program with macros to make it easy for family and guests to be able to use the HT. I have buttons for "Watch HTPC", "Watch DirectTV", "Turn All Off", etc. Equipment without a discrete on/off can be problematical. The remote isn't smart enough to know that the HTPC is already off when "Turn All Off" is pressed; thus turning it on when it should be off. Even if the remote was smart enough, a command missed by the HTPC then would put the device in the opposite mode the remote thinks it is.

Because of this I needed discrete on/off (suspend/wakeup). I opened a feature request, but after thinking about it for a while I came to a realization. XBMC isn't running when the system is suspended and that maybe the wakeup function is at a lower level.

I did an experiment with my MCE remote and it worked. In the remote.xml file I commented out the <power>XBMC.Shutdown()</power> line. I then added another line <star>XBMC.Shutdown()</star> (commented out all other star references). Rebooted and found that the power button no longer worked to suspend but the star (*) key did. The power button on the MCE remote did work for waking the system back up.

This proved that the wakeup is hard wired into the BIOS/MCE USB Receiver when the system is suspended.

I ended up using the 9 key instead of the star (*) key on my TSU7000 for suspend and it works great.

I tried to post thia as a HOWTO but for some reason I don't have permissions. Maybe I don't know what I'm doing and the forum software is smart enough to know it? Wink
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#2
There is no discreet commando as far as I know.
I've wired the on/button and monitor voltage of a molex with the serial extender of the pronto. This way my pronto knows xbmc is running or not. Here's my setting in keymap.xml
<power>ActivateWindow(shutdownmenu)</power>
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#3
Thank you very much for this tip, Tugboat. I just got a URC MX-780 and have been trying to figure out a way to get my macros working properly without discrete on / off commands for Xbmc. This work around does the trick nicely. Now I just have to find a button I don't use for anything else, as the asterisk gets used to change aspect ratio when watching video.
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#4
(2014-04-09, 03:46)rbrohman Wrote: Thank you very much for this tip, Tugboat. I just got a URC MX-780 and have been trying to figure out a way to get my macros working properly without discrete on / off commands for Xbmc. This work around does the trick nicely. Now I just have to find a button I don't use for anything else, as the asterisk gets used to change aspect ratio when watching video.


IMO you should use a more common button to perform the aspect ration during full screen video.
Use the somewhat obscure button (*) for a global function such as suspend.

The stock remote.xml has triple redundancy for OSD during full screen video. Use one of those for aspect ratio

Code:
<FullscreenVideo>
<remote>
<menu>OSD</menu>
<start>OSD</start>
<select>OSD</select>
</remote>
</FullscreenVideo>

Becomes

Code:
<FullscreenVideo>
<remote>
<menu>OSD</menu>
<start>OSD</start>
<select>AspectRatio</select>
</remote>
</FullscreenVideo>

And assuming your Lircmap.xml & lirc.conf are configured correctly
for remote.xml under global as the OP did
Code:
<global>
<remote>
<star>XBMC.Shutdown()</star>
</remote>
<global>
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#5
I ended up using the record button since I don't ever take screenshots.

I noticed that if the <power> button tags were not present at all in the global section (either deleted or commented out), XBMC would still shutdown on pressing the power button. I had to set it up like below to get it to work as desired. This causes the Power button to send the shift command, which only switches between lower and upper case letters in virtual keyboard, so no negative interference.

Code:
<global>
  <remote>
       <power>Shift</power>
       <record>XBMC.Shutdown()</record>
  </remote>
</global>
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[Live] MCE Remote Discrete Suspend/Wakeup1