[jwatte]

I'm running XBMC under Debian on a Raspberry Pi.
I'm using a windows media center edition remote control and USB IR input that came with a Zotac Zbox AD-11.
The RPi is set up to start XBMC on boot, and to restart it if it quits/crashes. I don't have a problem starting XBMC!
I'm only using this to play a vast collection of mp3 files (ripped from CDs.) No TV, no PVR, no cable, no internet cloud services that may or may not have my media and may or may not be here tomorrow. The source is a server in a closet that exposes the files over NFSv4.

I've been trying to google the internets for how to map the green button to jump to the top/home screen. That's it. That's all I need to change.
However, I've run into the following problems:

1) Most tutorials and resources that talk about MCE remotes, talk about XBMC running on Windows. They include registry hacks, and very frequently windows-specific macro utilities, that have nothing to do with my set-up.
2) One forum thread mentions that the green button might send windows-alt-enter as a key combination. However, the keyboard.xml that ships with XBMC does not talk about "windows" or "alt" modifiers, and all the documentation I've seen just says "check the shipped keyboard.xml for examples" rather than include a comprehensive reference of what the possible buttons/keys are.

I want to eat a fish: What is the proper XML tag to use to capture a press on the green windows start button on this remote, in a keyboard.xml or remote.xml file?
Or I want to learn how to fish: Is there any kind of logging I can turn on, or utility I can run (on Debian, on Raspberry Pi) that will simply tell me which buttons are being pressed, as they are being pressed?

Bonus question: What's the name of the little back/left arrow key on this remote, and how can I map it to do the same thing as pressing Escape on a keybaord does?

[Dilligaf]

I believe it's the "home" button but not 100% turn on debug in xbmc and run this command then press remote buttons

Code:

tail -F /home/pi/.xbmc/temp/xbmc.log | grep OnKey

Of course you'll need to modify the path to xbmc.log to suit your setup. Now go fishing

[ursli]

To go a little further, you can use "irw" to check what key your remote sends and then use the Lircmap.xml file (located in .xbmc/userdata/) to remap it to a different remote.xml action.

Example output pressing my Home Button:

Code:

xbmc@xbmc:~$ irw
000000037ff07bf2 00 KEY_HOME mceusb

Lircmap.xml:

Code:

<lircmap>
       <remote device="mceusb">
        <clear>KEY_HOME</clear>
       </remote>
  </lircmap>

remote.xml:

Code:

<keymap>
  <global>
    <remote>
      <clear>XBMC.ActivateWindow(Home)</clear>
    </remote>
  </global>

This way you can bind any remote key to any xbmc action, even if it's not defined by default by xbmc.

[jwatte]

Thanks; this is helpful. I wonder why none of the tutorials (or even the Wiki on remotes and keyboard.xml) mention these methods?

Seconarily, neither the home nor back arrow buttons actually send an OnKey to the log at all, so that leaves the "irw" tool.
Unfortunately, it doesn't come with xbmc, and googling "irw for raspberry pi" doesn't find anything immediately obvious.

It seems to be part of the "lirc" distribution, but I'm not using "lirc" at all -- wouldn't it fight with the XBMC direct use of the USB remote receiver? I can't find any real documentation that actually describes this system -- most of it is for Windows hosts, using Windows macro packages, which are 100% not applicable :-(

[ursli]

Sorry I'm not using a pi, but xbmcbuntu (ubuntu preinstalled with xbmc) ships with lirc I thought that is the case for any linux system, guess I was wrong.

Wiki on xbmc with lirc: http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=HOW...l_in_Linux
http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=LIRC

[jwatte]

Right, but I'd prefer not to run lircd -- the remote already works. So xbmc knows how to receive data from it. So how can I tell what data it receives when it't not currently mapped to a command?

Also, even if I run lircd, it's not obvious which driver supports my particular IR receiver. The USB vendor/device ID is Philips/NXP, and because USB is plug-and-play, lircd OUGHT TO just run the right driver. But, no.

Actually, googling some more, I found this thread, where the first post is very similar to my situation:
http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=133071
(Except I only use the IR receiver from the Zbox, not the full Zbox, as that still has a fan.)

[artrafael]

Have you tried <start> and <back>, respectively, for those two buttons?