Girder stuff for Firefly

[gizak]

i think i understand what you are saying, let me try and restate it:

1 group is a master group, always enabled by default. This is the control method of deciding which "remote/set" is active. This could be used with the A B C D buttons at the bottom of Firefly.

So say for example, A = tv remote, B = receiver, C = beyond, D = fan

Each letter is going to have it's own multi-group, under it is the command to first make sure the letters for the remotes/sets that arn't to be used are set to disable via the girder action. Last it enables the actual learned commands for that remote you intend to be able to fuction. As a bonus, I could add "say" and OSD commands under this multigroup to announce "TV remote" and show "A" or "TV" as an OSD. So (assuming all the TV remote buttons are configured already) if I wanted to have all my TV remotes controls enabled, just press A. Girder disables B, C, and D, then enables A.

(somehow, magically, it's starting to make sense...that or the cheap pizza I just ate at lunch is making me smarter)

Just make sure A B C D are disabled by default to prevent multiple girder commands being active should you restart your PC or Girder and keep the master group enabled at all times. As you use it, Girder will stay with the last active "letter" it was at, and by indication of the OSD, when I return to the TV I can tell which remote is active just by looking.

Neat stuff, I don't know why I like this stuff...it seems so complicated, but at the same time, nerdy and appealing lol.

Some more questions:
I didn't get a chance to play with your gml yet, but I'm going to assume that the firefly group can do both beyond tv and media? I saw that it used script commands (i have no idea how this stuff works). So I guess that media and tv use the same scripts for control. Just trying to figure out if I need anything else to setup. What about all those other things the firefly can control...I know out of the box, firefly supports tons of media software, and while I usually don't need to use them, I was wondering if I'll lose that capability once I remove beyond media basic and install just the driver + girder. I'm assuming not as I'm still trying to understand your taskswitching toplevel group functions.

Girder # channels. What exactly is that. You noted they need to be #1 for firefly cmd group. I initially thought this was the secret to having multiple button commands from my firefly, or perhaps is another method??? Maybe it's just so you can have more then one firefly remote? Ah damn, my smartness just went away lol...

Any and all tips are very appreciative. This thread is becoming something useful finally and I'm starting to love my Firefly remote all over again hehe.

[merrypig]

Excellent, you totally got what I meant with the A,B,C,D stuff. Girder rocks once you get over the curve - you look like you're pretty much there

With regards to my setup .. Yes. it is rather ... twisted. Imagine...

[Remote] -> fireflyevent-> Girder -> 'firefly' cmd group -> action=Variable Manipulation script which fires an internal command -> application cmd group in girder -> action to send key/msg to program

So essentially, what my 'firefly' or 'ATI x10' groups is doing is remapping the proprietary events from each remote's driver /plugin , into a 'common' set of codes that I invented. IE instead of FIREFLY DOWN I remap to REMOTE_DOWN.
Then I remap ATI's "X10 DOWN" into REMOTE_DOWN too.

So in this way, regardless of how the remote (or any other input device for that matter) is configured, I only need to map one set of 'event triggers' for each application.


So, for each application I want to control specifically, I map my internal commands to actions .. eg REMOTE_UP, REMOTE_DOWN etc.

This is done per application. I then have one 'no apps active' group which maps a default set of actions - much like you have A,B,C,D above. I map tv, dvd, video etc. This is what fires when I'm not actively doing anything else.

The variable scripts are use because it seemed the only way I could send an internal event . would have been nice to just have a girder action for it, but doing it by a script works - just makes it slower to debug/configure first time through.
You need to be careful you don't accidentally lose the script by clicking other optiosn though I found..

There are a couple of other scripts/variables in there too to cycle through my light intensities (x10 control via cmd line executable at present and a powerlinc usb controller). And another couple of switches for mouse vs cursor mode.

Then there is the big if <x> then enable <y> test at the start to decide which is the active program;l then much like you described above I issue multi commands to disable everything else, then activate the one I want. This test runs _everytime_ the OS creates a new program or switches focus so the remote controls are always context sensitive to the active application.

Some apps work best with 'is foreground' others with 'window exists'.

Mostly, I have BTV configured - although it does vary a little from the native BTV configuration if you used firefly directly into btv. BM is partially configured, again; I've somewhat customized to my 'taste'... but I haven't finished tweaking it yet anyway.

[gizak]

wow, that first part is a bit confusing - but I think I see how it's beneficial to adding new program commands.

the second part about focusing makes sense though, definitely something I need to do to ease usage.

this is probably confusing as heck to everybody else though lol, I know cause I already have a decent understanding of girder, but I'm still going back and re-reading your posts 3 times while looking at your GML to help understand the logic hehe.

Don't be suprised if I come post here later with more questions!!

[merrypig]

*grin*. Someday I'll finish my gml and tidy it up and document it clearly.

For now, I rather like the status of 'geek girder hacker' - it seems more prestigious than even 'nerdy nixer'

[gaines]

As I understand it, the main problem with using RatDVD to store DVDs on the hard drive is that the Firefly doesn't work for navigating the stored DVD menus. Can Girder give Firefly users the ability to navigate these menus?

[Omita]

Are there any video's on how to setup Girder? I see the XML profiles listed yet all of the stuff in the current version of Girder seem to be GML files and the new version seems to be full of LUA scripts.

How does one install the XMBC xml profile?

[kvdman]

Why can't snapstream recompile the Girder plugin for the last free version of Girder 3.2.9b (although I see Ron Bessams is the author so that probably answers my question)?

Then we won't have to dish out another $20 for a program that should really come with Firefly's remote anyways (since Snapstream's software is very limited).

[ZetaVu]

I suggest you try eventghost, its free and in my opinion better than girder.