Firefly profile tutorial

[pdaughe]

Originally Posted by aaronmielke

All profiles load. I looked into delay loading them but that didn't really save me much memory overhead. You can fake alt-tab etc. You can not fake control-alt-delete. We use sendinput.

How do you "fake" alt-tab? Thanks in advance....

[pdaughe]

Originally Posted by wildmaiden

Since Beyond media can only go full screen on the primary monitor, I would like to set up a button on the firefly remote (i.e. button A) to switch which display is my primary one.

Did you ever get this to work? My son would like to be able to do this, but I haven't looked into it in depth yet......

[pdaughe]

Originally Posted by pdaughe

How do you "fake" alt-tab? Thanks in advance....

I just love quoting myself! Okay, how DO you program a firefly button to send an alt-tab?

[pdaughe]

Wow, this FireFly system is really great! Last night I successfully programmed the "D" button to send an alt-tab. I defined the setting in the global profile so it works for all applications.

It's not quite what I'm after though....alt-tab simply toggles between 2 applications -- I want to go round-robin through all open applications by pressing (repeatedly) just a single button on the FireFly. It looks like that should be a walk-in-the-park given the versatility of the FileFly profile system. Cool!

[pdaughe]

Originally Posted by pdaughe

....alt-tab simply toggles between 2 applications -- I want to go round-robin through all open applications by pressing (repeatedly) just a single button on the FireFly. It looks like that should be a walk-in-the-park given the versatility of the FileFly profile system. Cool!

Okay, you guys must be chuckling because I'm just "discovering" the Firefly (it seems I have this thread all to myself!) Honestly, one of the things that impresses me about the Snapstream solutions is that when I go to do something, I find I can! For example, changing the channels of the FireFly remote so one doesn't interfere with the other -- it's so easy -- I don't take those kinds of features for granted.

Back to the FireFly. So HOW does one program ONE KEY on the remote that will "walk through" all opened applications?

The solution made me laugh -- I've been using Windows since Windows 3.0 and I just learned something yesterday I never knew!

If you have, for example, four opened, maximized Windows on your computer, how do you "walk" through them, switching to each application, one after the other, in a round-robin fashion?

(imagine each application running full-screen, no task bar showing, so don't answer: "click on the task bar silly", and remember, the ultimate goal is to do it with one repeated key press on the FireFly).

Alt-tab doesn't do it. Alt-tab toggles between the two most-recently applications to have focus (don't answer: alt-tab-tab, etc. -- that's not a one-key sequence that is easily programmable).

The answer: Shift-alt-tab. I never knew that!

With the simple insertion of a "+" sign, I now have ONE KEY on the FireFly remote that walks through all opened applications. Thank you Snapstream!

P.S. By the way, you may be reading this post and wondering: why do I care?

You may not. In my case, the HTPC is used by several people in our home, and our home, like our American culture, is interrupt driven. One constructive criticism I have of the Snapstream muti-media solution is that it is too "sequential."

For example, Live TV is playing. My wife wants to check the weather. What does one have to do? Or, my daughter runs in while we're watching American Idol and wants to quickly check when a show starts at the Star Theater. What does one have to do?

I've never understood the Beyond Media/Beyond TV integration issue. In my opinion, the products are already TOO integrated (the desire for a "Link" capability for Beyond Media is different than product integration). Sitting at the keyboard, I can alt-tab away from Live TV (Live TV keeps running) and check the weather in Beyond Media. I can't do that with the remote though, not by default.

Back in the DOS days, one had to close one application to launch another; there was no task switching provided by the operating system. Inherent in the very design of Windows (alt-tab, shift-alt-tab) is the ability to perform multiple units of work concurrently, where the state of each unit of work is fully preserved when switching from one to the other.

By exploiting the versatility of the FireFly system, I can now press one key to to step through all opened applications. For me, that is a BIG wow factor!

Am I all alone in my thinking???

Sincerely,

Paul

[pdaughe]

I note that the ARGUMENTS parameter does not allow a quoted string to be passed to the program being launched. That is, the parameter does not support the "double quotes = one quote" convention:

Arguments="C:\Program Files\automation\" is acceptable, but

Arguments="""C:\Program Files\automation\""" is not.

[bbroerman]

What are the button attribute names for the "Back" and "Ent" buttons on the remote, just below the numbers 7 and 9? I tried 'Back' and 'Ent', but it won't recongnise them, and I don't see anything in the 1st post about these.

[fivestar]

Originally Posted by ahawks

I fixed my issue with Google Earth, and have attached the file I created for public use.

Here is the basics. To start a motion, I send a SpecialActionKey "down" state for the key code, to stop, I send an "up" message for the same key.

<Actions Button="Right" Description="Move Right">
<SpecialKeyAction ActivationState="Down" Type="Down" Code="39" />
</Actions>

<Actions Button="OK" Description="Stop Moving">
<SpecialKeyAction ActivationState="Down" Type="Up" Code="37" />
<SpecialKeyAction ActivationState="Down" Type="Up" Code="38" />
... and so on ..
</Actions>

I've been trying to use this code specifically:

<SpecialKeyAction ActivationState="Down" Type="Up" Code="37" />

to map NumPad1 to Number1 on the remote.I'm using Code="97" but it doesn't have the same effect as pussing the number 1 on the keypad.

Can anyone help?

Thanks,

Greg

[kandlg]

I managed to get Firefly button "D" setup in the global.xml settings to do a shift-alt-tab to switch between applications. It works fine in all applications except Beyond Media (full version). When I get to BM, it just beeps and doesn't change applications. My first thought was that it is configured to do something in BM so I needed to change it there. I tried removing the settings for "D" in the Beyond Media xml, but that hasn't fixed it. Any ideas how to get this to work in BM?

[CrazyCanajdian]

Hello, I have a few questions about how to customize a profile. What I would like to do is to press a button to enable the shift key, so that I can select many files in windows explorer. I have tried the following but I can not deactivate the shift key so it gets stuck on shift mode after I have selected the files I want to open.

<Actions Button="Firefly" Description="Shift">
<KeyAction ActivationState="Down" Keys="+" />
</Actions>

I would also like to know what the command for the application key is (this is the key beside the windows key and right control key) so that I can open the shortcut menu for a file in windows explorer.

I would greatly appreciate any help you can give me.

Thanks,
Crazy

[PaulF]

I installed TaskSwitchXP Pro 2.0 and configured the "Aplications List" hotkey to an unused key(^F12 in my case). TaskSwitch doesn't intercept the alt-tab from FF for some reason. I then configered FF Global.xml to send ^{F12} for an unused button("Music" in my case). The default FF arrow keys and enter work with TaskSwitchXP.

[spaceman]

Aloha!


For anyone seeking to programmatically Turn their monitor On/Off/Sleep via FireFly Remote Control,
Please add these lines in the end of your Global Profile:
(This is very useful after seeing a movie in bed and wanting to go to sleep)


<Actions Button="B" Description="Monitor: Sleep">
<PostMessageAction Message="SYSCOMMAND" wparam="61808" lparam="1" ActivationState="Down" />
</Actions>
<Actions Button="C" Description="Monitor: Turn Off">
<PostMessageAction Message="SYSCOMMAND" wparam="61808" lparam="2" ActivationState="Down" />
</Actions>
<Actions Button="D" Description="Monitor: Turn On">
<PostMessageAction Message="SYSCOMMAND" wparam="61808" lparam="-1" ActivationState="Down" />
</Actions>

Please note, in new monitors(for example Smasung SyncMaster 960BF) the Sleep and the Turn Off operations achieve the same result: Sleep.



1 last thing which I did not fully understand:
If I update a profile, How do I make Firefly application to refresh its profile data?
Because apparently it doesn't do it automatically after I save the profile file..

I need to close the Firefly application(via the Tray Icon\Exit), and reload Firefly application..


Thank you
Zohar

[awx]

Originally Posted by spaceman

For anyone seeking to programmatically Turn their monitor On/Off/Sleep via FireFly Remote Control,
Please add these lines in the end of your Global Profile:

I haven't tested this out yet but it looks really cool, spaceman! Where did you find that out?

Do you know how to emulate the multimedia keys from modern keyboards?

[ryanmcfall]

Originally Posted by pdaughe

I note that the ARGUMENTS parameter does not allow a quoted string to be passed to the program being launched. That is, the parameter does not support the "double quotes = one quote" convention:

Arguments="C:\Program Files\automation\" is acceptable, but

Arguments="""C:\Program Files\automation\""" is not.

This is a standard XML convention. If you want to put a quote in an attribute value, use Arguments="&quot;C:\Program Files\automation\&quot;"

[ryanmcfall]

Originally Posted by pdaughe

Did you ever get this to work? My son would like to be able to do this, but I haven't looked into it in depth yet......

This is the first thing that I tried (successfully!) to do.

At least with my version of the ATI drivers, you can actually activate a profile via command line, which seems easier than trying to simulate the Hot Key. Here's the entry, which I added to default.xml for the "a" key. Hope this helps!

<Actions Button="A" Description="Activate TV">
<LaunchAction Button="A"
Program="C:\Program Files\ATI Technologies\ATI.ACE\CLI.exe" Arguments="Load profilename=&quot;TV&quot;" ActivationState="Down" />
</Actions>