Firefly profile tutorial

[Oberleutnant]

Hi All,

The information in this thread all looks incredibly useful. I wonder if anyone would know how to do this...

I have a lot of music on my pc. I use iTunes to play it, but I think this question could be relevant to most music players...

How do I program the number buttons to send A, B, C...to Z keystrokes to the program so that the library of music automatically scrolls to the songs beginning with that letter. It would have to function in the same way that text messaging on phones works. i.e. Press '1' on the remote three times and iTunes scrolls to songs beginning with 'C'. Or press '5' on the remote twice and iTunes scrolls to songs beginning with 'K'.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers!

[kaj7979]

I am editing my global xml file to bind ctrl-T to the 'A' button.
I have put the following code in with several variations all to no avail:
</Actions>
<Actions Button="A" Description="Visualizer">
<KeyAction Keys="17" ActivationState="Down"/>
<keyaction keys="84"/>
</Actions>

I tried using the key titles as well (ie, control key and T) I have no clue how to specifically do this though, so I am at your mercy.
Let me know, and thanks in advance.,,

[kaj7979]

Just to clarify for the above post, I need to have the A button mapped to ctrl -T in Itunes. I tried editing the itunes xml as well, but I really dont know how to do it. I found a script that was comparable, but it was for altT. I need ctrl t. Thanks
Here was the script I found. It had a weird symbol in the place of the alt key.
<Actions Button="A" Description="Visualizer">
<KeyAction Keys="*****" ActivationState="Down"/>
</Actions>

I cannot figure out what goes in the place of the asterisks and whether that is all I need or if I need another keyaction for the T key. Thanks

[rllercstr7]

Hello, take a look at this site: http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/de...classtopic.asp

you need the combination - "^{T}"

^ signifies ctrl and T the letter t

[StephaneM]

Hello,

Originally Posted by Oberleutnant

How do I program the number buttons to send A, B, C...to Z keystrokes to the program so that the library of music automatically scrolls to the songs beginning with that letter. It would have to function in the same way that text messaging on phones works. i.e. Press '1' on the remote three times and iTunes scrolls to songs beginning with 'C'. Or press '5' on the remote twice and iTunes scrolls to songs beginning with 'K'.

I don't think you can do it with the default Firefly software. But you can do it with mine (see signature). All you have to do is attach to each number buttons on the remote 4 "keystroke" actions (for instance for the "2" button, you'll add one "2" keystroke, then one "a" keystroke, a "b" keystroke, a "c" keystroke), then on top of those 4 "keystroke" actions, add a "Multipress" action and choose the label to display on the OSD for each button press, typically you'll have to type in the label field "2,a,b,c".

This way when your press on the "2" button one time, it will display "2" on the osd and if you do not press "2" again, "2" will be sent to the active application. But if you press again on the "2" button within the short timeout, then the OSD will display "a" and upon timeout will send "a" to the active application etc...

Regards,
Stéphane.

[jpc8031-59]

Does anyone know if there is a way to simulate a window button click without moving the mouse and using the mouse click keys on the Firefly ?

For example, to simulate clicking the "OK" button on the active window by pressing the "A" button on the Firefly. No reasonable series of keystrokes
will work to accomplish this in my application.

Thanks !

[risen]

The OK button is usually default so wouldnt a keypress for ENTER work? Should be able to just hit the OK button on the firefly for that.

[AncientPC]

I have a very simple question, where can I find the xml files (global, default, mouse, etc.)?

Edit: Nevermind I found the answer here: http://www.snapstream.com/support/he...ationguide.htm

Oddly enough, I searched on my Documents and Settings folder for global.xml and still nothing comes up.

[risen]

You know, this might sounds like a stupid question... But has ANYONE figured out how to just send regular windows media button events? Like you know, media keyboards have keys for pause/play/prev/next/volume and whatever media program is running usually grabs those and does something with it. I want to configure my Default profile to just send those system media events for certain firefly buttons instead of having to program it for each program. Hopefully someone here knows what I mean. I have *NO CLUE* why snapstream wouldnt just make it that way by default in the Default profile, since most media applications respond to the special media buttons. This is very frustrating, they should make this stuff easier. Thanks in advance.

[StephaneM]

Hello,

Originally Posted by risen

But has ANYONE figured out how to just send regular windows media button events?.../...I want to configure my Default profile to just send those system media events for certain firefly buttons instead of having to program it for each program.

I don't know if you can do it with the default Firefly software, but you can do it with mine. In fact, my application does only comes with a default profile that mainly use the WM_APPCOMMAND messages. And when you create a new profile for another application, you only customize the buttons you need to (buttons not customized will use the default profile actions).

Also not all applications are responding to WM_APPCOMMAND so I think this is why Snapstream doesn't choose this way (even BTV doesn't respond to all WM_APPCOMMAND messages).

Regards,
Stéphane.

[risen]

Hey, thanks for your reply StephaneM. I have checked out your software before and it is pretty cool. Dont ask me why I am still running the Firefly software; I guess I am just hoping they'll get around to updating it and making it real nice. Maybe SS should consider buying yours from you and enhancing it even more -- but, I won't hold my breath ;-)

Anyway I have found from microsoft the correct commands for this and figured I should share them. To have your Firefly work like any other media keyboard (Logitech etc) just add this to your Default profile...

(note that if you have application-specific profiles already set up to use these keys, those will obviously override these. but, overall it seems to work great for me.)


<Actions Button="Rewind" Description="Prev">
<KeyAction Keys="{mediaprevioustrack}" />
</Actions>
<Actions Button="FastForward" Description="Next">
<KeyAction Keys="{medianexttrack}" />
</Actions>
<Actions Button="Pause" Description="Play/Pause">
<KeyAction Keys="{mediaplaypause}" />
</Actions>
<Actions Button="Play" Description="Play/Pause">
<KeyAction Keys="{mediaplaypause}" />
</Actions>
<Actions Button="Stop" Description="Stop">
<KeyAction Keys="{mediastop}" />
</Actions>

[aurigus0]

I'm having problems putting together a profile for Joost, I can only get it to use global keys. I'm using the AppIdentifier to get the right information:

<Identifier ClassName="MozillaUIWindowClass" WindowText="Joost™" FileName="tvprunner.exe" />

I also tried tried:

<Identifier ClassName="MozillaUIWindowClass" WindowText="" FileName="" />

and

<Identifier ClassName="" WindowText="Joost™" FileName="" />

and

<Identifier ClassName="" WindowText="" FileName="tvprunner.exe" />

No dice, always uses Default. Restarted firefly to make sure it will pull the new .xml file. Any ideas?

[funchameleon]

Originally Posted by pdaughe

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

Please tell me =) . Also, a way to assign a button to winbutton-tab (for Vista

[OOZnOZ]

How can I turn off the decriptions for specific buttons?

I'm using a profile for Powerpoint. But when I push the {Right} button to advance to the next slide, I get a "powerpoint: Next" message.

I've tried removing the description (description=""); I still get a message: "powerpoint: ".

I've changed my profile from:
<Actions Button="Right" Description="Next">
<KeyAction ActivationState="DownRepeat" Keys="{right}" Sleep="0" />
</Actions>
to:
<Actions Button="Right" Description="">
<KeyAction ActivationState="DownRepeat" Keys="{right}" Sleep="0" />
</Actions>


This distracts from the slide show presentation.

How can I turn it off the description for a specific button (like right and left)?

However, I'd like to be able to see the discripton for keys such as "1", "2"... in case I need to go to a specific slide. (I'd like to see that I'm keying in the numbers correctly.)

Thanks

[diputs]

I'm trying to find a way to program the firefly to "Fast Forward" in iTunes when a song is playing. Using the mouse it requires clicking and holding on the forward arrow. I've also found a seemingly undocumented keyboard shortcut: "CTRL+ALT+RIGHT". This seems to perform the action "Jump ahead 5 seconds". My problem now is that no matter what i try, i can't seem to map it to the firefly. I've tried KeyAction and SpecialKeyAction and it doesn't seem to respond. Another interesting note is that is doesn't seem to respond to the Windows Vista On-Screen Keyboard either. I had to use hover mode in the OSK, so that i didn't lose focus of iTunes, but the only way to get it to respond was to use the OSK for CTRL+ALT but still hit the arrow key on the keyboard. Is there any solution to this? If anyone can get it working please post the exact action used. I feel like I've tried everything. Thanks.