On a brandless RF remote, many buttons do not work with XBMC

Question

I have purchased a brandless RF remote that brandishes an MCE logo, and I want to use that on my Media PC running XBMC on Ubuntu 10.04 LTS.

The important buttons work out of the box with no configuration: arrows, OK, back and media control (play/pause,etc.), but the remote has many buttons that I want to use to power some more obscure features - from "go to main screen" through context menu to "open subtitles synchronization dialog". Unfortunately, when I start XBMC in debug mode (as described here), I can't get any of these buttons to register. These are buttons like "channel up/down", "My TV", "DVD Menu", etc.

I also tried to fiddle with LIRC, but as I have no idea what I'm doing, that obviously failed. Update: Please note that I rather not use LIRC and the remote currently works without LIRC.

The remote has the label "RM-518" and dmesg identifies the USB RF receiver plug like this:

input: HOLTEK Wireless 2.4GHz Trackball Keyboard as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:0b.0/usb2/2-2/2-2:1.0/input/input4
generic-usb 0003:1241:0504.0001: input,hidraw0: USB HID v1.10 Keyboard [HOLTEK Wireless 2.4GHz Trackball Keyboard] on usb-0000:00:0b.0-2/input0
input: HOLTEK Wireless 2.4GHz Trackball Keyboard as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:0b.0/usb2/2-2/2-2:1.1/input/input5
generic-usb 0003:1241:0504.0002: input,hiddev96,hidraw1: USB HID v1.10 Mouse [HOLTEK Wireless 2.4GHz Trackball Keyboard] on usb-0000:00:0b.0-2/input1

Any ideas on how to go about mapping the missing buttons will be highly appreciated

Answer 1

I don't know if you are still having issues with LIRC, but I found a device that acts as a IR Receiver and works without using LIRC. It is called FLIRC and you can set it up with an easy GUI. I would recommend using the full keyboard layout and you should be able to map every button on your remote to a keyboard command supported by XBMC. It is about $25, but it is flawless and solved all of the issues I had trying to set up LIRC, map buttons and even the problem I was having with my remote causing my TV to power cycle. I recommend it to everyone I know, I wish I would have taken a chance on it when I first stumbled onto it 6 months ago.

Answer 2

i got the same remote, im working on getting it to me seen in lirc but in the mentime, you can start mapping the keys right away in the keyboard.xml

the power key is called KEY_SLEEP if you add this to the xml under global,

- - - ActivateWindow(shutdownmenu)

you will now notice that pressing the button not brings up the shutdown menu.

You can find all the button names by installing evtest and then choose HOLTEK Wireless 2.4GHz Trackball Keyboard then press and record keys accordingly, (lets press the #2 key) Event: time 1356065151.524131, type 4 (EV_MSC), code 4 (MSC_SCAN), value 7005a Event: time 1356065151.524136, type 1 (EV_KEY), code 80 (KEY_KP2), value 1 Event: time 1356065151.524138, -------------- SYN_REPORT ------------ Event: time 1356065151.660144, type 4 (EV_MSC), code 4 (MSC_SCAN), value 7005a Event: time 1356065151.660149, type 1 (EV_KEY), code 80 (KEY_KP2), value 0strong text Event: time 1356065151.660150, -------------- SYN_REPORT ------------

The name for the #2 button to use in keyboard.xml is in bold "KEY_PK2"

Hope this help, lol even tho it looks like 1yr later to your question!!

Answer 3

Check out this thread on XBMC:

http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?t=45972

It describes setting up custom Lircmap.xml and Keymap.xml files to fully utilize all of your remote buttons.