RM's Layout panel and Kameleon remotes

aberguerand · Post by **aberguerand** » Fri Apr 21, 2006 5:53 am

Here is an image an map file for the URC-8206. The image is a picture I took with my digital camera and contrast enhanced in Photoshop. The official pictures are of better quality, but I could not find any with all the EL "segments" illuminated.

The map was a b***h to make

.

Due to some buttons having up to three labels, I had to design areas having a third of the height of one button. Alternatively, as for a given device mode, only one of the functions can be active per button (but there is an exception

), I could have defined overlapping full size buttons, but I was not sure how KM would have handled this.

The numeric tuner buttons were also a problem. Here instead of "punishing" the normal numeric buttons by setting them half-height, I have designed them full height, and the less used tuner ones are thin areas located in the small inter-space below the buttons.

The surround button is donut shaped around the OK button, but I just used a large circle under the smaller one of the OK button 8) .

Some buttons, located in different places and active in different modes, share the same code (for instance TV/DVD and tuner-4), so I had to define two areas for them, at least one of them is correct

.

I have also designed separate areas for the buttons that are shifted in keymaps (like shift-Power becomes Sleep), but RM does not show them in unshifted mode and shows both the base button and my specific shifted version in shifted mode. So maybe it will be better to remove these specific shifted version

.

gfb107 · Post by **gfb107** » Fri Apr 21, 2006 7:26 am

We've never figured out how to handle the Layout panel with Kameleons well.

I think in order to do it well we would need a different image and map for each device mode, and then a method for handling each screen maybe by having multiple pictures of the remote stacked vertically in the image file, and scrolling up and down to see them.

gfb107 · Post by **gfb107** » Fri Apr 21, 2006 10:27 am

I don't think any changes to RM are needed to correctly handle these vertically stacked images, one image for each screen that can be reached by using the "scroll" button on the remote. One could even overlay a text label on each part of the image to give the user some idea which screen is currently visible.

Since I don't own a Kameleon, I'm not in a good position to tell if this scrolling approach would be useful. Anyone willing to do some experimenting?

Of course, changes will be needed to handle the different maps for each device mode, but let's see how far we can get without that.

Post by **The Robman** » Fri Apr 21, 2006 11:14 am

I think having the ability to have different images for each device mode would be a great addition, not only for the Kameleon remotes (and the 15-2107 touchscreen) but also for the Slingbox.

gfb107 · Post by **gfb107** » Fri Apr 21, 2006 12:19 pm

OK, let's explore this idea.

First we need to enhance the RDF ImageMap syntax.

Currently, this is a comma separated list of map file names
There is one map file name for each distinct remote name associated with the RDF.

For example the RDF "6_806_80 (URC-881x_801x_601x).rdf" is associated with 3 remote names: URC-881x,URC-801x,URC-601x
In the RDF we have:

ImageMap=URC-8811.map,URC-8011.map,URC-6011.map

Borrowing from the ButtonMaps section, we can associate a group of map files with a remote name by using parens to group all the maps for a given remote name.

The order of the image maps in the group would provide the correlation to the device types index.

In the RDF we have:
[DeviceTypes]
TV = 0
VCR/DVD = 1
Audio = 2
CBL/SAT = 3

So we could have:
ImageMap=(URC-881x-tv.map,URC-881x-vcr.map,URC-881x-aud.map,URC-881x-cbl.map),URC-801x.map,URC-601x.map

In this case only the URC-881x has device type specific maps, the URC-801x and URC-601x each have a device-independent map.

Alternatively, we could leave the ImageMap= line alone and add a new section

[DeviceTypeImageMaps]
TV=URC-881x-tv.map
VCR/DVD=URC-881x-vcr.map
Audio=URC-881x-aud.map
CBL/SAT=URC-881x-cbl.map

If the section is missing, or there's a missing device type in the table, or there isn't an entry in the table for a device name (in this case no entries for the URC-801x and URC-601x), RM will use the device type independent map file from the ImageMap= line.

aberguerand · Post by **aberguerand** » Fri Apr 21, 2006 12:45 pm

With the european Kameleons, it is still a bit more complicated, because they not only have a different layout per device, but also each device can have different screens.
For instance in AUD mode, for the "base" screen, the digits keys have a set of codes, but for the "preset/menu" screen they have a different set of codes. It can be compared to an alternative way of shifting, the "Scroll" key being the shift key. But for some modes, like TV, there are three different screens ("base", "teletext" and "Menu").

So the RDF should have something like this :

[DeviceTypeImageMaps]
TV=URC-8206-tv-base.map, URC-8206-tv-teletext.map, URC-8206-tv-menu.map,
VCR/DVD=URC-8206-vcr-base.map ,URC-8206-vcr-menu.map
Audio=URC-8206-aud-base.map,8206-aud-menu-preset.map
CBL/SAT=URC-8206-sat-base.map, URC-8206-sat-menu-pvr.map
CD=URC-8206-cd-base.map, URC-8206-cd-menu.map
DVD=URC-8206-dvd-base.map

and RM could have a "Scroll" button that would behave like the scroll button on the remote, ie cycle through the possible screens.

Post by **The Robman** » Fri Apr 21, 2006 1:50 pm

aberguerand wrote:RM could have a "Scroll" button that would behave like the scroll button on the remote, ie cycle through the possible screens.

I think a "tabbed" approach might be better. In other words, you could have 2 or 3 small tabs above the picture of the remote that you would use to switch between the displays.

gfb107 · Post by **gfb107** » Fri Apr 21, 2006 2:22 pm

Did anyone understand my idea for multiple vertically stacked images of the remote in a single image file to handle multiple screens?

You would then use the scroll bar (or up/down arrow or pg up/down) to adjust which screen you are viewing. The downside is that you could scroll to an illogical spot (bottom of one screen above the top of the next screen)

Or do you prefer multiple maps with tabs or scroll up/down buttons?

If we go with multiple maps, then we're back to map grouping in the RDF, to allow for the case where one RDF describes more than one remote.

Post by **The Robman** » Fri Apr 21, 2006 2:38 pm

I was OK with your RDF suggestions.

gfb107 · Post by **gfb107** » Tue Apr 25, 2006 9:23 am

Alright, I've got a test version of RM with support for device-type specific image maps.

RemoteMaster.v1.52test1.zip

Also an RDF and images and maps for the URC-8206 to try it with: urc-8206-test.zip.

aberguerand · Post by **aberguerand** » Wed Apr 26, 2006 1:03 am

Greg,

it works perfectly, thanks !

Minor nitpicking : the "+10" button is misnamed as "-/--" in the aud-menu map.

One drawback with this way of handling maps is that one can not, in "Layout" mode, directly assign functions to buttons that are not in the map (generating keymoves). This can be done in "Buttons" mode, but the assignments are not displayed in "Layout" mode. Maybe such assignments could be displayed in the rows of unmapped buttons below the remote image ?
Anyways, I do not think that such keymoves are functional. I will have to check this, but I do not see how the remote could handle keymoves on different logical buttons, like "PP" and "Random", that are mapped to the same physical button. So possibly the "Layout" mode is handling it correctly, and the "Buttons" mode should be modified so that it does not allow such non-functional keymoves.

gfb107 · Post by **gfb107** » Wed Apr 26, 2006 8:19 am

Alain,

Either we've got some errors in the maps and ButtonMaps section of the RDF, or the lighting of buttons isn't determined by the ButtonMaps.

Here's where there are discrepancies:

SAT/CBL: PVR is lit but not in the ButtonMap.
AUD,CD,DVD,TV,VCR: A, B, and C are lit but not in the ButtonMap

Also, since the green, red, blue, and yellow buttons are physical buttons, it seems those could be assigned keymoves in all device modes. Note that they are present in a number of ButtonMaps: SAT/CBL,TV,VCR

If we haven't made any mistakes, that means there's more information needed to allow RM (and IR) to keep the user from creating keymoves (and macros?) that can't be used.

aberguerand · Post by **aberguerand** » Wed Apr 26, 2006 8:46 am

gfb107 wrote:SAT/CBL: PVR is lit but not in the ButtonMap..

The PVR button is only used to switch to the "PVR/Menu" screen. The "Preset" button has a similar function in AUD. As such, they do not emit codes

gfb107 wrote:AUD,CD,DVD,TV,VCR: A, B, and C are lit but not in the ButtonMap

The oddity here is that they exist in the SAT/CBL buttonmap

. There are only two built-in devices (00847 and 01175) that actually use them. According to the manual, the purpose of these buttons is to get (device independant) macros assigned to them.

gfb107 wrote:Also, since the green, red, blue, and yellow buttons are physical buttons, it seems those could be assigned keymoves in all device modes. Note that they are present in a number of ButtonMaps: SAT/CBL,TV,VCR

I will experiment to find whether they can be assigned.

gfb107 wrote:If we haven't made any mistakes, that means there's more information needed to allow RM (and IR) to keep the user from creating keymoves (and macros?) that can't be used.

I will further experiment to what happens when :
- a keymove/macro is assigned to an unlit key.
- a keymove/macro is assigned to a logical button absent from the buttonmap, but with another logical button existing in the buttonmap corresponding to the same physical button (with the other logical button being assigned a function or not).
- same as above, but shifted.

aberguerand · Post by **aberguerand** » Wed Apr 26, 2006 2:55 pm

Some more information on keymoves/macros for the 8206 :

- Keymoves and macros can only but assigned to buttons existing in the corresponding buttonmap, and they are only functional in the screen where the button is lit. So assigning a keymove on "Eject" has no effect in SAT, AUD or TV modes. Assigning a keymove to the "up" arrow has no effect in "base" screen of the VCR mode, but is effective in the "menu" mode.
- The exceptions are the 'A', 'B', 'C', 'red', 'green', 'blue' and 'yellow" buttons that can all be assigned keymoves or macros, even if they are not in the buttonmaps. In AUD mode though, they are only functional in the "base" screen, not in the "preset/menu" screen. For the other device modes, they are functional in all screens.
- Macros can not be assigned to the Scroll and Magic buttons.
- Macros can be assigned to the device buttons.
- Macros and keymoves can be assigned to the special "PVR" and "Preset" buttons. In that case, the macro/keymove is executed, then the screen is scrolled.