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1:30 am
Sling Master
April 30, 2010
As a builder of many Custom Remotes for unsupported devices I have long been critical of the Default/Basic Remote that is used by Slingplayer if a realistic remote was not available. My main complaints were:
1. It did not look like an actual remote, it was very 2-dimensional.
2. It was too large for many screens so had to have scroll buttons at the top to switch between different parts.
3. There was a long-term bug that stopped both the ‘Track +/-‘ and ‘Skip+/-‘ buttons being defined at the same time. Although this was reported to Sling a long time ago nothing has been done to fix it.
4. It did not have colour buttons for the Mac Slingplayer and for the DVD Remote.
5. It did not display the Custom buttons so the user had to go to the Menu to use them.
6. The Custom buttons could not be renamed so the user had to try and remember what function they carried out.
7. Nothing could be changed, the user was stuck with the design, functionality and implementation.
So, with a LOT of help from BrandonC and his set of articles on this forum I have produced a replacement remote.
It fixes all the above problems, and although the remote is my personal design, it is purely a starting point as it actually allows users to fully customize it to their own needs by adding/deleting/moving/resizing/relabelling buttons, changing colours, switching functions….etc. No programming experience is necessary, just a text editor.
This is only a first attempt, so I have uploaded it as a V1.0 BETA so people can try it out and give me comments on both the remote itself and the instructions.
Download it from here, I look forward to any bugs/comments
Cheers
Al
1:40 am
June 10, 2010
Damn, Alan, that looks funtastically awegasmic! Excellent job.
7:44 am
April 23, 2010
Amazing, thanks a lot for the great job !
Works Great.
3:19 pm
Sling Master
April 30, 2010
I should point out (and will do in future versions), that all the
images I used were originally produced by someone for the built-in
remote skins. I freely acknowledge their contribution and would like
to thank them for all their work, but I have no idea who they are 
. If someone knows please let me know so I can give them full credit in the documentation.
Al
6:17 pm
Moderator
April 19, 2010
First off all this is very cool!
But, slightly off topic just to make you think….
Take the Property.xml file deleted everything so it looks like this..
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<keymap>
</keymap>
In other words delete all the key maps. The remote will still work the same as if everything was still there.
6:31 pm
Sling Master
April 30, 2010
As this is the default list of keymaps maybe if it doesn't have anything in it the software goes back to the Sling servers to find out what the default is.
I'm actually guessing that in our 'single remote' case the <keymaps> entry in REMOTE.XML is not necessary and you could edit PROPERTIES.XML directly. But as Sling are defing multiple remotes they find it easier to have a standard PROPERTIES.XML
And you may recall the PROPERTIES.XML is not in the XAP download, we have to add it manually otherwise the remote is not recognised.
7:25 pm
Moderator
April 19, 2010
Yup, learning something every day. Hard to say how it all works since there is no info coming from Sling Media. I was just throwing that out for something to think about.
What might be really cool with this deal is a mini remote could be created that does just the 4 or 5 things that you use all the time.
Say for example you have a Tivo and when watching something all you need is a pause, rewind and fast forward. So you don't need the whole remote to be shown. You could have a mini remote with just the functions you want when watching something and then can change to the full remote if you want to do more.
Since doing it this way you can flip between a full-blown remote skin and a mini skin remote there are a ton of ways that this can be used.
Since this remote can be shown at anytime it opens up a whole new world of possibilities.
7:34 pm
Sling Master
April 30, 2010
That's easy to do, go for it :-)
6:38 am
August 21, 2010
hi Alan,
sorry, but i have a very stupid question here. i have downloaded the file, followed the instruction, and installed onto SP version 2.0.4.521 over W7.
when i go into Connect > Remote keys, i see "My Tuner Remote" & "Tuner Remote Basic".
when i selected "My Tuner Remote", i do see the 12 button + 1 rocker remote, but i cannot figure out how to make it show the long extended remote with multiple keys.
is there something i am missing here?
well, even with the simple version of the remote would work for me. the rocker switch is now mapped to the +/- keys. can you please give me some tips on how to change this to the pageUP / pageDown keys to switch the channels up and down?
thanks!
6:57 am
Sling Master
April 30, 2010
Not a stupid question at all, that is what BETA files are for.
If you look in the REMOTE.XML file you will see that in the <Links> section I have :
<Link k="ANTENNA" remote="CustomTuner" keymap="idmap.custom" />
<Link k="CABLEANT" remote="CustomTuner" keymap="idmap.custom" />
<Link k="PVR" remote="CustomDevice" keymap="idmap.custom" />
<Link k="VCR" remote="CustomDevice" keymap="idmap.custom" />
<Link k="CABLEBOX" remote="CustomDevice" keymap="idmap.custom" />
<Link k="SATELLITE" remote="CustomDevice" keymap="idmap.custom" />
<Link k="DVDP" remote="CustomDevice" keymap="idmap.custom" />
<Link k="DVDR" remote="CustomDevice" keymap="idmap.custom" />
So that if the system sees you accessing either the Antenna or the Antenna via a Cable box then it gives you that smaller remote. If you are accessing any 'device' it gives you the big one. Now I am guessing you have a cable box but are using the co-ax antenna input ? And you are able to control lots of functions ?
If that is the case try changing the line
<Link k="CABLEANT" remote="CustomTuner" keymap="idmap.custom" />
to
<Link k="CABLEANT" remote="CustomDevice" keymap="idmap.custom" />
I will have to decide if that should be the default.
————————————-
As to switching the buttons, if you check in SKIN.XML and look for the small tuner remote you will see the lines
<!– Now the Channel+/- button –>
<Control id="id.remote.channel.up" type="button" backgroundID="img.button.up"
foregroundID="" x="90" y="280" cx="70" cy="70" />
<Control id="id.remote.channel.down" type="button" backgroundID="img.button.down"
foregroundID="" x="90" y="280" cx="70" cy="70" />
All you need to do is change 'channel' to 'page'
Now please don't be insulted, but I thought that was fairly obvious from the instructions, but obviously not How should I amend the instructions to include that ?
Cheers
Al
2:45 pm
August 21, 2010
hi Alan,
really appreciate your reply. you are correct, i am not using any box. the coax cable connects directly into my slingbox.
1. remote device:
when i was modifying the code from "CustomTuner" to "CustomDevice", my SlingPlayer was running on my laptop. i was not able to see the remote changing from the simple version to the extended version by switching between "Tunner Remote (Basic)" and "My Remote".
I had to physically exit SlingPlayer and restart to get the full size remote controller shown on screen.
2. channel up/down to page up/down
i have modified as instructed from "channel.up" to "page.up". Played with it but seems there was no changes:
the physical keys required from the keyboard to change channels remain no chage (=/-)
when i pointed the mouse pointer to the +/- rocker switch, nothing happened (channel would not change)
(I guess this is what Brandon C was referring to regarding the coding of SlingPlayer was fixed to the +/- keys for channel change?)
Lastly, no insult at all. i believe it's just me who is not familiar with programming. and things looked much more obvious after receiving your tips.
really appreciate your help in this.
4:38 pm
Sling Master
April 30, 2010
Thanks for the feedback that you needed to shut down Slingplayer. That makes sense actually as I assume REMOTE.XLS is read in once when you start but not accessed again. SKIN.XML is accessed each time the remote is switched.
As regards the Page +/- my instructions were to modify the buttons on the small Tuner Remote but if you were then viewing the larger remote then your chnage would have no effect. Were the Page+/- on the large remote working properly ?
5:18 pm
August 21, 2010
the Page +/- on the small remote has no effect.
i have also found out that after the modification, when i move mouse pointer over the rocker +/- button, it does not show "channel +" / "Channel -" anymore.
no action happens when clicking +/-. the only ways to change channel would be clicking the numbers with mouse or physically input through keyboard.
on the large remote, the channel +/- still works with mouse. but page +/- is still faded, and no action can be done.
5:37 pm
Sling Master
April 30, 2010
OK, this is down to the underlying BIN remote file that is being used, obviously the Page+/- function has not been implemented.
What did you select when you ran the Video Sources ? A built-in device or a Custom Remote ?
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