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Do you have PowerPoint running and is it the frontmost AND active
application when you press the menu button?
I do think so. At least, the frontmost window is PowerPoint and the menubar says "PowerPoint". What is the difference between frontmost and active?
In the preferences, does "PowerPoint" turn up in the list of
Behaviours on the left in the "Mapping" category? And if so, does it
offer you a range of actions (just asking to make sure it's not using
your own Behaviour)?
Yes; it does show up there, with all default settings. In fact, I just installed Remote Buddy, and did not pursue making an alternative behaviour. I clicked "Reset to default mapping" to make sure.
Finally, you may try to run LSRefresh on PowerPoint (you can grab
LSRefresh from the Blog on this site) and subsequently restart Remote
Buddy.
That seems like a good thing. Unfortunately, it did not work, even not after restarting both PowerPoint and Remote Buddy.
Next, I'll re-install Remote Buddy, and reboot my computer. See if that works. Are there preference files in unusual locations I can trash? Perhaps, I can re-install PowerPoint (that should be a simple drag and drop) or try on my desktop computer (though that doesn't have a Apple remote). I think I didn't upgrade PowerPoint there yet.
If that does not work, I am inclined to check the method that Remote Buddy uses to determine the frontmost and/or active application.
I am not sure how to do it, without switching applications. Perhaps an apple script that calls a shell command. I once did it the other way around, perhaps this is possible too. Does Remote Buddy only uses this "bundle identifier" ("com.microsoft.PowerPoint")? Do you know a way to get that info in AppleSCript or command line tool?