User

27.03.2007 15:13:30

First, I should point out I am fairly new to Remote Buddy and the Mac in general so there probably is an easy solution to my problem.

Is it possible to create a custom action consisting of multiple keystrokes (a sort of macro)?

Here is my situation. I am using DVDpedia in fullscreen mode as the front end to my Mac Mini video server. All my movies are linked to the corresponding VIDEO_TS folder. When I select a particular movie in DVDpedia it launches in DVD Player. This part works fine.

What I am wondering about is what is the best way to pass control back to DVDpedia when I am finished watching the movie, or if I just want to stop the movie before it is completed?

Currently I have Remote Buddy set up to issue a command-Q when I press and hold the remote's Menu button. This quits from DVD Player and returns focus to DVDpedia which remained in the background while the movie was playing.

The above works, but I would like to know if there is a way to pass control back to DVDpedia without having to exit from DVD Player? When I am finished watching a movie I thought it might be better to simply close the movie file, but leave DVD Player open in fullscreen mode, then return focus back to DVDpedia.

I tried creating a custom action containing a series of 2 keystrokes. The first issues a command-shift-W to close the open movie file and the second issues a command-H which hides DVD Player (in essence reactivating DVDpedia). I can't get this 2 step action to work.

Is this a valid approach, or is there a better solution?

Thank you in advance for any information anyone may be able to provide.

User

28.03.2007 12:20:01

Hello Paul,

thanks for your question.

This is indeed a valid approach but won't work until in RC2. The 
current approach to the keystroke actor is that the emulated 
keypresses press and release events match the press and release 
events of your the respective button on your remote. In RC2, you can 
modify this behaviour.

Apart from that, what you want to do can be accomplished with an 
AppleScript very easily and reliably:

tell application "DVD Player" to quit 
tell application "DVDPedia" to activate

If you close the "DVD Player" window, it closes the entire 
application, thus I placed "quit" here.

The other solution (and just as reliable) would be to just send an 
Apple + H to DVD Player as Apple + W (the Apple + Shift + W combo you 
mention doesn't seem to be valid btw) would have the same effect as 
Apple + Q in DVD Player. And then, in an AppleScript actor, use the 
second line of the above script.

Hope that helps.

Best regards, 
Felix 

User

28.03.2007 16:20:59

Thanks for the reply. I had already came up with a solution very similar to what you described. I gave up on the keystroke method and simply created a short Applescript action that told DVD Player to stop and then to activate DVDpedia. This works great as it stops the current movie and brings DVDpedia back to the front (still in fullscreen mode). It leaves DVD Player open in fullscreen mode in the background (which is what I wanted). I assigned this action to a button and I'm all set.

By the way, I'm fairly new to Mac and therefore just beginning to learn Applescript and some of the cool things you can do with it to customize how the Mac functions.

Thanks again, and Remote Buddy is a great product!