User

21.12.2008 13:27:40

Hi,

maybe you are aware that the Plex team had an excellent collaboration with Logitech to bring a Plex device to the Harmony database. This was done

See the topics:

http://forums.plexapp.com/index.php?showtopic=1769

http://forums.plexapp.com/index.php?showtopic=1769&view=findpost&p=18123

And what I kindly suggest is here: http://forums.plexapp.com/index.php?showtopic=1769&view=findpost&p=17271

It would be really nice to have a "remote device" in Remote Buddy giving direct mapping to the 10 Apple Remotes ID used for the Harmony setup, seen as one remote device in RB.

Like that, the harmony could be used on a Mac directly to control other applications through Remote Buddy without having to re-learn the various Apple Remote ID.

What do you think ?

Cheers,

Michel 

User

24.12.2008 11:37:13

I have a slight conflict problem. If you configure PlexHelper to only run when Plex is running, PlexHelper does not "see" any remote codes if Remote Buddy is running... Is there a way to ask Remote Buddy to become blind while PlexHelper runs ? Or is it possible for Remote Buddy to "delegate" the signals he receives when PlexHelper is active ?

Otherwise, there is no means to control Plex with the Plex Helper native Harmony remote handling if you need to control other applications through Remote Buddy.

User

31.12.2008 01:24:55

I'd really like to get this working as well, preferably without having to sacrifice use the of Remote Buddy. Presumably if there is a single device in RB to represent all of the individual remotes used by Harmony/Plex, then there would be no need to disable RB at all.

Have you found a resolution until the developers can update RB? 

User

31.12.2008 10:33:41

No, for the moment, on my Mac Mini connected to the TV, I still use RB for piloting Plex as before the integration of Harmony into Plex. 

User

31.12.2008 12:14:11

Shame... I was thinking yesterday that if the Plex developers would just provide the remote ID's that Logitech has used, we could add these manually into the setup of RB. I then realised you can't manually add new remotes... they have to be paired and that means you have to have the physical remote (or even worse, try to use a single remote and cycle through the codes!)

The only way I can see this working is for the dev's to provide the codes used, then for IOSpirit to add the equivalent into RB.

It would be a nice selling point for RB though as I'm sure a lot of Plex users will ultimately want control of other aspects of their Mini. 

User

31.12.2008 13:00:05

I agree. Eventually, the remotes ID codes will be given, don't worry. Just a matter to document everything. 

User

31.12.2008 16:46:06

Thanks for all your feedback. Let me correct one thing, though:

You do not need to pair an Apple Remote to use it with Remote Buddy. 
If you have enabled RB's multi Apple Remote mode, a press of *any* 
button will immediately and automatically add it to the list of 
remotes, including its ID.

Happy new year, 
Felix Schwarz 

User

31.12.2008 17:38:38

Thanks for clarifying.

So I guess in theory one could hit every key on the remote (once programmed with the new Logitech Plex device) and these would be added to RB? It would then just be a case of manually mapping across the commands for each key? (probably much trial and error I suspect!)

Also any plans to add a device in RB? If this is forthcoming I may just wait.

Thanks again,

Tom 

User

19.01.2009 17:17:03

Has anyone managed to get this working as yet? Is there even a way to manually configure the new Harmony 'device' to work with RB? 

User

20.01.2009 22:52:00

Hi Felix, 
Could you elaborate on this enhancement in 1.11.4 and how it could be used to pass the IDs through to Plex?

Enhancement: The Apple® Remote ID is now passed through to the Virtual Remote when using the Apple® built-in receiver.

I currently have Multiple remotes setup and each remote is sending the virtual remote keypress for each corresponding button.

I have Plex setup to Harmony Remote / Always running, but the IDs don't seem to be passed as a key like Back is doing a minus (down) press.

Thanks! 

User

21.01.2009 13:56:19

As I've posted in another forum here, it isn't working properly for me. But the idea is that you could set up the mapping in the Plex behavior for each button press on each of the 10 remote ids used in the Harmony config to send a corresponding virtual remote button press. This would make Remote Buddy completely transparent to Plex.

Incidentally, these are the button definitions and remote ids used - hopefully this will help anyone else out who is using the Plex Harmony configuration:

Harmony button - RemoteID Button 
OK - 150 Play/Pause 
Up - 150 Plus 
Down - 150 Minus 
Left - 150 Left 
Right - 150 Right

VolUp - 152 Plus 
VolDn - 152 Minus 
Mute - 152 Play/Pause

ChUp - 158 Plus 
ChDown - 158 Minus 
Prev - 153 Minus

Menu - 150 Menu 
Exit - 155 Plus 
Guide - 157 Play 
Info - 153 Plus

Stop - 151 Play 
Replay - 160 Plus 
Skip - 160 Minus 
Play - 151 Menu 
Rec - 155 Minus 
Rew - 154 Plus 
Fwd -154 Minus 
Pause - 152 Menu

1 - 151 Plus 
2 - 151 Minus 
3 - 151 Left 
4 - 151 Right 
5 - 152 Left 
6 - 152 Right 
7 - 153 Left 
8 - 153 Right 
9 - 154 Left 
0 - 154 Right 
Clear - 154 Play 
Enter - 153 Menu

Blue - 159 Menu 
Red - 159 Left 
Green - 159 Right 
Yellow - 159 Play

Aspect - 157 Plus

LargeUp - 159 Plus 
LargeDown - 159 Minus

PwrToggle - 157 Menu 
Queue - 157 Minus 
Sleep - 154 Menu

F1 - 155 Left 
F2 - 155 Right 
F3 - 155 Play 
F4 - 155 Menu 
F5 - 160 Left 
F6 - 160 Right 
F7 - 160 Play 
F8 - 160 Menu 
F9 - 158 Left 
F10 - 158 Right 
F11 - 158 Play 
F12 - 158 Menu 
F13 - 157 Left 
F14 - 157 Right

 

User

21.01.2009 16:17:43

As I said before, I'm running in Multi-remote mode and each remote is setup with its corresponding button mapped to a virtual remote.

I ran PlexHelper (captures remote events and sends to Plex) and got some strange results.

The first run, it thought my remote ID was 168, but I have no remote with that ID. For all presses it was registering 168:

Received 168:2 button 
-> Key received after 1008 ms. 
Received 168:2 button 
-> Timeout!

I restarted things and PlexHelper started reporting one of the virtual remote IDs I'm using, 150, but only that ID, not the other 151-160:

Received 150:6 button 
-> Sending command: Menu, remote: MCUR 
Received 150:2 button 
-> Sending command: Down, remote: MCUR

From what I can tell, RB is only sending through only 1 remote ID, but needs to send the correct corresponding ID for the press. 

User

21.01.2009 16:39:57

RyanA, did you just manually activate the Plex behavior in RB and run the PlexHelper binary from Terminal to get that output? I'll try that tonight and see if I'm getting the same results. Hopefully we can help get this straightened out.

Some other things that would be really nice in Remote Buddy would be an actual config option where you could specify that you had the Harmony remote with the Plex button mapping instead of having to press buttons until RB saw all 10 virtual remotes.

It would also be great to be able to set all the buttons on a remote to pass-through in a particular behavior in one fell swoop. Right now you have to click a drop-down and navigate a two-layer menu 120 times.

User

21.01.2009 16:59:33

 
I went into Plex and turned off Always Running then closed Plex. In activity monitor I quit the process PlexHelper. Then in terminal I ran /Applications/Plex.app/Resources/Content/Plex/PlexHelper -v -m

-v verbose 
-m multi remote

Then I ran Plex in windowed mode by starting up Plex then doing command-F so I could see the output in terminal.

Sometimes I would have to ctrl-c PlexHelper if it wasn't reporting back the key presses. Run it again and it should show the output. 

User

22.01.2009 04:21:31

I can confirm RyanA's results - Remote Buddy is only sending remote id 150, despite button presses coming in with remote ids 150 - 160.

User

22.01.2009 15:28:17

Thanks for your posting.

Actually, the remote ID that Remote Buddy 1.11.4 and previous versions 
send is 168. It's a bug I didn't notice until now.

I just fixed it. The fix will be part of the next release, version 
1.11.5, whose Virtual Remote will reliably hand through the Apple 
Remote IDs of button presses coming from the built-in Apple IR receiver.

Best regards, 
Felix Schwarz 

User

22.01.2009 15:55:34

 
 
That's interesting - both Ryan and I saw PlexHelper reporting that it had received button presses on 168 sometimes, and on 150 other times. So it looks like the code sort-of-worked sometimes.

Those are the kinds of bugs I love trying to hunt down. ;) Thanks, I'll be looking forward to the next release. Any chance it'll be out within the next two weeks or so, before my trial period runs out? 

User

22.01.2009 16:37:16

 
 
You really should only have seen 168 as the code was consistently 
stored at a different location (*) than was being looked for, so that 
RB used the default value of 168 instead. This of course only applies 
when RB is actually running. If you find a way to get codes other than 
168 while Remote Buddy is running, please let me know.

 
It should be available before that.

Best regards, 
Felix Schwarz

(*) essentially, I wrote [dict objectForKey:@"x"] instead of [[dict 
objectForKey:@"y"] objectForKey:@"x"] 

User

23.01.2009 23:00:31

I see 1.11.5 is available now - I'll check it out tonight. Thanks! 

User

24.01.2009 04:31:40

Hi Felix, 
Thanks so much for the quick turn around on this issue.

I started playing with it and I'm still seeing some unusual behavior with 168 showing up.

From what I can tell, on presses related to the Play/Pause (5) & menu (6), 168 is still being passed through. On all other buttons I'm seeing the correct remote ID and button ID being passed.

I'm viewing the results of this again through PlexHelper -v -m

I am seeing up / down / left / right / hold-left / hold-right / hold-play / hold-menu working.

Thanks so much, 
Ryan 

User

24.01.2009 04:38:40

Okay, it's still not working exactly right. If the button pressed is Plus or Minus, it works right, sending the correct remote id along with button code 1 or 2. If it's left, right, play, or menu, it sends it as remote id 168 with button code 3 - 6, unless you hold the button, in which case it sends the correct remote id and the button codes 9 - 12 as expected.

We're getting close! 

User

24.01.2009 12:12:17

Thanks for the info and my congratulations.

You found a very subtle bug there that's located a few abstraction 
layers above the core Apple Remote handling routines. I've fixed it 
and updated the version 1.11.5 download on iospirit.com with it.

Best regards, 
Felix Schwarz 

User

24.01.2009 13:15:21

Hi Felix,

Presumably the 'updater' won't work with this as it's the same version and updater doesn't find any updates. I've downloaded the full installer. Will just forcing it to reinstall the driver suffice? Just want to be sure I'm running the latest.

Thanks,

Tom 

User

24.01.2009 13:35:43

Hi Felix,

If you could also offer some guidance on how this should be configured to work with Plex it might be helpful. I'm not sure I'm setting it up correctly, so it's hard to tell if it's 'working' or not.

What I've done so far:

1. Configured the Harmony with the 'Plex' device 
2. Enabled multiple remote support in RB 
3. Pressed all keys on the Harmony Plex activity until all remotes are added into RB 
4. Created a new logical remote to correspond to each hardware remote ID. Named them the same as the remote ID for ease of reference.

At this stage I'm not sure what to do next. I assume I need to go to the Mapping page (where each of the new logical remotes now appears, with default mappings inherited from the existing remote). Do I change all of these back to their 'default' functions?

In my case, for example, to perform the function 'Play', Plex expects 'Remote 151 Menu'. With everything configured as above, hitting the Play key on the Harmony is now bringing up the Plex menu.

Any advice is much appreciated.

Thanks,

Tom 

User

24.01.2009 14:29:12

Sorry Felix - one further thought/suggestion following on from the above.

It occurs that this would all be much more intuitive if you were to add the ability to add the Harmony Plex remote as a virtual hardware remote in RB.

This would effectively 'hide' all of the complexity in knowing which Harmony key maps to which remote id/key being sent. The user could simply, for example, map the Harmony 'play' key to the correct function for each behaviour. This would also make it a lot easier to take advantage of the fact that Logitech/Harmony have added this new 'device' and to map it to all of the behaviours available in RB.

Another similar alternative would be to get Logitech to 'clone' the Plex device and create a 'Remote Buddy' device which is then generic.

Any thoughts?

Thanks again for all the help with this.

Regards,

Tom 

User

24.01.2009 17:18:07

Hi Felix, 
Again, thanks for quick turn around on 1.11.5 (rev b). I did have to download the dmg again from the site, stop RB and reinstall over my original copy.

Once I did that, the remote events are firing correctly now!

In reply to Tom and the best setup to make this all happen.

1. Enable Support for Multiple Remotes 
2. Setup your logical remotes by hitting buttons on your Harmony until all the remote codes show up 150-160 (159 is skipped). 
3. Map IDs to Logical remotes so it looks like this: 
http://forums.plexapp.com/uploads/monthly_01_2009/post-225-1232488197.png 
4. Go to mappings and for each logical remote you have to map each button to its corresponding virtual remote button like this: 
http://forums.plexapp.com/uploads/monthly_01_2009/post-225-1232484889.png

This will enable RB to pass through the IDs to PlexHelper and then on to Plex.

In Plex the settings should be System > Settigns > Input device > Harmony & Always running checked

I agree that some kind of virtual harmony remote setup that encapsulates all this complexity would help. If that can't be done, maybe just a button that would auto map each logical remote with corresponding virtual remote buttons, it takes a long time to map all the buttons.

Or is there a way to pass my mapping on to other people?

Thanks again Felix for the great support! 
Ryan 

User

24.01.2009 17:33:16

Thanks for asking.

 
You don't need to reinstall the driver (no changes were made to it). 
Replacing "Remote Buddy.app" with the newer revision is all you need 
to do.

Best regards, 
Felix Schwarz 

User

24.01.2009 18:06:16

Hi Ryan,

thanks for your feedback and contributions.

Just a short addition for those who want to use more buttons (via the 
Harmony) with Plex, but feel that the Apple Remote is sufficient for 
all other apps. Here's all that needs to be done:

1) Go to Remote Buddy > Prefs > Mapping > Plex 
2) Map all buttons of the Apple Remote to their respective equivalents 
of the Virtual Remote. Including the Menu and Menu(hold) buttons. (=> 
12 clicks at most)

Support for multiple remotes does not need to be enabled for the 
forwarding of Apple Remote IDs to work.

Regarding direct support for the Plex Harmony Setup: 
I do not intend to add direct support for the Plex Harmony setup, 
because it appears incomplete (f.ex. the record button doesn't seem to 
have any Apple Remote code mapped to it) and too Plex-specific to me. 
If a special Harmony mode is going to be supported, it has to be 
general purpose, include all buttons and should ideally not rely on 
third party profiles. I'll see what can be done there. If you have a 
contact at Logitech with the ability to add new profiles to the 
Harmony database, this would certainly be a great (and appreciated) 
help. I'll not make any promises at that point, though and kindly ask 
that the obvious and understandable (but to me really just greatly 
annoying) questions of "when?", "is there a timetable?", "in which 
release?" etc. are not going to be asked.

Regarding sharing of settings: 
Sure, that's very easy. All settings for a particular remote are 
stored in a file of its own (to make sharing easy) and saved at

~/Library/Preferences/com.iospirit.remotebuddy.com.apple.builtinir.plist 
~/Library/Preferences/ 
com.iospirit.remotebuddy.com.apple.remote.<unique ID>.plist

Ideally, if you want to put together a general purpose settings pack 
for others to use, you wouldn't make use of the default, logical 
remote called "Apple Remote" at all, because that's where the settings 
for the normal (non-multi-remote) mode are stored, too and users may 
already have adapted settings there.

One last, general comment about copying/replacing/adding preference 
files that applies to all apps: 
They should only be worked with when Remote Buddy is not running. Why? 
Because the OS X preference system usually just caches changes and 
saves them only when an application quits - which might then overwrite 
manually changed preferences files with what the OS X preference 
system previously had in memory.

Best regards, 
Felix Schwarz 

User

24.01.2009 19:50:43

This is great news that the IDs are passed without needing multiple remotes setup. I have confirmed that this is working with my setup.

I believe pundy and fjwelte on the Plex forums have been talking to Logitech. I can send them a private message if you want me to.

By the way, are you using Plex or Boxee yourself? Thanks again for making this happen! 

User

24.01.2009 20:27:28

Thanks Felix - and everyone else participating - for all the efforts.

One suggestion I would make (and Felix please correct me - and delete this!) if wrong:

When new logical remotes are added into RB it appears that they 'inherit' the current mapping from the Apple Remote. If that's the case, it makes sense to go into your Plex mappings and set each button to the corresponding virtual remote button FIRST, before adding the additional logical remotes. (Felix, please confirm.)

I'll test more tonight, but I think I'll probably remove all the logical remotes, perform the above, then add them back.

On a separate/related note, having all the additional remotes opens up possibilities for other applications/behaviours (such as properly putting in all the Slingbox remote keys!)

Last edited: 24.01.2009 20:28:30 

User

26.01.2009 00:34:28

Woohoo! It's working perfectly now!

I agree that it would be cool if Remote Buddy could specifically support the Harmony as a single remote, but I can understand Felix's concerns about trying to support something that he didn't start. I'd hope the Plex developers would give him the names of anyone that's been helpful at Logitech. For that matter, I'd much rather the Plex guys work on improving the media experience, not on supporting remote controls!

One request I have is a confirmation dialog for the "Rest to defaults" button in the mapping preference. One accidental mouse click there will ruin your day if you've got a custom map on ten virtual remotes. 

User

28.01.2009 13:44:06

Thanks to all of you for all of your feedback.

Just one more comment from my side:

 
A new logical remote will always come with default settings. It will 
not inherit the settings from another logical remote (that includes 
the virtual remote named "Apple Remote").

Best regards, 
Felix Schwarz 

User

20.02.2009 05:13:46

 
 
Does anyone care to share these files with the IDs all done to save us all the headaches? :)

Last edited: 20.02.2009 05:14:02 

User

25.09.2010 21:21:52

I am running Plex version 0.9.0.21...I set up my Harmony remote using the built-in harmony entry...and then i customized it using remote buddy, but I am trying to debug some button presses. So to that end, I'm trying the PlexHelper -v -m procedure to view the buttons being pressed. I followed them exactly, but PlexHelper does not seem to show any button presses (Despite the fact that the remote is working in Plex). Does this procedure to view remote presses no longer work in the newer versions of Plex? basically, nothing shows up in the PlexHelper terminal when I am using the remote within Plex 

User

27.09.2010 09:14:47

Thanks for asking.

If you use the actions supplied by the Remote Buddy Plex Behaviour (as is the default), these are turned into UDP packets and sent straight to Plex. These don't go through PlexHelper.

If you use the actions supplied by the Remote Buddy Virtual Remote, these are turned into Apple Remote button press events that whatever application currently has a lock on the receiver will receive. For Plex, that 'll typically be PlexHelper. You can use Remote Control Diagnostics from the Labs section to find out which application currently has, if needed.

For questions on options, functionality and bugs of Plex and PlexHelper, please contact the Plex team directly. I can't help you with these.

Best regards, 
Felix Schwarz 

User

10.12.2012 09:36:13

I've followed all the steps in this thread and have gotten my Harmony to work with Plex using remote buddy ... mostly, but i'm running into an issue with the non default "play" buttons. When ever I hit "Stop - 151 Play" or "Guide - 157 Play" for example nothing happens and I just hear the apple "funk" sound as if i hit an incorrect button. If I map plex "stop" or "guide" to some other button like "Enter - 153 Menu" it works as expected. It seems as if the play button is mapped to "Select" maybe?