Re: [Announce] [N900,N950,N9] Xbmcremote
 

Hello mzanetti!

First off thanks for writing this app!

I'm having trouble locating the 1.0 release of Xbmcremote. I have the Fremantle extras-devel repository installed on my n900, but the only version being listed on it is 0.7.0, which I currently have installed (but which won't connect for me, hence my trying to upgrade to v1.0)

I even tried to download the .deb here..

http://repository.maemo.org/extras-d...ntle0_i386.deb

But just get an error telling me that the file does not exist. I also tried to get a version at least higher than 0.7.0 from the nokia store here..

http://store.ovi.com/content/200497

Only to have the download button greyed out and a message informing me that it wasn't available for my device :N900.

I apologise in advance if i'm making a silly mistake here, but if anyone could possibly help me out, i'd be very grateful!

Re: [Announce] [N900,N950,N9] Xbmcremote
 

Hi,
sorry for the late response. Been away for the Easter holidays.

Weird... even though the maemo packages system has imported the 1.0.0 package, it got already removed again by the housekeeping jobs. I have uploaded another package, lets see if that one makes it. Should be there in a few hours. If not, I will check again today evening.

The package in the Nokia store is only for the N9[50]. The N900 version is distributed through maemo.org.

Thanks for reporting - I would have missed it.

Re: [Announce] [N900,N950,N9] Xbmcremote
 

Well, it does not seem to work for me - i browse through Music -> Files and choose a folder with mp3s (long press) -> Add to playlist and the playlist stays empty (or becomes empty - if i had anything in it before this operation) - nothing is added to it.

only when selecting add to playlist on a single file it really adds it.

am i doing something wrong?

Another issue which would be great if you could add is to remember the last file browsing folder for both audio/video, so when you choose music/video -> files it takes you back to the last folder you were in last time (even if application was closed and reopened).

Re: [Announce] [N900,N950,N9] Xbmcremote
 

Yes.

You seem to be using XBMC wrong. You need to tell it what kind of media you have in different directories, and then let it scan your media, extracting meta-data it can (e.g. ID3 etc.) and using scapers to match names to content so that it can pull meta-data from websites that provide APIs to do so.

Then, instead of you being limited to browsing content in the directory structure you have used to store the files, you can browse content by many different methods, from XBMC itself, from the uPNP/DLNA sharing it does (e.g. natively in the media player on N900, file manager in N900, from other computers on your network), and easily access it (I assume) from this app.

if you can't browse your music by:
-Artist
-Album
-Genre
-Year
etc., then please go to xbmc.org, and come back when you can.

Re: [Announce] [N900,N950,N9] Xbmcremote
 

browsing by artist/album/genre/year (the scanning media files method) is not good for me since many songs i have do not include correct id3 tags if at all. This is why i am using the folders/files method. All my media files are stored in an organized directory structure and that is the only way i can use it.

Using this method is not "wrong" since folder/files browsing is supported by xbmc - i meant by asking if i'm using it right to the xbmc client itself.

Re: [Announce] [N900,N950,N9] Xbmcremote
 

While I fully agree with buchanmilne I can also understand impeham's situation.
Xbmc has been designed to be used with a Library. This is a design choice and leads to a huge range of additionally possible features. For example fanart, smart playlists, item details etc are very hard to handle with a filesystem-only based approach. The downside (at a first thought) is that one has to be very disciplined when sorting and maintaining his collection. You can't just drop files into your music folder any more without caring about ID3 tags or trying to maintain playlists by collecting its titles in a folder. Importing old, large music collections most likely just leads to a totally unusable library. It often requires a lot of work to clean up and sort things. However, those downsides turn out to be the actual strength once you have managed to clean up your library.

Because of this design choice, Xbmc will never support the file mode as good as the library mode. That is because its a) very difficult to maintain along with a very advanced library and b) they simply don't have the focus on it.

Impeham, for the slight chance that there is a bug in Xbmcremote, please send me the debug output while running "xbmcremote -d connection,player" and reproducing the problem. But as I have checked this code quite often lately, I fear its simply Xbmc not doing what you expect it to do.

Re: [Announce] [N900,N950,N9] Xbmcremote
 

Thanks - log attached - i copied the exact output of the "add to playlist" button press.

Re: [Announce] [N900,N950,N9] Xbmcremote
 

Thanks for reuploading! It works great now an looks great too. I love the volume mapped to the phone's volume buttons :)

Re: [Announce] [N900,N950,N9] Xbmcremote
 

mzanetti please make navigation buttons bigger, having those arrows bigger and a bit further from the dot in the middle would help. The layout could be like below, with arrow buttons using the whole width (480px).

https://lh6.ggpht.com/P6Z-2S906H7BKr...ZYuiVcRrzKSCcg

And thanks alot for the update, it works great. I have xbmc configured to auto-start to second screen (tv) while I can still use mouse and kb with main screen :)

Re: [Announce] [N900,N950,N9] Xbmcremote
 

Ok. I left the look of the keyboard as it is, but extended the clickable area of the arrow buttons. This should improve things a lot. Besides that I have added a rumble effect when pressing the button to have some sort of feeling when you press it.

Re: [Announce] [N900,N950,N9] Xbmcremote
 

mzanetti - were you able to find a solution for this?

I also have an enhancement suggestion - save the remote state between sessions. if you are at the navigation/playlist for example - if you close the application and reopen it - you need many clicks to reproduce the last state you were in.

Re: [Announce] [N900,N950,N9] Xbmcremote
 

I have investigated again, yes. It seems to basically work, but Xbmc shows some strange behavior: It returns invalid parameters when there is either a special character somewhere in the path, or the given folder does not contain any playable items (i.e. only subdirectories). It also does not work for files newly added to xbmc. While the browser shows them, Xbmc needs to be restarted until it recognizes them as playable. There might be other issues as well. Most of the stuff can't be changed on the remote side.
I won't add a workaround for Xbmc's non-recursive behavior to xbmcremote because its too easy to break something and cause a lot of network traffic or freeze either Xbmc or xbmcremote.

I have thought about this too but it seems to be a lot of work to do it properly (e.g. restore the browsed path with error handling if a path does not exist any more, sessions need to be stored independently for each configured host, etc...). Lets see what I can do... Won't happen for the next release but maybe later on.

Re: [Announce] [N900,N950,N9] Xbmcremote
 

Well, i did a test where i've put a few mp3 files (no subfolders) in a folder named (D:\music) just to check the characters' issue but still it did not work.

Were you able to add files in any folder (XBMC on windows)?

Re: [Announce] [N900,N950,N9] Xbmcremote
 

Did you restart Xbmc after adding the files and before testing?

Yes, I have tested it on a workmates windows machine. The results are as described above. If all those conditions are met, it works fine.

Re: [Announce] [N900,N950,N9] Xbmcremote
 

Hi

Very nice app. I'm using 1.0 for n9. I'm using it with xbmcbuntu and when I set autodiscover through zeroconf the port is wrongly set and jsonrpc doesn't work. I get http://192.168.1.13:9981/jsonrpc instead of http://192.168.1.13:8080/jsonrpc

Other than that the app is great! thanks,

-

Re: [Announce] [N900,N950,N9] Xbmcremote
 

Hi javiermon,

This has been recently reported by someone else too and it's already fixed in git master. You can either compile it on your own or wait a few days for 1.1 to be released.

Re: [Announce] [N900,N950,N9] Xbmcremote
 

Thanks a lot and sorry for the noise.

Great app!

Re: [Announce] [N900,N950,N9] Xbmcremote
 

No problem. Keep the reports coming if you find any issues.

Thanks.

Re: [Announce] [N900,N950,N9] Xbmcremote
 

Ok, I have a couple of suggestions.

When using the controller page (up, down, home, full screen, etc) I would love to have some kind of push feedback, like when typing in the n9 keyboard, so I can press those buttons without looking and have some kind of response feedback.

Another suggestion I have is to support long presses on those buttons, so I can push down while on a list and the remote will keep scrolling down while the button is pressed.

Hope this makes sense.

Re: [Announce] [N900,N950,N9] Xbmcremote
 

Hehe, you must have some crystal ball telling you the changelog for 1.1. Also both of them are already implemented and just waiting to be released :)

Re: [Announce] [N900,N950,N9] Xbmcremote
 

Hahaha.

Awesome!

I have another suggestion (let's hope it's already in ;) I know this is not related to XBMC, but it would be very nice to add a Wake On Lan button if the app starts and cannot reach a configured host.

Thanks,

Re: [Announce] [N900,N950,N9] Xbmcremote
 

WakeOnLan should be already there. Thing is, it doesn't wake the PC automatically only by starting Xbmcremote. That would be too dangerous to accidentally wake the PC by tapping on the button. However, in the case your PC is off, just click on the "Connect" button, select the host you want to wake up and hit "connect" again. That should wake up your PC (given you either use Zeroconf or have manually added the MAC address when configuring the host)

Another way to use the WakeOnLan feature is to get a NFC tag (Not the smallest one with only 48 bytes), write it with Xbmcremote and every time you tap it with your phone it will automatically launch xbmcremote, wake up the PC and connect.

Re: [Announce] [N900,N950,N9] Xbmcremote
 

First of all. Promising app with killer graphics! Great work!

I have entered the IP of my HTPC and the app has obviously connected to XBMC. The app shows the "Data" folders, but there are no files listed.

Can someone be so kind to tell me how I can solve this problem?

Re: [Announce] [N900,N950,N9] Xbmcremote
 

I have played with this program in the past and found it very handy at times, but never had a permanent use for it until now.

Soon I will be getting my Raspberry Pi and will be looking forward to using xmbcremote as one of my main HIDs for it. I'm quite looking forward to making this one of my go-to tools again :)

Re: [Announce] [N900,N950,N9] Xbmcremote
 

It seems you are using xbmc in "Files" mode. When adding a source in xbmc, make sure you set the content type correctly and scan your files to the library.

Another solution would be a long-tap on "Music" or "Videos" in Xbmcremote which will let you switch to file mode. Library mode is the recommended one, as the files mode does not support all the features.

Re: [Announce] [N900,N950,N9] Xbmcremote
 

I'm waiting for my Raspberry Pi too :) Let's hope the wait is over soon.

Re: [Announce] [N900,N950,N9] Xbmcremote
 

Have you had your invite yet? I got mine last week so should get it in the post in a couple of weeks.

Need I'll need to sort my other device problem out before I can have a good sit down with it, but the xmbc looks like a no-brainer. Can't wait to fire it up :)

Re: [Announce] [N900,N950,N9] Xbmcremote
 

Hi again,

One question, is there anyway in the app to trigger clean/update audio/video library? Like in the remote included in the xbmc web interface?

Re: [Announce] [N900,N950,N9] Xbmcremote
 

Yes, long-tap on "Music" or "Videos" should bring up a menu which allows you to either switch between Library and Files mode and refresh the library.

Hint: You can long-tap nearly every UI element in Xbmcremote to bring up some sort of menu or access other features.

Re: [Announce] [N900,N950,N9] Xbmcremote
 

I should get one from the QtonPi device program. Seems they weren't shipped with the first batch - so I have no idea when I'll get mine.

Re: [Announce] [N900,N950,N9] Xbmcremote
 

Howdy!

Time for another announcement :)

Xbmcremote 1.1 for Harmattan just hit the Nokia Store! Here's the changelog:

- Added an itemdetails dialog for the curently playing media
- Completeley reworked the keypad (hopefully for good)
- Added a feature to search in lists (pull the list down to get the searchbar)
- Added feature to download media from your Xbmc to your phone (long-tap in the lists)
- And many more UI tunings and bugfixes you reported (thanks for that).

Some words on the keypad:
This is somewhat experimental. I hope you all like it. In my opinion the new keypad is easier to use without looking at the phone. For basic navigation, pull the select-button to the direction you want to move. For fast walking through lists, keep the select-button pressed until it vibrates twice. Keep pressed and move to the direction you want to scroll. The further you move your finger, the faster it scrolls.
There is now also a way to enter text at xbmc using the mobile phones virtual keyboard. Every key you press will be directly submitted. To close the keyboard, press the enter-key. I couldn't find a way yet to replace the enter-key with a "close" button. If someone knows how to do this, let me know.
Please let me know how you get along with it. After using it for an afternoon I thought its better than what I had before and decided to publish it.

That's it,
Happy remote-controlling!

Re: [Announce] [N900,N950,N9] Xbmcremote
 

Hi

Thanks for the update. I'm testing it right now and the updates are very appreciated. The new keypad feels weird at first but after using it for a while you get used to it.

This is my favourite app in the n9.

Thanks a lot.

Re: [Announce] [N900,N950,N9] Xbmcremote
 

Hi again,

Small bug: You can pull the search widget in the first page of Videos (the one with the Movies, TVShows) and Music (Artists and Albums) but I don't seem to get any results there... maybe that search widget shouldn't appear in those places?

And a small request, when I long tap on Videos or Albums a menu appears with the option to rescan collection, can you also add the option to clean the database? It's handy when I've renamed videos and somehow xbmc hasn't noticed (doesn't happen a lot, but it does). This option is available in the standard web remote.

Thanks!

Re: [Announce] [N900,N950,N9] Xbmcremote
 

First off, what a great app. I used it a couple of times to control my OpenELEC install and it is just great.

You should be able to set a text, or icon, using the platformSipAttributes of the TextField. This property holds a SipAttributes element, which has an actionKeyIcon property which should set this icon. You could also set the actionKeyLabel to set a text for the button, which is what I'm using my app.

Re: [Announce] [N900,N950,N9] Xbmcremote
 

Hmm cant navigate menus with the new version?

If I click on the left/right/up/down nothing happens not even haptic feedback? (only middle button works)

Last version in store did work.

Re: [Announce] [N900,N950,N9] Xbmcremote
 

tap middle button and slide to right/left/top/bottom :)

Re: [Announce] [N900,N950,N9] Xbmcremote
 

To the dev. How do write nfc tag to autom open XBMC remote application?
Just interested to know how this is done.

Re: [Announce] [N900,N950,N9] Xbmcremote
 

is this available for N900 too?

in Nokia store i get:"Sorry, this item is not available for the Nokia N900"

Re: [Announce] [N900,N950,N9] Xbmcremote
 

When browsing music in file mode instead of library mode, the folders' names are replaced by the Album Name of a (the first?) track inside the folder.

Re: [Announce] [N900,N950,N9] Xbmcremote
 

Yep, I'll remove it from there. Thanks.

The new API does not support that yet. However, now that I have added support for legacy commands anyways, I think I can add it. Haven't yet checked how the webinterface does it, so no promise so far.