Notices

Thanks to ThreeM I have found an issue with connections to Xbmc packages from the ubuntu ppa. We are working on a fix.

Also, with the help of JimKnopf I was able to find out why the keyboard does not work for some of you. To scroll in the Lists I use a function which is only available as of QtQuick 1.1. The default N900 PR 1.3 firmware comes with Qt 4.7.0 which only includes QtQuick 1.0. If you want to make use of the Keyboard and are brave, install the Community SSU which brings you Qt 4.7.3 with QtQuick 1.1 besides a lot of other cool features.

The community SSU is available here: http://wiki.maemo.org/Community_SSU

EDIT: Even though I'm running the Community SSU now since a long time without any issues, please note that it is still marked as experimental and may damage your installation. Please don't blame me if you end up re-installing your N900.

0.5.4 is on its way. Connecting to Xbmc installations from Ubuntu ppa packages should work now. Because I can't determine the exact version with those installations I assume the latest available one.

Sorry, I missed that post for a while... Could you please send the output of to the email address found in the about dialog.

Thanks

Good news for me. Still no answer from the packagers of xbmc-unstable. When i got answers i will inform you.

0.6 on its way!

There is a new settings dialog to configure some gimmicks on phonecall handling and some bugfixes regarding sorting of episodes and removing items from a playlist.

Biggest news is the keypad navigation. Heres a short explanation:
Each screen uses the keypresses differently. The list allows to navigate, the NowPlaying view controls the playlist and the Keypad view forwards the keypresses to Xbmc.

Use Ctrl + Left/Right to navigate through the views.

The space key opens the context menu and the backspace key acts as escape on the N900. Better suggestions are welcome.

In the nowplaying view you can use "p" to open the playlist and "s" and "r" to change shuffle and repeat. Up and Down control the volume there. Seeking is not there yet but on the todo list.

Cool thing is that this makes xbmcremote very nice to use on the desktop. Thanks for pushing that feature. Otherwise it might have taken weeks until I implemented that

Some words on the features who didn't make it in:
Preview of pictures is basically in place but as Xbmc does not support server-side scaling (yet?) it is disabled it since it is kinda slow and drains the battery in no time. Constantly downloading and scaling down 12MP pictures is too much for the poor N900.

The itemdetails are not there because thats a bit more work. Right now I only fetch the minimum data for performance reasons. I need to introduce data structures to query single item details on demand.

Wooha! Thank you so much!

Keypad navigation works like a charm, as well as using N900's keypads for controlling xbmc itself. Man, this thing is fast...

Will test the other new features the next couple of days, but I'm sure they work as expected (as always ).

With the added support for keyboard commands, this is by far the most functional xbmc-remote I'm aware of (regardless which os)!

I'm repeating myself, but: Thanks a million!

PS
One little feature request: is it possible to map a key to correspond with xbmc's contextmenu? Like pressing "c" or "menu key" on desktop's keyboard.

could not agree more this update is great also another vote for the context menu thing, having the info button work would also be a bonus

same here, really dont want to mess with my xbmc or i will have an unhappy family ;-) cant wait to try this out though!!
it will be interesting to find out how it compares to the android version
Cheers
nick

Thanks

Sending "c" or "i" is currently not possible because the API does not support it. However, I have made a feature request to the devlopers of the API and will update xbmcremote as soon as the API supports it.