Reconfigure a button in the remote control

Help and Support
1

Is it possible to set one of the buttons on the remote control as a direct option to set the subtitles?

I do not need volume control buttons instead I would prefer buttons for subtitles and soundtrack selection.

1 Like
2

You can do it manually by editing/creating /home/osmc/.kodi/userdata/keymaps/remote.xml. For more information, see the Kodi wiki.

You can also use the Keymap Editor add-on, which the linked wiki article references.

3

This is indeed the easier option for users.

Sam

4

As long as you know exactly where to drill down in the command tree (and the command you want is in the tree, and there are quite a few missing), only want to map one key to an action, don’t care about modifier keys or longpress, and don’t care about knowing what keys you have assigned to an action, and don’t have any mapping already, yes, it is.

Running Keymap Editor renames all *.xml files in the keymap directory except for gen.xml, so if you already had any mappings, they are now not used.

The ugliest part of the Keymap Editor UI is that keys you map are mapped by keycode and not the key name, and are displayed that way. So, you can’t use it to find out if you mapped s to “Subtitle” or to “Screenshot” (unless you know that 61523 equals s on a PC). And, it hides any default mapping when you do this, so if you map “Play” to space, you can’t see that p and Ctrl+Shift+p are also mapped to “Play”.

Using keycodes also makes files created by Keymap Editor not 100% portable, so you can’t create the perfect setup and copy the XML file to another platform and have it guaranteed to work.

Plus, I just found out when testing for this post, that Keymap Editor doesn’t catch the keys completely, so if you map a key that invokes a modal dialog (like the power menu), you can’t exit out of Keymap Editor, or use the power menu. The only choice is to kill Kodi from the shell.

1 Like
5

/home/osmc/.kodi/userdata/keymaps/remote.xml

This file does not exist.

What am I doing wrong?

6

You must create it.

7

Thanks.

I created this file and wrote something like:
<keymap>
 <global>
   <keyboard>
     <volume_down>ActivateWindow(10105)</volume_down>
     <volume_up>ActivateWindow(10124)</volume_up>
   </keyboard>
 </global>
</keymap>

Then I restarted Vero but unfortunately there was no change in the function of the buttons.

8

Here’s the fix:

<keymap>
 <fullscreenvideo>
   <remote>
     <volumeplus>NextSubtitle</volumeplus>
     <volumeminus>AudioNextLanguage</volumeminux>
   </remote>
 </fullscreenvideo>
</keymap>

You want to program remote keys, not keyboard keys, so use <remote> section, and remote key names.

You only want to do this during video playback, so use <fullscreeenvideo> section.

There are no “windows” for audio track or subtitle track selection. There is one window that does all settings combined (osdvideosettings), but then you need to navigate around a bunch of other stuff. Instead, I set it so the button press just moves you to the next audio track or subtitle.

2 Likes
9

VERO 4K + is a sensational device. But in his case, much more important is immediate help and guidance.
Thank you very much for your help. Everything works.
:heart_eyes:

1 Like
10

After the update from a few days ago, the remote lost keyboard shortcuts. Once again, I tried to rewrite the functions I needed, but unfortunately the method above does not work.

11

Please have a look here

12

Unfortunately, that doesn’t work either.

13

Reading doesn’t work? What information did I leave out that left you unable to figure out…

<keymap>
 <fullscreenvideo>
   <keyboard>
     <volume_up>NextSubtitle</volume_up>
     <volume_down>AudioNextLanguage</volume_down>
   </keyboard>
 </fullscreenvideo>
</keymap>

…or that you could use the Keymap Editor add-on to add this mapping back after the update?

4 Likes
14

You are great!

Now everything works. I changed the button functions. Currently assigned functions operate with a short press. Thank you very much.