Shortcut to movies with Harmony remote?

WilliamG · 20 May 2018 18:37

So I generally find Kodi’s advanced features a little tricky to navigate, and I wasn’t sure how this worked on the Vero 4K, but I wanted to be able to jump to the first letter of a movie.

e.g. I want to watch Captain America, so I’d like to be able to go straight to the “C” movies, using my Logitech Harmony Elite.

The key is use this site:

https://kodi.wiki/view/HOW-TO:Use_SMS-style_text_entry_for_remotes

And YES, if you’ve already used the Keymap Editor app, you just need to add that page of text to your existing keymap in /home/osmc/.kodi/userdata/keymaps/gen.xml

Then, reboot the Vero 4K, and you’re golden! The benefit of this is that it also lets you use the keypad to go to timestamps in the movie. So awesome.

Smurphy · 21 May 2018 13:17

How did you link the remote to Kodi? As which device?
Cheers

WilliamG · 21 May 2018 16:27

Bluetooth.

Manufacturer: Microsoft
Device:Kodi

Good luck!

Smurphy · 22 May 2018 07:11

Nice. I’ll check it out. So far - I am still using the regular remote through IR.
How does is the handling (when restarting), how long does it take for the Bluetooth to be back online?

rhodesda · 22 May 2018 07:31

So do you then use the numbers screen, like 3 taps of #2 for ‘C’ ?

WilliamG · 22 May 2018 07:53

Just a few seconds if you reboot the Vero. However, there’s no need to do that, in which case it’s always “online,” and works instantly.

Exactly!

WilliamG · 5 September 2018 23:00

Hey all,

So, for some reason, whenever I edit my gen.xml now for any reason, it completely breaks my Harmony remote SMS quick keys to get to letters of the movie. Do you have any idea why?

e.g. it’s working fine, and then I used the Keymap Editor Kodi add-on to add a “Reboot” key to the Vero, and while the Reboot key works fine, I lose my SMS-ability. It’s really frustrating…

Thanks.

bmillham · 5 September 2018 23:09

Without seeing your gen.xml, I’d guess that there is a error in it that’s tolerated by Kodi when reading it, but when you use the Keymap editor to write it it’s stripping out the erroneous lines.

WilliamG · 5 September 2018 23:12

Here’s my current keymaps text. I’m sure it’s not correctly labeled, but everything in this file works fine until I try to add the reboot command. I’ve always struggled with this aspect of Kodi…

So again, this - as it looks - works perfectly.

<keymap><visualisation><keyboard><key id="61510">audiodelayminus</key><key id="61511">audiodelayplus</key></keyboard></visualisation><fullscreenvideo><keyboard><key id="61508">codecinfo</key><key id="61514">audiodelayminus</key><key id="61515">audiodelayplus</key></keyboard></fullscreenvideo><global>
    <keyboard>
      <zero>Number0</zero>
      <one>JumpSMS1</one>
      <two>JumpSMS2</two>
      <three>JumpSMS3</three>
      <four>JumpSMS4</four>
      <five>JumpSMS5</five>
      <six>JumpSMS6</six>
      <seven>JumpSMS7</seven>
      <eight>JumpSMS8</eight>
      <nine>JumpSMS9</nine>
      <escape>Back</escape>
    </keyboard>
  </global>
  <VirtualKeyboard>
    <keyboard>
      <zero>Number0</zero>
      <one>Number1</one>
      <two>Number2</two>
      <three>Number3</three>
      <four>Number4</four>
      <five>Number5</five>
      <six>Number6</six>
      <seven>Number7</seven>
      <eight>Number8</eight>
      <nine>Number9</nine>
      <backspace>Backspace</backspace>
    </keyboard>
  </VirtualKeyboard>
  <FullscreenVideo>
    <keyboard>
      <zero>Number0</zero>
      <one>Number1</one>
      <two>Number2</two>
      <three>Number3</three>
      <four>Number4</four>
      <five>Number5</five>
      <six>Number6</six>
      <seven>Number7</seven>
      <eight>Number8</eight>
      <nine>Number9</nine>
      <escape>Stop</escape>
    </keyboard>
  </FullscreenVideo>
  <VideoMenu>
    <keyboard>
      <zero>Number0</zero>
      <one>Number1</one>
      <two>Number2</two>
      <three>Number3</three>
      <four>Number4</four>
      <five>Number5</five>
      <six>Number6</six>
      <seven>Number7</seven>
      <eight>Number8</eight>
      <nine>Number9</nine>
    </keyboard>
  </VideoMenu>
  <NumericInput>
    <keyboard>
      <zero>Number0</zero>
      <one>Number1</one>
      <two>Number2</two>
      <three>Number3</three>
      <four>Number4</four>
      <five>Number5</five>
      <six>Number6</six>
      <seven>Number7</seven>
      <eight>Number8</eight>
      <nine>Number9</nine>
    </keyboard>
  </NumericInput>
  <Teletext>
    <keyboard>
      <zero>number0</zero>
      <one>number1</one>
      <two>number2</two>
      <three>number3</three>
      <four>number4</four>
      <five>number5</five>
      <six>number6</six>
      <seven>number7</seven>
      <eight>number8</eight>
      <nine>number9</nine>
    </keyboard>
  </Teletext></keymap>

WilliamG · 5 September 2018 23:13

For some reason it’s not showing up correctly. If you quote the post, you’ll be able to see it correctly.

bmillham · 5 September 2018 23:14

I fixed it for you. Use the preformatted text at the top of the entry window to do that yourself.

WilliamG · 5 September 2018 23:15

Thanks for the tip.

That file is called gen.xml. I just created another - keyboard.xml, and putting keymaps in there seems to be behaving so far along with the gen.xml already existing… It seems the SMS shortcuts don’t like to play nicely with other things, or I just am making a mess of it. Either way… it seems to work fine with two xml files so they don’t get upset with each other.

bmillham · 5 September 2018 23:20

I’m not certain, but you have 2 fullscreenvideo sections in the xml, so that may be the problem. (I don’t think the tags are case sensitive). Try combining the 2 sections.

A quick way to test this would be to backup your gen.xml, open the keymap editor and then save it. Look at the difference between the new and original files.

WilliamG · 5 September 2018 23:21

I’m pretty sure the KeyMaps Editor did that. I just created this keyboard.xml and put the commands that wouldn’t play nice - in there. This is the keyboard.xml , and it plays just fine with the gen.xml. Finally. I got the gen.xml SMS info from this link, which has the two Fullscreenvideo areas, so I copied that directly…

https://kodi.wiki/view/HOW-TO:Use_SMS-style_text_entry_for_remotes

Either way, adding this separate xml file fixed my inability to have any additional commands work.

<keymap>
<fullscreenvideo>
	<keyboard>
		<key id="61512">playerdebug</key>
	</keyboard>
</fullscreenvideo>

<global>
<keyboard>
  <key id="61511">reboot</key>
</keyboard>
</global>
</keymap>

bmillham · 5 September 2018 23:27

I’m not real sure what the problem was then without doing some more digging. I’d just leave it like you have it now. Easier to maintain in the future.

I understand why you need SMS style, I’d be lost without it… Interesting that I’ve never had to set it up, it’s always just worked for me using my TV remote and CEC.

WilliamG · 5 September 2018 23:29

Probably because you’re using CEC. It causes some weirdness with my setup, so I have it off.

Thanks for the help, though. I always appreciate it. Wish I were more savvy about a bunch of this, but yes - as you say, much easier to maintain in the future!