[vdr] Re: external key mapping (was: DXR3 support patch for vdr-1.1.5)

[Klaus Schmidinger <Klaus.Schmidinger@cadsoft.de>]

Thilo Wunderlich wrote:
> 
> > Please help me if I'm missing something here: why should the *same* function
> > be assigned to *different* keys in the various parts of a program?
> > Wouldn't the user expect the "Up" function to be always on the same key?
> 
> Absolutely, I totally aggree with you. This is something that I'm missing in some
> parts/programs of the AIO patch. Its quite difficult to explain this to new users of my
> vdr:
> 
> But as some users/authors did write patches with other keys and I wouldn't want
> them to loose their key mappings - for whatever reason they have choosen them.
> 
> I think it depends a lot on the layout of the remotecontrol.
> If I remeber old postings, your intension was to use a minimal remotecontrol where
> you put several functions on the same key.

Well, typically remote controls don't have too mayn keys...

> With this external keylist, I could map the keys in a way I'd like to.
> E.g. I'd put the pause function on its own key (which looks like a vcr pause key: || ).
> The mp3 player uses the yellow key for pause BTW ... (which I would map to the
> same pause key of course).
> But the menu down function would remain on the down key.

Maybe the mp3 player is mainly in "menu" mode and wants to primarily use the
up/down/left/right keys in that way. So it had to put "pause" somewhere else.
The problem is that the mp3 player puts it on "Yellow", the DVD player puts it
on "8", and others may have totally different ideas.

One way to solve this might be to define new, specific key codes like kPlay,
kPause, kForward, kRewind and kStop and to allow the user to either define or
skip them when "learning" his remote control codes (that's if he uses the RCU or
the PC keyboard - with LIRC he would simply define these or not).

However, the problem that still remains is: what should people do if their
remote control doesn't have these keys? Mine for one doesn't, and I'm rather
happy with it. Using the up/down/left/right keys for navigating through menus
and also for controlling the player comes natural, since the keys are already
labelled that way (i.e. for instance the "Up" key has a upward pointing arrow
next to it, as well as the "play" symbol on it). So that's why I strongly suggest
that programs try to use these keys the same way the core VDR program does.
Otherwise new users of a plugin will always have problems...

> I have to admin that I didn't have a look at the code itself how it is written currently,
> because I wouldn't want to change it everytime a new version comes out.
> Though a pointer to the file where I would change the pause key for example would
> be appreciated.

Are you referring to VDR or the mp3 player?

Klaus
-- 
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Klaus Schmidinger                       Phone: +49-8635-6989-10
CadSoft Computer GmbH                   Fax:   +49-8635-6989-40
Hofmark 2                               Email:   kls@cadsoft.de
D-84568 Pleiskirchen, Germany           URL:     www.cadsoft.de
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