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Author Topic: Global Media Keys  (Read 2852 times)

Blaine78

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Global Media Keys
« on: December 26, 2013, 05:25:09 am »

How do you enable global media keys for play, stop, pause, next, previous? At the moment, JRiver's window needs to be in focus for the keyboard's standard mediakeys to function.
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glynor

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Re: Global Media Keys
« Reply #1 on: December 26, 2013, 08:47:03 am »

I believe you need a third-party keyboard mapping utility to do this.

Obviously, MC has so many keyboard shortcuts that it is very likely to stomp all over those reserved by other applications, so doing this by default would be quite dangerous indeed.  However, MC can be fully controlled via the mc19.exe launcher application using the commands documented here:
http://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/The_Command_Line

And for more advanced commands, you can also use these:
http://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Media_Center_Core_Commands

So, if you have something like Girder or EventGhost that can remap keyboard keypresses (or remote control keys) and allow you to choose what to execute when you hit them, you can assign any keys to do anything you'd like, regardless of whether MC is in the foreground or not.
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6233638

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Re: Global Media Keys
« Reply #2 on: December 26, 2013, 09:04:06 am »

If your keyboard is sending standard Windows commands, it seems like this is a bug in Media Center, because the standard playback controls work just fine for me with MC minimized in the background.
 
I have keys on my keyboard and a gamepad mapped to the standard playback controls and neither has a problem here.
 

I did have to modify the "Media" key function for it to work correctly, but I think that's MC not being set up to acknowledge that command.
 
 
Edit: I have now added a list of all the AppCommand values which will let you remap the media keys to MCC commands via the registry if necessary, rather than requiring third-party tools to be running.
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glynor

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Re: Global Media Keys
« Reply #3 on: December 26, 2013, 09:55:15 am »

Edit: I have now added a list of all the AppCommand values which will let you remap the media keys to MCC commands via the registry if necessary, rather than requiring third-party tools to be running.

I misunderstood.  I thought he was talking about keyboard shortcuts, not the media keys built into a keyboard.

I could be wrong (my keyboard doesn't have those keys), but I think these should work by default.  But, sometimes keyboard driver software interferes with the normal Windows behavior (in particular, Logitech's SetPoint drivers).  You can try different settings here:
Options > General > Advanced > Media Key Mode

Usually the defaults work right, but not always.  You may have to set this to work through your keyboard's driver if you have it installed.
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Blaine78

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Re: Global Media Keys
« Reply #4 on: December 28, 2013, 02:23:47 am »

Thanks,
played around with JRiver media key mode settings, none seem to help, so left it on auto. I'm sure JRiver worked at some stage with dedicated 'global' keyboard media keys without the need for the window to be in focus.
I'm using a logitech DiNovo keyboard with setpoint program. Uninstalling setpoint didn't help.
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Blaine78

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Re: Global Media Keys
« Reply #5 on: December 28, 2013, 06:03:12 pm »

Out of curiosity, When I run JRiver as administrator the keys don't work at all, regardless if JRiver being in focus or not.
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glynor

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Re: Global Media Keys
« Reply #6 on: December 29, 2013, 12:12:54 pm »

Running MC as an Admin is not recommended.
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