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[Hilton]

This an old request dating back many version, prior to the concept of Car Radio Playlist buttons in standard view.

With the aim of improving usability, I wonder whether a similar concept to Car Radio buttons could be implemented for programmable macros within MC.
It would be great to be able to program these "Radio" buttons with MCC commands, shortcut keys etc, to perform multiple chained commands and then set a custom shortcut key to trigger them.  You could even have a few predefined buttons. And have them as an OSD pop up in Theatre view to make them accessible in theatre view.

I was thinking you could program them similar in concept to "Activity" modes in programmable remotes like the Logitech Harmony.
You could program them to automate view changes, loading playlists, switch zones, and any MCC command or keyboard shortcut.  I know this in itself potentially introduces more complexity, but if you could have some preprogrammed functions and have a wizard like we do for search it would allow more complex things to be done within MC without having to add the additional complexity of external scripting tools and programming complex macros into remotes.

Here's a couple of old requests below that are still relevant examples today.

There is a function I use quite regularly: Send to (external)

This function is located quite far down in the right click menu.

Would it be possible to implement a feature where one could assign any menu selection or key sequence to a macro and a corresponding button?

http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=41790.0

Hi

Does anyone know if it is possible to use MCC to create a keyboard shortcut toggle for theatre view to:

1. Open a external program X
2. Close MC

And toggle with

3. Open MC
4. Close external program X

that I can assign to a button on my Harmony One?

http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=78190.0

[jmone]

You can do this with Theater View but I take it you want it in Std View?

[Hilton]

Yes I'd like this in Standard View. I guess for Theatre view your talking about links to external programs and running batch scripts? I guess this could be done in Standard View too with the programmable shortcut links at the top, but I was thinking of something more elegant and more easily programmed with a MC wizard.

[jmone]

Yeah - that is all I had...

[Hilton]

Well I think I've worked out a way to do what I want for now.
You'll have to excuse this as it's a work in progress and its not very pretty.
It involves a bit of work, but once it's done I think I'll able to use it in both standard and theatre views and it wont take a lot of maintenance or changes to add mew macros and custom views to it.  

If anyone has an easier way to do this I'm all ears!

Im going to do some very basic programming with HTA files. Otherwise known as local web apps.
I managed to get multiple sequential MCWS commands to run from a single HTA file as a macro.

I used the built in MCWS web server and placed the file in the C:\Program Files (x86)\J River\Media Center 20\Data\Library Server\WebRemote\Default directory
I then created a link in standard view Managed Links.
Display Name: Play Something Similar
Base URL: localhost:52199/WebRemote/
Search URL: localhost:52199//WebRemote//playsomethingsimilar.hta

Set to open in internal browser.

I think by using this technique I can load a custom webpage in a new tab in standard view and have a bunch of pre-programmed buttons.
I can also launch the page from theatre view to access the buttons.

Im sure someone else out there must have done some custom MCWS views to load in a new tab before that I can leverage.
Even if I have to use the standard MCWS html files as a start.

Originally I was trying to have different web links that launched hidden, but I can't seem to do this even using an external browser.

The alternative is to just load a new webpage tab with the custom macros.

I'll work on it some more this week and keep you posted.

PS. I found a missing MCC or MCWS command that would be useful that doesn't exist as far as I can see.
Being able to load a saved search via command line or MCWS to apply filters to the current playing now would be great.


Here's the HTA file that loads in the internal MC web browser.  At the moment it just executes the 2 commands automatically and stays open.

Code: [Select]

<HTML>
        <HEAD>
          <TITLE>PlayDoctor</TITLE>
            <HTA:APPLICATION ID="oHTA"
             APPLICATIONNAME="PlayDoctor"
             BORDER="thin"
             BORDERSTYLE="normal"
             CAPTION="yes"
             ICON=""
             MAXIMIZEBUTTON="no"
             MINIMIZEBUTTON="yes"
             SHOWINTASKBAR="no"
             SINGLEINSTANCE="no"
             SCROLL="no"
             SYSMENU="yes"
             VERSION="1.0"
             WINDOWSTATE="minimize">
    
    <SCRIPT LANGUAGE="VBScript">
    
        Sub Window_onLoad
            window.resizeTo 780,356
            window.setTimeout "self.close()",1000
        End Sub
    
    </SCRIPT>
    
    <STYLE>
    body {margin:0;}
    </STYLE>
    
    </HEAD>
    <BODY scroll="no">
    <object type="text/html" style="width:100%;height:100%;overflow:hidden;" application="yes" data="http://localhost:52199/MCWS/v1/Playback/PlayDoctor?Zone=-1&ZoneType=ID"></object>
    <object type="text/html" style="width:100%;height:100%;overflow:hidden;" application="yes" data="http://localhost:52199/MCWS/v1/Playback/Volume?Level=0.75"></object>
    </BODY>
    </HTML>


[Hilton]

BTW the HTA file can be used to launch any programs installed on your system, not just MC commands.

[Hilton]

I started tonight and came up with the idea of putting buttons into track info view for use when in cover mode.

This is still rough but I got Gizmo buttons working in a modified Noire theme trackinfo.

Gee my HTML skills are a bit rusty!    This is going to take a looooong time. 



Any HTML gurus like to lend a hand?

Code: [Select]

</head>
<body bgcolor="#008bfa" background="background.jpg" text="#333333" link="#000080" vlink="#800080" alink="#ff0000" bgproperties="fixed" leftmargin="0"

rightmargin="0" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" topmargin="0" bottommargin="0">

<table width="100%" height="100%" border="0" align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="" id="corner">
<tr>
<td rowspan="2" class="albumart" valign="top"><img class="album" src="TRACKINFO_INSERT_IMAGE" width="400"height="400" border="0" alt=""

hspace="5" vspace="5"></td>
<td class="info" valign="top">
<span class="title">TRACKINFO_INSERT_TITLE</span><br>
<span class="artist">TRACKINFO_INSERT_ARTIST</span><br><br>
<table border="0" align="left" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="4" summary="">
<tr>
<td class="tracka" align="right" valign="top">Album:</td>
<td class="trackb" valign="top"><b>TRACKINFO_INSERT_ALBUM</b></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="trackc" align="right" valign="top">
<a href="http://localhost:8888/MCWS/v1/Playback/Play?Token=AIt0iLF4"><img src="images/play.png" alt="Play" width="74" height="48" /></a>
<a href="http://localhost:8888/MCWS/v1/Playback/Stop?Token=AIt0iLF4"><img src="images/stop.png" alt="Stop" width="74" height="48" /></a>
<a href="http://localhost:8888/MCWS/v1/Playback/Previous?Token=AIt0iLF4"><img src="images/previous.png" alt="Previous" width="74" height="48" /></a>
<a href="http://localhost:8888/MCWS/v1/Playback/Next?Token=AIt0iLF4"><img src="images/next.png" alt="Next" width="74" height="48" /></a></td>
</tr>
</table>

</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td colspan="2"><br></td>
</tr>
</table>
</body>
</html>