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Elrondolio

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Posts posted by Elrondolio

  1. Any interest in helping do documentation for compensation? 

     

    :)

     

    Thank you for the offer, however I'm unable to take on more at this point in my life.  My youngest daughter is in long term treatment for Leukemia and my wife and I are just treading water keeping up with all that entails, on top of work.

     

    I wish I could help you out.  I am confident that you'll find the right person or tackle the task yourself and it'll come out well.  My best wishes in the endeavor.

  2. Thank you for your reasoned and accurate reply, Jason.  I want to again make clear that I'm not trying to attack either you or your very useful product.  I find the Flirc to be a wonderful device that fills an absolute need in a lot of hardware situations where other devices are lacking.  In no way do I believe you or your product is a total failure.  Quite to the contrary, you've clearly designed a solid piece of kit that has great software that backs it up... if only it was documented.  The fact that someone must rely on tooltips for even basic documentation and that even short (but useful) help for flirc_util commands must be found directly through flirc_util is the only issue I'm expressing.  I've documented software and written manuals most of my career and I can't imagine that writing a twenty page manual would take more than a weekend.  Documentation has a lifecycle that doesn't need to produce perfection at the start... it continues to improve throughout the life of a product in my experience.

     

    I have indeed read through all of the articles you have on your troubleshooting page and find them well written and focused.  I believe you've done very well with that online resource and it is a required and valuable one for any hardware or software product.  I have also found some great information and clearly dedicated support that both you and some passionate users provide on this forum, again a resource that is implemented well and is, I believe, another of those required and valuable tools needed for any hardware or software product.

     

    I've had no issue personally figuring out and using record_api as well as a few other of those useful commandline functions once I've dug in a bit.  But I'm not the average user. This product absolutely needs a beginner and intermediate user's basic pdf manual that is easily downloaded right next to the software.  One that steps a neophyte user (that this piece of hardware is mostly focused at) through the concepts of the product, not just its implementation (but that as well, of course).  One that duplicates the help provided in the commandline utility in addition to basic usage guidelines.  Somewhere for someone I recommend this hardware to begin at the first day it arrives in the mail.

     

    I very much look forward to recommending the Flirc once again once that documentation lifecycle has begun.  I'll certainly not be steering people *away* from the Flirc, but will focus my active recommendations only on the more advanced users I run across from now on, those who won't be frustrated with some digging as it stands.  In the meantime, I'll very much be enjoying the use of the device in my own home.

     

    Thanks again, Jason.  Have a wonderful weekend.

  3. The Flirc has some great features and *can* be relatively easy to use.  However, without documentation of any kind, I must start actively recommending fellow hardware users in various hardware forums I participate in to avoid purchasing the Flirc (I have been actively pushing the Flirc for various devices for over a year up to this point).  I can't understand how anyone can release hardware of this potentially advanced nature without any documentation whatsoever.  Even as a one man shop, documentation should be of the highest priority in any hardware and software released for public consumption.

     

    Take the command line utility flirc_util.exe.  It seems to be very powerful and is often given as the cryptic answer for various issues all over this forum.  Cryptic is the key: without documentation, how is anyone supposed to guess at its actual workings?  A perfect example is the record_api fucntion..  I've seen 10's of threads asking how to record the "menu" key for various hardware.  The answer is often given as use flirc_util's record_api fuction.  Wonderful that the developer has created such a utility that can solve those kinds of issues, but without documentation it is limited to his own use and a cabal of a few other advanced users only.

     

    I'm not trying to bash the Flirc in any way...  I see it as a wonderful piece of hardware with great potential and easy use for limited applications.  I am a realist, however, and the conclusion of that realism is: without documentation the Flirc is more of a potentially frustrating curiosity than an actual tool for many people.

     

    Please document both the GUI and, most important, the command line utility for those that actually need to go beyond an extremely simple setup.

     

    Thank you.

    • Thanks 1
  4. Thank you Jason for helping out with the new Nexus Player.

     

    I have a wireless keyboard with extra media keys that I hooked up to the Nexus Player and it's special Home key (not the normal Home, End, etc) works just like the remote that came with the Nexus Player.  I've hooked it up to one of my laptops and used a keycode program, and it seems the keycode for that Home key is 172.

     

    How may I teach Flirc to use key code 172, then associate one of the remote buttons to that?

     

    I'm not sure what flirc_util's record_api function is doing and how to then associate what it's learning to a remote button.  Thanks for the help.

  5. Does anyone know how to setup the new Nexus Player with Flirc?  I'm using a Harmony 650 and it works out of the box for all directions as well as select and play-pause once the Flirc XBMC profile has been setup on the Harmony software.  Back and Home, however do not work with any harmony remote key programmed.  Loading up XBMC on the Nexus Player shows that most of the default mappings do indeed work there.

     

    I'm using firmware 3.1.

     

    Any help getting Home and Back working would be greatly appreciated.

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