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How to turn off the flirc


henrythemouse

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I'm wanting to use my DVD remote to control XBMC. It takes the flirc programming correctly and will work flawlessly. The problem is that when I want to use it for the DVD player flirc is also getting the signals and XBMC is acting on those commands.

I want to be able to switch between the two devices but can't think of a way to do that. I can turn off the DVD player so it doesn't get signals while I'm using XBMC, but I can't turn off XBMC while I'm using the DVD player (XBMC standalone runs on an always on computer). I can unplug flirc from the XBMC computer, but I'd rather not as I like to keep it connected in the back (out of sight) and that's difficult to get to.

Maybe there is a way to use the power button on the remote to tell flirc to "turn off" until the power button is pressed again (or some otherwise unused button)? Maybe there is some setting within XBMC that can be accessed that can put XBMC in a "sleep" mode until awakened with a button press? Maybe there is something else I'm not thinking of.

Any ideas would be much appreciated. My only other option would be to buy another remote and dedicate it to XBMC, but then I really don't need flirc for that.

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Im not certain about this but I know that XBMC has some very flexible hotkey options (ie by editing keyboard.xml)

You might want to look into that to see if you can assign an unused button on your DVD remote to do something like temporarily stop xbmc? I haven't fiddled around with keyboard.xml a whole lot but its worth a shot I think.

http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=Keymap.xml

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You could always put the always on computer to sleep (hense disabling flirc) and in the beta firmware's you can set a button to wake from sleep.

Is this worth looking into?

Possible, but not optimal as this computer is also a web server which I'd just as soon have awake.

Thanks for the suggestion, I hadn't thought of this possibility.

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Im not certain about this but I know that XBMC has some very flexible hotkey options (ie by editing keyboard.xml)

You might want to look into that to see if you can assign an unused button on your DVD remote to do something like temporarily stop xbmc? I haven't fiddled around with keyboard.xml a whole lot but its worth a shot I think.

http://wiki.xbmc.org...itle=Keymap.xml

I don't see anything there that I could use, but something else occurred to me while I was looking at it.

Maybe I could just cover the flirc with something that would block the signal. I tried a cloth, that didn't work. Any ideas as to what might block that signal?

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You can try a piece of electrical tape, although I'm not sure that would work as the sensor on the inside is a wide angle.

Interesting problem, maybe there could be something in flirc which would say, 'if this button is received, ignore all signals until it is received again'.

Would be tricky and I'd have to leave it as a super advanced option as I could see a lot of trouble coming from this.

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I'm not sure you could. You can get a harmony remote and program the specific buttons on the remote just for flirc, while volume up/down could control your receiver. That's what I do, I was never fond of changing devices on the remote if I had to do this often. The cheapest harmony is about 20 bucks, but you get what you pay for: http://www.amazon.com/Logitech-Harmony-300i-Remote-Control/dp/B003IZFCFW/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1323539773&sr=8-1

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You could program a button on your remote (using flirc) to close xbmc e.g. map record button to alt+f4

Then make a shortcut to open xbmc with a keycombo assigned to it e.g. ctrl+space+o and program a different button on flirc (e.g off)

I'm on my phone at the moment but i'll try and link to the guide eskro created

Are you using windows?

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  • 2 years later...

I'm quite late to the game here (just got my Flirc) but what I have a similar situation for which I've come up with a workaround.

I have a Vizio smart TV with a Vizio QWERTY remote, which I am using for both Flirc and the TV. When I switch to the TV's Netflix app for example, I don't want the keys I use in Netflix to register with the Flirc/XBMC. I also want to keep my PC running (so no sleep/wake solutions).

 

Originally I wanted to find a way to detect (for example with EventGhost) when my HDMI was switched from my HTPC to another source. That didn't work for me. The next best thing for me was to lock the system while I was using another input.

 

I ended up finding a little AutoHotkey script/program called LockScreen (http://www.deanhouseholder.com/projects/lockscreen/). Basically it locks the screen and keyboard input with a hotkey, and then unlocks it with another hotkey. Very easy to configure with the INI file.

 

Since I generally use the Input button to switch between inputs, I mapped the lock hotkey to the Input button and the unlock hotkey to another button on the remote. Now when I switch back to XBMC from a different source there is a simple black screen that says "Locked" - I just press my unlock button and I'm back in business.

 

For now I'm quite happy with this solution, although it would be great in the future for Flirc to have a more intuitive way to "disable itself".

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  • 6 months later...

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