[NEWS] SlingFront 1.45

[oviano]

Thanks for confirming Oviano ... feel better that it's not something I was doing wrong : )

Any chance you might be able to forward me the copy of the code you pulled down from SourceForge earlier?? Looks like you might be able to actually attach files to posts in this form (or alternatively I could give you my email address if that's easier).

Jethros

Ok, here is the last code I pulled down:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/5e5ljun5ep11rsl/SlingFront%201.45.zip

...and here is my customised version for Tom if he wishes to integrate into the main release or for anyone else who might find it useful:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/l9op08qnwf7qjl6/SlingFront%201.45%20%28Customised%29.zip

My changes are:

- if the stream is taken over by another user/Slingplayer then tidily drop back to the menu system rather than just show a black screen

- if the user is the administrator then automatically take over the stream when connecting rather than fail after a while with a login error

- made it still show the View and Edit Slingbox menu options if no Slingboxes have been found. This addresses an issue where if SlingFront is launched before an Internet connection has been established (such as can happen if it's launched immediately after Windows boots) it means you have to exit and re-launch the app to get the list of Slingboxes

- fixed a minor bug where the default mapping for Power (P) wasn't set correctly on a new install

- added the following keyboard mappings:

Play - B

Stop - C

Pause - D

Rewind - H

Fast Forward - J

Record - K

Page Up - L

Page Down - O

Quality - Q

These are all editable in the same manner as the existing keys are.

The Quality key will cycle through 640x480, 1280x720, 1920x540 and 1920x1080 each time you press it. If the current resolution is none of these four then it'll move it to the next highest one of these four.

All my changes are commented with "Added by Oliver Collyer" so they can be found easily.

Neither zip contains an executable, you'd need to build that yourself. I use Microsoft Visual Studio 2010.

Cheers

Oliver

[Jethros]

Hi Oliver,

No rush at all ... I haven't previously used any of the cloud storage services out there ... looks like there's a few free publicly accessible options out there but not sure if there's one that's better than any of the others : )

I'll just wait for you to figure out your solution ... if you could post the details in here when you're done, that would be great : ) ... I'll just check back here in a couple days.

Again, thanks so much for your help. Much appreciated.

Take care,

j

[oviano]

Hi Oliver,

No rush at all ... I haven't previously used any of the cloud storage services out there ... looks like there's a few free publicly accessible options out there but not sure if there's one that's better than any of the others : )

I'll just wait for you to figure out your solution ... if you could post the details in here when you're done, that would be great : ) ... I'll just check back here in a couple days.

Again, thanks so much for your help. Much appreciated.

Take care,

j

Heh, I edited my post above now as I realised I could use my DropBox account - I didn't know that I could share a link publicly like that, I assumed the recipient would need to have DropBox too.

[Jethros]

Jethros

Ok, here is the last code I pulled down:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/5e5ljun5ep11rsl/SlingFront%201.45.zip

...and here is my customised version for Tom if he wishes to integrate into the main release or for anyone else who might find it useful:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/l9op08qnwf7qjl6/SlingFront%201.45%20%28Customised%29.zip

My changes are:

- if the stream is taken over by another user/Slingplayer then tidily drop back to the menu system rather than just show a black screen

- if the user is the administrator then automatically take over the stream when connecting rather than fail after a while with a login error

- made it still show the View and Edit Slingbox menu options if no Slingboxes have been found. This addresses an issue where if SlingFront is launched before an Internet connection has been established (such as can happen if it's launched immediately after Windows boots) it means you have to exit and re-launch the app to get the list of Slingboxes

- fixed a minor bug where the default mapping for Power (P) wasn't set correctly on a new install

- added the following keyboard mappings:

Play - B

Stop - C

Pause - D

Rewind - H

Fast Forward - J

Record - K

Page Up - L

Page Down - O

Quality - Q

These are all editable in the same manner as the existing keys are.

The Quality key will cycle through 640x480, 1280x720, 1920x540 and 1920x1080 each time you press it. If the current resolution is none of these four then it'll move it to the next highest one of these four.

All my changes are commented with "Added by Oliver Collyer" so they can be found easily.

Neither zip contains an executable, you'd need to build that yourself. I use Microsoft Visual Studio 2010.

Cheers

Oliver

Excellent : ) Thanks so much Oliver. Very much appreciated. I've downloaded the source files and will poke around the code later tonight. Think I'll probably just start with your modified code. I think most of the changes you've made are things I was looking to try and incorporate too : )

Looking forward to getting those additional features added to the application. Will post back my results later : ) Thanks again !!

[Tom Speirs]

Thanks again Oliver. I just went ahead and put your changes into the main source and released a new install (1.46) so everyone can use them now.

Cheers.

Tom.

[kalhimeo]

Hi guys,

I installed SlingFront 1.46 a a few days ago on my new Windows HTPC, and I have some troubles with those things :

- The "Previous" key, which is supposed to be Cancel = 36 I guess, does not work whatver I map it to.
- The "Quit" key, which is supposed to be Exit = 37 I guess, brings me to the Slingfront main menu whatever I map it to.
- The "Main Menu" key, which I suppose is the SlingFront main menu, is always mapped to ESCAPE (ie. if I map it to something like F12 and map an other key to the ESCAPE button, the SlingFront main menu will still appear, whatever I press ESCAPE or F12).
- I added the SlingFront XBMC plugin as a shortcut on the main XBMC screen (below the "Video" menu),s when I start it XBMC opens a frame as if it was a folder with files (but will still starts SlingFront after a few seconds). This is not a big deal but it would be much better if it just starts SlingFront without opening this frame (which is still displayed when leaving slingfront and coming back to XBMC). Note that I am running the official XBMC 12.2.

Finaly I saw a post on this forum stating that a previous update of SlingFront had an option to disable the fade effect when entering the main menu, but I could not find this option in the last version. Has it been pulled from the release ?

Thank you very much for your help.

Best regards,

Laurent

[oviano]

The Previous key I think switches to the previous Slingbox in the list. You want the "ExitKey" if you are trying to issue the 'Exit' command on the remote STB.

The "Quit" key is intended to take you back to the SlingFront menu when streaming and then out of the app completely if you hit it again.

I don't think there is a mapping for the remote 'Cancel' command - does this do something different on your STB to the remote 'Exit' command?

[kalhimeo]

The Previous key I think switches to the previous Slingbox in the list. You want the "ExitKey" if you are trying to issue the 'Exit' command on the remote STB.

The "Quit" key is intended to take you back to the SlingFront menu when streaming and then out of the app completely if you hit it again.

I don't think there is a mapping for the remote 'Cancel' command - does this do something different on your STB to the remote 'Exit' command?

Thanks for your answer oviano.

I have 2 slingboxes and the "Previous" key does not switch back to the previous one. In my case, it does nothing.

To perform the action called "Back" on my STB (to navigate one step back in menu), I tried the Exitkey with no success, nothing happens when I trigger this. Does that key work with your STB ?

My STB has 2 different buttons : one for "Back" (one step back in menu) and "Exit" (exit all menu and go back to TV). From your post here it looks like Sling has builtin support for 2 different keys (Cancel = 36 , Exit = 37), but I can't map any of those correctly in SlingFront.

As written in my previous post, I tried to assign "Previous", "ExitKey", "Quit" and "Main menu" with no success.

Suggestion for the dev: for clarification, it may be interesting to use the same standard button names from Sling (as listed in your post) in SlingFront keyboard config. The internal functions from SlingFront like the actual "Quit" to go to SlingFront menu should be clearly marked like "SlingFront - Quit" or "SlingFront - Next Slingbox".

Keep up the good work !

[oviano]

I think the Previous/Next keys are essentially meant to cycle backwards and forwards through your Slingboxes, presumably based on the order they appear in the menu. However, I don't use/haven't tried this functionality and I might be wrong!

The ExitKey command works fine for me as a back/exit button on several different remote STB setups. It sounds like you need an additional mapping for the Cancel command, but I'm surprised the ExitKey doesn't at least produce one of the commands you need.

[kalhimeo]

I had a look at the source files that you posted above, it looks from slingboxrelated.vb that the command "ExitKey" triggers the action code 36 (= "Cancel" in your post with all codes). I would like to try using the code 37 (= "Exit" in your post with all codes) to see if it works better for my STB.

I am not familiar with Visual Studio but I will have a look when I ll be back at home on next Wednesday. In the meantime, if you have a few minutes to spare on compiling, that would be greatly appreciated

PS: if you want to test some code on my slingbox I can give you access, just let me know.

Best regards,

Laurent

[Tom Speirs]

If this is a bug or something I need to fix please let me know. If its design issue Ill get to it one a can though.

[kalhimeo]

If this is a bug or something I need to fix please let me know. If its design issue Ill get to it one a can though.

Thank you Tom, I will do some testing on my own with the source code and will let you know about the result. Keep up the good work !

[kalhimeo]

I think the Previous/Next keys are essentially meant to cycle backwards and forwards through your Slingboxes, presumably based on the order they appear in the menu. However, I don't use/haven't tried this functionality and I might be wrong!

For info, I looked into the code and I think that previous and skip are used to go forward or backward into the video buffer. To cycle the slingboxes, there is only the NextSlingBox command.

Here are the the Keyboard.vb, frmmain.vb and slingboxrelated.vb files that I edited to include ALL IR key codes (including pips, customs, etc). I also restructured the keys order to match the order of this list (in all 3 files).

Now it would be great to modify the "edit keyboard" menu to support ctrl/alt/shift combos and use custom names for the drop down menu (in order to use more explicit descriptions for the keys, like "SlingFront Main Menu" instead of "MainMenu").

This is out of my capabilities at the moment since I am discovering Visual Basic, if someone is motivated to help please let me know I will try to learn a bit more in the upcoming weeks.

Note: I did not try to compile the code since I don't have Visual Studio here, I ll try when I ll be back home next week. At the moment most of my changes are commented

SlingFront.zip

[Jethros]

For info, I looked into the code and I think that previous and skip are used to go forward or backward into the video buffer. To cycle the slingboxes, there is only the NextSlingBox command.

Here are the the Keyboard.vb, frmmain.vb and slingboxrelated.vb files that I edited to include ALL IR key codes (including pips, customs, etc). I also restructured the keys order to match the order of this list (in all 3 files).

Now it would be great to modify the "edit keyboard" menu to support ctrl/alt/shift combos and use custom names for the drop down menu (in order to use more explicit descriptions for the keys, like "SlingFront Main Menu" instead of "MainMenu").

This is out of my capabilities at the moment since I am discovering Visual Basic, if someone is motivated to help please let me know I will try to learn a bit more in the upcoming weeks.

Note: I did not try to compile the code since I don't have Visual Studio here, I ll try when I ll be back home next week. At the moment most of my changes are commented

Hi Kalhimeo,

Sounds like you're trying to do something similar to what I'm trying to accomplish : ) I seem to be getting a lot closer these days. Just trying to get the last few remote buttons mapped and working correctly.

I currently only have one slingbox to connect to, so I don't really care about cycling through slingboxes or anything like that.

What I'm trying to do is set up a Harmony remote to emulate the virtual Slingbox STB remote. To do this, I've added an 'MCERemote' device in the Harmony software and mapped the various keys to the Harmony remote.

NOTE: I can set up a Harmony 'MCEKeyboard' device (which allows me to send 'keystrokes' instead of the 'MCERemote' commands), but the Harmony 'MCEKeyboard' device seems very flakey ... pressing the key on the remote sometimes has no effect, while other times it sends the command multiple times. I tried adjusted the various key 'timing' settings in the Harmony software, but couldn't get it to work satisfactorily, so I'm trying to do this all with just the 'MCERemote' device. Fortunately, the Harmony 'MCERemote' device seems to work flawlessly (ie: responds to the remote keypresses exactly like I would expect the regular STB remote to work).

The problem I have is that the 'MCERemote' commands do not all correspond directly to the SlingFront keyboard commands. For example, 'pause' is the keystroke 'D' in SlingFront. The Harmony 'MCERemote' sends the MCE 'pause' command (not the keystroke 'D').

To work around the problem, what I've done is remap the MCE 'pause' command in the Windows registry to pass the keystroke 'D'. I am using my HTPC exclusively for Slingbox (so I don't care if the MCE commands get remapped ... I'm not using the machine for Windows Media Center). I found a program called 'AdvancedMCERemoteMapper' that helps remap the registry settings for the commands. This seems to have done the trick. So now, instead of passing the MCE 'pause' command, the Harmony remote essentially sends the keystroke 'D' (which SlingFront interprets correctly and pauses the videostream).

For the most part, I have all my virtual Slingbox remote buttons mapped over and working on the Harmony remote now.

Not sure if there's a better way to have done this : ) Have not spent a lot of time looking at the SlingFront code. Maybe there's an easier way to get SlingFront to recognize the MCERemote commands instead of a specific keystroke?? Dunno??

The last few commands I have to try and figure out are:

- 'skipback' - this goes backwards in the videostream 10 seconds or so (think this might also be known as 'review'??)

- 'skipforward' - this goes forwards in the videostream 30 seconds or so (think this might also be known as 'skip'??)

- 'exit' - exit any menu and return directly to live TV

- 'lastchannel' - go back to the last channel that was being watched

Like you mentioned above, I have both a 'back' and 'exit' button on my Slingbox virtual STB remote. The 'back' button will take me back one menu at a time while the 'exit' button will return me directly to live TV. The SlingFront 'ExitKey' seems to be my 'back' button. There doesn't seem to be anything for me that works for 'exit to LiveTV'.

The four commands above all work correctly when entered on the Slingbox virtual remote. So there must be a way of making them work directly from SlingFront : ) Suspect it's just making SlingFront use the correct Keycodes:

Last_Ch = 21

Skip+ = 30

Skip- = 31

Not sure what 'exit/liveTV' would be?? Suspect it's probably one of:

Live = 32

Cancel = 36

Exit = 37

Going to try and play around with the SlingFront code over the next few days to see if I can get these last few buttons working correctly.

NOTE: Agree with your comments about the custom names for the commands in SlingFront ... would be nice to have the 'SlingFront application related' keyboard commands explicitly labelled (ie: "SlingFront Main Menu" instead of just "MainMenu") ... think this would remove any ambiguity as to whether the command is 'SlingFront' or 'SlingBox' related.

QUESTION FOR TOM: I know you incorporated Oviano's customizations into the 1.46 release. I downloaded your installer for that release and am currently playing with that version locally. By chance, would you happen to have posted the source code for 1.46 in SourceForge?? I was having trouble getting the SlingFront source earlier. Oviano was kind enough to place his copy of the 1.45 code (with his customizations) in a link above. I would like to see how you incorporated Oviano's changes into 1.46 though.

Again, my sincere gratitude for all the great work you've put into this application ... I think this is going to work perfectly for me once I get these last buttons mapped ... as close to a 'live' TV experience as I can get : )

Cheers,

j

[oviano]

Strange - I have been using the MCEKeyboard device with a Harmony Ultimate and it works flawlessly. Didn't have to change any device settings, delays etc.

Which Harmony remote are you using?

Also, which IR sensor? I am plugging in the USB IR dongle that comes with a RoseWill remote.

[Jethros]

Hmmm, interesting ... I've got a Harmony 650. The IR sensor is the USB IR dongle that came with a Rosewill RHRC-11001 remote I picked up off of Amazon.

I tried setting up an MCEKeyboard device in the Harmony software but could not get it working at all.

Like I say, I could get it to work occasionally (so it would send the keystroke), but it was really hit and miss ... sometimes would have to hold the remote button for a second or two to get one keystroke sent, but then other times that length of time seemed like it would send three or four keystrokes at a time ... for example, would page the guide multiple times when you intended to only page it once ... was very frustrating ... which is why I just tossed the idea of using the MCEKeyboard device altogether ... might have to revisit that now : )

I think having the MCEKeyboard device would have made things much simpler in terms of mapping some of the SlingFront keyboard commands around.

Still think I'd have to play with some of the remote buttons that don't seem to map across for me directly though (ie: the 'skipback', 'skipforward', 'exit' and 'lastchannel' ones).

Has definitely been a learning experience : )

[oviano]

For info, I looked into the code and I think that previous and skip are used to go forward or backward into the video buffer. To cycle the slingboxes, there is only the NextSlingBox command.

Here are the the Keyboard.vb, frmmain.vb and slingboxrelated.vb files that I edited to include ALL IR key codes (including pips, customs, etc). I also restructured the keys order to match the order of this list (in all 3 files).

Now it would be great to modify the "edit keyboard" menu to support ctrl/alt/shift combos and use custom names for the drop down menu (in order to use more explicit descriptions for the keys, like "SlingFront Main Menu" instead of "MainMenu").

This is out of my capabilities at the moment since I am discovering Visual Basic, if someone is motivated to help please let me know I will try to learn a bit more in the upcoming weeks.

Note: I did not try to compile the code since I don't have Visual Studio here, I ll try when I ll be back home next week. At the moment most of my changes are commented

You can email me at ovcollyer @ mac.com if you need any help compiling it and/or have any Qs and I'll try and help.

I'm not a VB person myself, I'm from a C/C++ background but the principles are much the same.

If you look through my customised code then you should be able to search for my comments and see exactly what I changed to add new keyboard shortcuts, including adding entries to the on screen menu and the place it loads and saves the codes to a config file so that it remembers the settings.

Or just search for 'ExitKey' in the code to find the places.

[kalhimeo]

What I'm trying to do is set up a Harmony remote to emulate the virtual Slingbox STB remote. To do this, I've added an 'MCERemote' device in the Harmony software and mapped the various keys to the Harmony remote.

Hi Jethros,

I am also using an harmony remote but my IR sensor is the FLIRC (www.flirc.tv). It's a very powerfull dongle which let's you bind any IR command to a keyboard key (or combos like ctrl+x). This works very well and even let me wake the HTPC from sleep.

The last few commands I have to try and figure out are:

- 'skipback' - this goes backwards in the videostream 10 seconds or so (think this might also be known as 'review'??)

- 'skipforward' - this goes forwards in the videostream 30 seconds or so (think this might also be known as 'skip'??)

- 'exit' - exit any menu and return directly to live TV

- 'lastchannel' - go back to the last channel that was being watched

Suspect it's just making SlingFront use the correct Keycodes:

Last_Ch = 21

Skip+ = 30

Skip- = 31

Not sure what 'exit/liveTV' would be?? Suspect it's probably one of:

Live = 32

Cancel = 36

Exit = 37

You are probably correct with skip/last_chan. For the exit/live TV it could be Live or Exit (the actual ExitKey is mapped to Cancel = 36)

You can email me at ovcollyer @ mac.com if you need any help compiling it and/or have any Qs and I'll try and help.

I'm not a VB person myself, I'm from a C/C++ background but the principles are much the same.

If you look through my customised code then you should be able to search for my comments and see exactly what I changed to add new keyboard shortcuts, including adding entries to the on screen menu and the place it loads and saves the codes to a config file so that it remembers the settings.

Or just search for 'ExitKey' in the code to find the places.

Thanks for your help.

In fact, I started with your source code, checked for your changes, and added all the other IR codes the same way that you did. If you have time to look at the .zip files that I attached to my last post, you will see what I mean :-)

My problem now, is that there are so many commands that it's difficult to map all those to real keyboard keys. This is were using shift/ctrl/alt would become very useful but I don't know how to do that.

Additionally, with so many commands, it would be easier if we could rename those to a proper name. Maybe those are suggestions for Tom ^^

[Tom Speirs]

The source should be up to date. You need something like Tortoise SVN to download it.

[Jethros]

The source should be up to date. You need something like Tortoise SVN to download it.

Ah, was wondering if maybe I needed something special to grab the code : ) The 'zip file download' link is deceiving : )

Will grab a copy of Tortoise SVN and download the source.

Thanks much.

[Tom Speirs]

Yeah, the source is in an SVN repository. I don't release individual source packages just the final install package..

[kalhimeo]

For those who may be interested, here is a modified .exe and sources based on the package posted by oviano here. This modification includes ALL STB keys supported by the SlingBox (including PIP, Customs, etc).

I made this because my STB uses the "Clear = CByte(37)" to quit a menu and it was not possible to map it in the original SlingFront application.

I am now turning toward Tom or Oviano with those 2 suggestions :

- Allow custom names for keys to better describe those in the edit keyboard menu. I can help with writing the descriptions but cannot code such function.

- Support alt/ctrl/shift combinations for key shortcuts in the keyboard menu.

I also take the opportunity to report a strange behaviour of my Slingbox Pro-HD with SlingFront:

when I start the stream in HD quality, everything works fine: my HTPC (Intel Atom 1,6Ghz / Nvidia ION) can cope with the high resolution with no lag. But as soon as I press a key (or use the onscreen remote), the stream becomes very laggy on video and audio.

Some troubleshooting :

- if I use the *old* SlingPlayer application for Windows, I have the same problem BUT if I use watch.slingbox.com it works fine with no lags after pressing keys.

- if I stream from my Slingbox Solo (no HD), it works fine with no lags after pressing keys.

- if I run SlingFront on my Core i5 laptop, I don't face this problem at all.

It looks like sending keys during an HD stream suddenly increase the load of my HTPC which then fails to play the audio and video correctly. Is there anything you can do since watch.slingbox.com works fine on the very same hardware ?

Keep up the good work !

SlingFront with all keys.zip

[oviano]

For those who may be interested, here is a modified .exe and sources based on the package posted by oviano here. This modification includes ALL STB keys supported by the SlingBox (including PIP, Customs, etc).

I made this because my STB uses the "Clear = CByte(37)" to quit a menu and it was not possible to map it in the original SlingFront application.

I am now turning toward Tom or Oviano with those 2 suggestions :

- Allow custom names for keys to better describe those in the edit keyboard menu. I can help with writing the descriptions but cannot code such function.

- Support alt/ctrl/shift combinations for key shortcuts in the keyboard menu.

I also take the opportunity to report a strange behaviour of my Slingbox Pro-HD with SlingFront:

when I start the stream in HD quality, everything works fine: my HTPC (Intel Atom 1,6Ghz / Nvidia ION) can cope with the high resolution with no lag. But as soon as I press a key (or use the onscreen remote), the stream becomes very laggy on video and audio.

Some troubleshooting :

- if I use the *old* SlingPlayer application for Windows, I have the same problem BUT if I use watch.slingbox.com it works fine with no lags after pressing keys.

- if I stream from my Slingbox Solo (no HD), it works fine with no lags after pressing keys.

- if I run SlingFront on my Core i5 laptop, I don't face this problem at all.

It looks like sending keys during an HD stream suddenly increase the load of my HTPC which then fails to play the audio and video correctly. Is there anything you can do since watch.slingbox.com works fine on the very same hardware ?

Keep up the good work !

Nice one!

In terms of the namings of the keys inside SlingFront, can we not just look to use the names as per the list I posted a while back?

With regards to your issue, I've not seen that one but I have found that in general SlingFront can struggle with a stream (esp a 50/60 fps one) when the same machine can display it just fine inside IE. Tends to be an issue with 'borderline' hardware maybe. I had begun to wonder if it was something to do with the browser being 64 bit and running a tiny bit more efficiently than SlingFront 32 bit. Maybe we could add a 64 bit target to the project, though I don't know what changes that would involve.

[itjg247]

I am having a problem when updating in that I cannot make it full screen. I am using version 1.41 because I can double click on the stream to make it full screen and get rid of the taskbar. When I start slingfront it is full screen but once the stream connects the taskbar is shown. On some other computers I have tried it stays full screen. Ever since the update where there was a fix for when you click the stream it would make the screen black it will not go full screen. I tried hiding the taskbar but it doesn't look right. Maybe if you could tell me where the code is for this setting and I could change it on the updated version? Or if anyone has some suggestions it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

[Tom Speirs]

Could you please give me a few details on your system setup?