Notices

I'm working on creating a universal remote control using EventGhost, it's webserver plugin, and the USB-UIRT plugged into my laptop in the living room. The USB-UIRT is about 50 dollars and is an IR transceiver. Once you have EventGhost and the USB-UIRT.

1. Open up EventGhost and flick File > New.

2. Then Click Configuration > Add Plugin

3. Add the USB-UIRT plugin.

3. Add the Webserver plugin and when the config window pops up:
-Set the port to any valid port number except for 80 e.g. 5656
-set the document root to where your web pages will go
-just keep the default event prefix of HTTP

4. Now create a macro:
-Click Configuration > Add Macro
-Select USB-UIRT from the window that pops up
-Keep all the default settings and then click "Learn IR Code"
-Point your remote at the USB-UIRT dongle and press the button you want it to learn and click OK.

5. Now add an event to that macro:
-Make sure the macro you just created is clicked
-Click Configuration > Add Event
-The name of your event MUST begin with "HTTP." e.g. "HTTP.TV_ON"

6. Open your web page editor and create a new page

7. Insert an image or some text in your web page.

8. Add a link to that image or text and set the HREF to "index.html?HTTP.TV_ON" or whatever you named your event.

9. Save your web page to the folder you specified in the webserver plugin and save it as "index.html"

10. Open your web browser on your Tablet or your computer
-Browse to the ip address of the computer running EventGhost
-make sure you include the port number e.g. (http://192.168.1.42:5656)

11. You will see your web page come up. Just click the link you created and it will trigger the event you set up. That will cause the USB-UIRT to fire off the correct IR code and turn your TV on or do whatever you had it learn from your remote.

It's a bit of a time consuming process but the solution works very nicely and you can make your web pages with any program. I've been doing web sites since 1994 so mine is a bit more complex. I use a javascript with an AJAX function to submit my commands faster to the webserver and not refresh the page. I haven't figured out how you can hold down a button to control the volume yet, so I have to click the volume button many times to change it. I'll upload all my web pages and javascripts and all that good stuff once I'm finished or get a bit more done.

Update 7-17-08
I tried using setInterval and its counterpart to create a loop to turn volume up and down but that just created a lot of problems with neverending loops accidently being triggered

Here is a file with my eventghost file and remote pages and buttons so far. It's a work in progress:

http://www.migraineking.com/files/eventghost.zip

Sweetness!! This makes so much more sense now. Their wiki is pretty confusing.

So do you know of any good FREE or really cheap web page creating programs. I'm looking for something like drag and drop buttons and background and stuff. I sent you a PM, but I'll ask both of my questions here.

1) Can you make a button do two actions? If I press my TV button, can it send the TV "on" IR code and link to my TV page that has vol and channel buttons?

2) Can you create macros? Push WATCH MOVIE button and have it turn on tv, dvd, receiver, put tv to AV1 mode, play DVD and switch receiver to DVD input??

Thanks,

J

HTML-Kit has an editor that you can download for free. It's very good.
http://www.chami.com/html-kit/

NVU
http://nvudev.com/index.php

If you're a college student you can download basically all of Microsoft's development software for free. It's called Microsoft Dreamspark. The Expression Web editor is really great. Details at:
http://channel8.msdn.com

I'll be playing with those this weekend. Thanks!

J

Just thought of another question. How will eventghost handle multiple USB-UIRT's? Say I buy 4 of them all hooked up to the same desktop and run one to the living room and one to 3 other bedrooms. Will I be able to specify what UIRT I send the command to??

Thanks,

J

So I got my USB-UIRT today and started playing with it. Your directions were spot on, I don't think I would have been able to figure it out otherwise.

Now I'm trying to send multiple IR commands and link to different page on my site. How do you code the href line to send two IR commands. I have my TV_POWER (HTTP.TV_POWER) and RECEIVER_POWER (HTTP.RECEIVER_POWER) as two different macros.

<a href="watchtv.html?HTTP.TV_POWER"> <- this works

how do I code the HTTP.RECEIVER_POWER into that line?

Thanks!

J

To make a macro that sends multiple commands just create a new macro and event. Then click "Add Action" and select "Trigger Event" which shows when you expand the EventGhost action listings. After that you can click "Add Action" again and it will add more actions under that macro. You can event select a delay as in trigger the HTML.TV_ON event, then have it trigger the HTML.AMP_ON event after 1 second, and so on.

Howdy,

I just put a link to all the files I've been working on in the first message of this thread. I still need to make my dvd and vcr remotes. Also, there is some clean up stuff like putting the css in the css file and so forth. But you can use it as a template for your own stuff. I set everything up so that you can use the internet tablet vertically. Make sure you maxminize the screen though. I can get 32 buttons on a page comfortably.

Mystic,

I'm having a problem sending commands after a non .html web page. I'm having one of my buttons link to the XBMC web page on my xbox and then turn my receiver to the correct input.
The prolem is that the XBMC web page addres is: http://192.168.1.6/default.asp
So my link looks like this: http://192.168.1.6/default.asp?HTTP.REC_PWRON_DVD but it doesn't work. I was watching the Eventghost log and it doesn't even attempt to send any commands.
Is there a way around this? Can I do it with frames? I haven't seen a way to implement that in Nvu (which by the way is awesome for what I need!) Is there a way to "wrap" this .asp page in an html format. This then leads to my next question, will I be able to send eventghost friendly commands from inside these .asp pages. I would at least like to add a "home" button to get out of that web page.

Thanks,

J

PS I borrowed some of your buttons for some of my pages.

When you request a page from your xbox, you are requesting it from a different server, not your server with eventghost. That's why eventghost isn't picking it up.

So, you want EventGhost to send a command to your xbox to turn it on and then turn on the reciever and switch it to the correct input? I'd program a macro in eventghost to do all 3 things.

If you actually need to navigate to the xbox page use the onclick event to call the eventghost page with your eventghost command and then use javascript to navigate the page to the xbox page.

e.g....

onclick="clickbutton('index.html?HTTP.REC_PWRON_DV D');window.location.href='http://192.168.1.6/default.asp'"

I got the buttons from Irrecco.