Using a Logitech Harmony with Boxee

[phiebs]

Hi all,

I'm new to Boxee, have had a look around on the forums and tried to have a go myself but to no avail, here is my situation:

I have a mac mini on a TV, all working sweetly...
I'm using a logitech harmony remote to control everything and this works on Boxee (using the Apple Remote (up/down/left/right/menu/OK))

I saw there was a menu option in Boxee to use universal remotes.

What I want to do is have greater control over Boxee by using different remote codes; for example have a button on my harmony which will start playing random music straight away (without going to main page, left, select music etc...)

I didn't know if this is possible with the current version of Boxee and my set-up? I also have a generic "media center" remote with IR receiver, doesn't seem to do much on Boxee and ideally I'd like to not have to use it seeing as the Mac has an IR receiver already.

Does anyone here have any experience with this?

It's not a real-biggie as I can still use Boxee as I would like, it's just my aim to have one remote to control everything as efficiently as possible, and Boxee is the only thing which could be more streamlined (for my setup)

p.s. Boxee is a BRILLIANT piece of kit and my hats off to the developers/community

[liveforfunnow]

I have a related question: can I use a Harmony remote to control the two volume levels: boxee's and my mac mini's? It seems that I can only do one or the other.

[phiebs]

Don't you already have that by using the vol+/- for the amp/tv and the up/down arrows for the up/down arrows on the Mac/PC (which changes the volume in Boxee)?

[liveforfunnow]

Unfortunately, no. The speakers that the Mac Mini are connected to are wired computer speakers that have no remote control, only a physical knob on the speaker itself.

So, can I have the Apple Remote control boxee in standard mode except for volume, which controls the Mac's volume? Is there a command or setting I can alter?

[phiebs]

Ahh - I see what you mean now...
The only solution I know of is to create additional logical Apple remotes using RemoteBuddy and map buttons to the Mac's system volume.
There's a very good guide on how to do that here:
http://funwithcomputers.wordpress.co...lt-in-ir-port/

You don't need as many remotes/commands as that guy, but the principle is the same. Add a new remote and map the button up/down to the Mac's system volume and then map the up/down of remote2 to the Harmony's vol+/-

Hope that helps...

[liveforfunnow]

That does help, but I'd prefer to do it this way (without the Harmony?):

Leave the boxee setting at STANDARD, but tweak that setting so the up/down buttons always control the Mac system volume, never the boxee volume. Is there a command somewhere I can change that?

[skorch]

Ahh - I see what you mean now...
The only solution I know of is to create additional logical Apple remotes using RemoteBuddy and map buttons to the Mac's system volume.
There's a very good guide on how to do that here:
http://funwithcomputers.wordpress.co...lt-in-ir-port/

You don't need as many remotes/commands as that guy, but the principle is the same. Add a new remote and map the button up/down to the Mac's system volume and then map the up/down of remote2 to the Harmony's vol+/-

Hope that helps...

I did it this way as well. While it was a bit of a pain to do at first it's working very well with my MacMini. I've got my Harmony switching between my Boxee and EyeTV apps seamlessly. I used 5 logical remotes (using 6 buttons each) to accomplish everything. I highly recommend setting up a spreadsheet to keep track of which logical remote button is mapped to what on the Harmony.

Two big thumbs up for Remote Buddy - shame it can't just recognize the Harmony out of the box... but I wonder if that's an issue with Apple.