Teddyboy wrote: ↑Sun Feb 21, 2021 1:04 pm
One thing that concerns me is playing movies that do not match what’s in the MyMovies web service. If it doesn’t have a web service ID, then you can’t play it.
I assume you're referring to personal home videos? I'm not sure if those would even be in the Mobile App. As I understand it, everything that gets synced to the web gets a WebServiceID (which is a GUID: Globally Unique ID). And since the app only shows what's synced to the web, then that means that everything you can select to play in the app should have a WSID, and be playable in CMC (assuming you're using CCC which syncs everything).
My thinking is that it's nothing to worry about until someone finds a break.
Teddyboy wrote: ↑Sun Feb 21, 2021 1:04 pm
I didn’t think it would be this easy for you to implement ... I didn’t think this would come together so quickly.
Ditto. Just like my regret about not implementing a MCE remote handler years ago, I now regret not doing this earlier. Both have been much easier (but not easy) than I feared, and the payoff is huge.
Though there are times in life that as something plays out, I get the feeling that it is happening at exactly the right time, and that had I done it earlier it might have failed or been so much less. With me working on the MCR remote handler these past few weeks, and then just happening to take a look at the My Movies mobile app, two things that go together like peanut butter and jelly, it's just perfect timing. Had I attempted interfacing with the mobile app a year ago, heck even a couple months ago, it would have been something completely different.
It's a weird (but nice) feeling that I get a lot from programming, where I'm forced to learn a new skill on one project, and then seemingly moments later I need that exact skill for another project and I never would have even recognized what skill I needed before I learned it. Or something in life occurs at just the right moment to bring to fruition another project. It's hard to put into words, but perhaps those who've experienced will understand.
Progress Update
I got the My Movies mobile app's remote control buttons now running through a mapping function, where I map them to official MCE buttons, and from there they get processed as if they came from a real MCE remote. Works great. The app also has a couple new non-MCE buttons too, one for launching the "MovieLibrary" and another for "Zoom", so I created fake MCE buttons for them.
I still think that there are more real MCE buttons than I have identified, but I'm not quite sure where to find their definitions, at least not without a remote control to send them through the MCE IR6 receiver. My WMC keyboard doesn't work since I accidentally left the batteries installed while it was in storage for several years (several meaning 6+ years). The batteries sit directly on the PCB, and the battery acid has corroded the traces. I may disassemble the keyboard to properly clean the PCB and maybe repair some traces. Short of that, I might be able to program my Logitech remote to send a few more WMC buttons that aren't normally used (assuming Logitech has any more in their online DB to configure), so I can map them all.
The reason I think there are more is that each remote button has a unique "Byte" value, and a byte can be anything from 0 to 255, so 256 possible values, but there are only 57 buttons currently defined in my table, and there are some suspicious gaps in the ranges. For example the "Blue" button is A1, which progresses to "Teletext" at A5, but then 9 values are skipped and the next button is "Radio" at AF. So that leaves A6 through AE as suspiciously undefined. Most likely they are very rare or manufacturer specific type buttons, but I would love to find a listing for all of them.
Two shortcomings of the My Movies remote control is that it doesn't support long button presses, and it doesn't have an alpha keyboard. Seems like it would be really awesome to have a full keyboard on your remote to type text on your PC. I plan to mention both of these ideas to Binnerup, perhaps he would be willing to improve the app.
While it is easy to play movies/discs through the app, I was disappointed that I can't seem to direct play TV series episodes via the app. I thought I had seen a way to do this via the API, but I just reviewed Binnerup's knowledge base article again, and I don't see any options for that. I'll add that to the list of ideas for Binnerup to improve. I guess the good news here is that I'm technically done with interfacing to the mobile app now - I thought I had more to do but nope.
So now I'm back to working on finishing both the new Remote Control button mapping tool and the SysTray app. I also need to add support for sending media button presses (like "Record") so that apps that can respond to them will get them. I estimate I have about a weeks worth of programming ahead of me, so we're looking at reaching public beta in early March.