There are 'Pros'.
There are 'Noobs'.
And the rest of us: the 'Peanut Gallery', the 'Rabble Rousers'. Jostling each other on the sidelines, trying not to spill the beer, chanting lewd and derogatory taunts.
Example.xml seems to have been around for quite some time now.
I was a Noob, not so long ago. Compared to most of you, I'm still a Noob...
There are many recurring Noob postings in the forums.
All too often the Pros need to suggest "read Controlling Your Living Room..." or "look at the examples in Example.xml", to which the Noobs reply "I still don't get it."
"Houston, we have a problem..."
Perhaps we should consider something different.
Common Noob difficulties, in the order of importance for them:
- the actual remote they want to use
dragging events from the Log
context folders
- dragging events from the Log
context folders
the actual remote
- Example.xml Log
- Example_Log.png (11.49 KiB) Viewed 2917 times
- Example.xml Tree
- Example_Tree.png (10.45 KiB) Viewed 2917 times
Getting rid of the X10 solves the error in the Log.
Zoom Player and Winamp are programs which not everyone may have installed.
Getting rid of them removes two plugins, two Start macros, and two Switch macros.
Task Create/Switch Events, and Enable exclusive deal with context folders.
There are actually two separate context folders in there, Context Folder and Other Examples.
Discussing context folders in a basic example is not really appropriate.
Getting rid of them removes one plugin, one action, four macros, and two folders.
What remains is an empty Autostart folder, two switch macros, and one Volume Control folder.
Unfortunately, that would result in Keyboard Emulation and Mouse Emulation being impossible.
Getting rid of the two remaining Switch macros takes care of that.
Now all we have is Volume Control, which can be removed because there is no way to use it now.
An empty Configuration Tree won't overwhelm, but is completely useless.
Maybe we should proceed in steps instead, e.g. Example1.xml, Example2.xml, etc.
The MCE remote is more common than the X10, although setting up MCE remotes seems very painful.
But... everyone does have the Desktop Remote. Simple examples with that should get the ball rolling.
Everyone has a keyboard, so the Keyboard plugin is great for an 'add a plugin' example.
Notepad, Calculator and Windows Media Player (WMP) are more common than Zoom Player and Winamp.
Notepad and Calculator do not have plugins, but could demonstrate starting a program or keystroke emulation.
Notepad is in C:\WINDOWS for 32bit WinXP and 64bit Win7, but I'm not sure about the rest.
Calculator is in C:\WINDOWS\system32 for 32bit WinXP and 64bit Win7, but I'm not sure about the rest.
WMP could demonstrate adding a program plugin, but does the plugin work with all the different Windows WMP versions?
WMP 9 in WinXP 32bit SP2 : C:\Program Files\Windows Media Player\wmplayer.exe
WMP 12 in Win7 64bit SP1 : C:\Program Files\Windows Media Player\wmplayer.exe
Context folders definitely need to be a separate example. It would be appropriate for mouse and keyboard emulation, Volume Control, etc.
Setting up an actual remote can't be a universal example. Rather refer them to some other documentation or the plugin forum.
Confucius say "I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand."
Let's replace 'see Controlling your living room...' and Example.xml etc. with something more interactive instead.