Controling VLC via Bluetooth

[Aqualung]

I've been told by VLC devs. that EventGhost could help me control VLC using my stereo Bluetooth headphones. I think, so far, that this is the only thing that prevents me from designating VLC as my default media player: that I cannot control playback using my BT headphones.

Alright, so they say that I am supposed to do some binding of BT buttons as keyboard keys. I've been browsing the EventGhost instructions for the past two hours, and I have yet to figure out where to start. Aside from installing EventGhost, I am at loss as to what the next step might be. Anyone cares to throw a hint to a helpless newbie?

Many thanks.

[jinxdone]

Hi Aqualung and welcome.

Ok, so when you press the buttons do they show up in EG as actions when you have the "Log only assigned and activated events" checkbox unchecked?

If so then it's just a matter of creating new macros, one for each key you want to map, then drag events from the log view over into the macro you want to execute.

[Aqualung]

when you press the buttons do they show up in EG as actions when you have the "Log only assigned and activated events" checkbox unchecked?

Show up where? In the log window/screen? No, they don't. What to do then? Does that mean that EventGhost doesn't "sniff" these actions?

[jinxdone]

Right. You need to get EG to recognize the button being pushed first. Try enabling the keyboard plugin and see if that sees the button presses. If it shows up as 'HID' device try the 'Generic HID' plugin.

If you cant get it to work then somebody needs to write a plugin to interface with the driver/device to be able to catch the button presses into EG. Obiviously making a plugin without the device is rather difficult so don't hold your breath. If you want to get into it you can write one yourself though?

[Aqualung]

Right. You need to get EG to recognize the button being pushed first. Try enabling the keyboard plugin and see if that sees the button presses. If it shows up as 'HID' device try the 'Generic HID' plugin.

Okay, many thanks! Enabling the keyboard plugin did it! (I didn't try the HID route yet.) What I have not been able to do so far is to tie the headset buttons exclusively to VLC, but I guess that cannot be done in "Emulate Keystrokes" mode, can it? Unless, of course, I deactivate VLC, which is not what I am after.

What I want, then, is that only VLC be responsive to the headset buttons, regardless of whether VLC is active, or minimized somewhere in the background. Could this be done via the Generic HID plugin?

(Edit: I'm also attaching a screenshot of my EG tree: I'd appreciate if you could tell me what branches are unnecessary in my case.)

[jinxdone]

You wont be needing the hid plugin, I only mentioned it since I was not sure what will work for your device.

But nowthat you can see the button presses it's just a matter of creating macros. It might be a good time to read the wiki as well and just generally play around with what you can do with EG, you will get the hang of it pretty quickly.


And about specific instructions for your vlc problem.. well.. just remove all other actions except your VLC ones? If you are using the VLC plugin it connects to vlc's 'rc' interface over TCP/IP, it wont do anything unless it can connect.

[Aqualung]

Take a look at especially the 'Enable exlusive' action in the EventGhost actions.

Tried the "Enable exclusive" thingie, but I still could, say, type letters in a text file with my headset(!), which is not normally something I'd like to do... Anyway, I'll give your wiki some reading, see what I can come up with.

Thanks for the replies.

[Aqualung]

It might be a good time to read the wiki as well and just generally play around with what you can do with EG, you will get the hang of it pretty quickly.

Alright, I read the wiki stuff, and i did play around w/EG, however I am nowhere near a solution to my problem.

The issue is, again, to tie the headphone buttons exclusively to VLC even when the VLC window is minimized/not active. I, so far, fail to see how "Enable exclusive" might help.

Is there an "activate/deactivate application" action? Or a "direct (keyboard etc.) input" to a specific application? What's the use of the "Bring to front" action? Is that the same as "activate the application"?

Again, many thanks for this wonderful program, and for all the replies.

[jinxdone]

Aha, so maybe I should clear up any confusion

What the 'enable exclusive' action does it enables inside eventghost an folder and at the same time disables all other folders in the same level. It's only used to enable disable stuff in the config and has nothing to do with other applications.


So I take it you have not used the 'VLC' plugin (which uses TCP/IP to connecto to VLC) but rather you want to emulate sending keypresses to VLC.. You can specify to what application you want to send the keypress to with the 'find window' action, use it to target 'vlc.exe' and immediately after that put the 'emulate keystrokes' action.

[Aqualung]

Aha, so maybe I should clear up any confusion

What the 'enable exclusive' action does it enables inside eventghost an folder and at the same time disables all other folders in the same level. It's only used to enable disable stuff in the config and has nothing to do with other applications.


So I take it you have not used the 'VLC' plugin (which uses TCP/IP to connecto to VLC) but rather you want to emulate sending keypresses to VLC.. You can specify to what application you want to send the keypress to with the 'find window' action, use it to target 'vlc.exe' and immediately after that put the 'emulate keystrokes' action.

Many thanks. I take it, then, that there are two methods: (a) the more straightforward and natural "VLC" plugin method, and (b) the more arcane and roundabout "keyboard emulation" one. The latter looks, indeed, quite complicated, so I'll be giving the former a try soon. The unfortunate thing is that this VLC plugin seems to have been designed for an older VLC version, and that may end up giving me some headaches.

[jinxdone]

Yep.

There is one issue with the VLC plugin however. When using the new 0.9.x versions of VLC and the 'RC' interface is enabled in VLC crashes when you close the player. I've been told by the VLC devs that it is caused by a socket polling issue in Windows version of VLC which was changed in versions newer than 0.8.6. Hopefully they can fix it sometime soon.

[Aqualung]

Alright, so I've enabled the RC interface, but it looks like there's some configuration involved that I don't know how to handle. VLC's documentation is, really, not its strongest point.