Control TV Orbiter Using Game Pad

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LinuxMCE as of 10.04 can allow any media director to control its on-screen Orbiter using a standard USB Game Pad.

How to install

Simply plug in the USB Game Pad, at any time, and the system will automatically detect up to 4 USB Game pads, and allow them to control Orbiter.

How to use

Navigating items

Direction Pad

Items can be navigated either by a gamepad's direction cross, or by using the analogue wheels. Pressing down and releasing will cause the cursor to move in the direction pressed on the game pad. Currently button presses are not repeated.

For MythTV, pressing up and down, will cause the channel browser to change to the previous and next channel.

Buttons

By default, the USB Game Pad Remote device installed is mapped for a SIXAXIS(tm) compatible gamepad with 12 buttons total.

  • The four diamond buttons.
    • Button 1 - OK/Select/Enter
    • Button 2 - Back
    • Button 3 - Pause
    • Button 4 - Stop
  • The Front buttons
    • Button 5 (aka L1 - aka the small one on the left) - Volume Down
    • Button 6 (aka R1 - aka the small one on the right) - Volume Up
    • Button 7 (aka L2 - aka the big one on the left) - Page Down/Skip Back
    • Button 8 (aka R2 - aka the big one on the right) - Page Up/Skip Forward
    • Button 9 (aka what most people think as Select) - Back (same as Button 2)
    • Button 10 (aka what most people think as Start) - Home

Plugging and Unplugging

Game Pads can be plugged and unplugged at any time. The router will not need to be reloaded.

Use Within Games

Because there is no Home Button on most USB game pads, When a game is started by the Game Player, the system will automatically pass through the USB game pads directly to the Game Player engine; any subsequent usage of the gamepad will be ignored by Orbiter unless Orbiter displays another visible screen. This means that you will not be able to get to the home menu currently while playing a game (because the start button would be mapped to the game system.)

Changing the controller mapping

(preliminary instructions follow)

The controller mapping can currently be changed by accessing the web admin, selecting Advanced > Configuration > Devices, selecting the USB Game Pad remote device closest to your media director, and scrolling down to see the Configuration device data entry.

By default, the controller mapping is: 

up USB-GAMEPAD-UP USB-GAMEPAD-UP
down USB-GAMEPAD-DOWN USB-GAMEPAD-DOWN
left USB-GAMEPAD-LEFT USB-GAMEPAD-LEFT
right USB-GAMEPAD-RIGHT USB-GAMEPAD-RIGHT
ok USB-GAMEPAD-B1 USB-GAMEPAD-B1
back USB-GAMEPAD-B9 USB-GAMEPAD-B9
back USB-GAMEPAD-B2 USB-GAMEPAD-B2
skipback USB-GAMEPAD-B5 USB-GAMEPAD-B5
skipback USB-GAMEPAD-B7 USB-GAMEPAD-B7
skipfwd USB-GAMEPAD-B6 USB-GAMEPAD-B6
skipfwd USB-GAMEPAD-B8 USB-GAMEPAD-B8
menu USB-GAMEPAD-B3 USB-GAMEPAD-B3
menu USB-GAMEPAD-B10 USB-GAMEPAD-B10

The syntax is very simple: 

remotemapping USB-GAMEPAD-XX USB-GAMEPAD-XX

The remotemapping entry corresponds to an entry in the RemoteMapping table,

The second and third components right now correspond to the same thing (the third field is unused, but must be specified), that is, what USB button to press, either consisting of:

  • A direction: UP, DOWN, LEFT, and RIGHT are currently understood. (do we need more?)
  • A Button #, B1, B2, B3, ... B11, B12, for example.

Using this nomenclature, and the link to the RemoteMapping table, it is possible to map any button on the gamepad to something useful in LinuxMCE. The Remote control template used will be the one closest to that media director (so yes, it is possible, although ill advised, for each media director to have a different button mapping.)

Usage in AV Wizard

It is possible, to use the gamepad with the AV Wizard. Simply attach a game pad before powering up the unit. Holding down the 1 button while the system is booting will cause the AVWizard to launch.

Once the AVWizard has been started, it is possible to use the gamepad to navigate and select items within the wizard, and also to select explicit video modes, just as if number keys had been pressed on a real keyboard:

The following buttons are mapped for the AV Wizard:

  • Button 2 - DVI
  • Button 3 - DVI-2
  • Button 4 - HDMI
  • Button 5 - VGA
  • Button 6 - VGA-2
  • Button 7 - Component
  • Button 8 - Composite
  • Button 9 - S-Video

Source Code

Source code for this module may be found here:

Trademarks

SIXAXIS(tm) is a trademark of Sony Corporation.

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