Adding custom command for launching external program

[dinki]

Right now I am using Girder and a USB-UIRT as my UI for Sage. I have two buttons set up on Girder that launch a little program when pressed. One sends a command to my Homeseer server (on another machine on the network) to turn the lights on in the living room while the other sends a command to turn the lights off.

I would like to use the built-in USB-UIRT support in Sage but will still need to be able to trigger the lights on/off via the remote as I am currently doing now. Is there some sort of way that I can accomplish this?

[dinki]

Can I accomplish this by adding a menu item for each Lights On/Off and then tying that to the external program I call? How do I link this to an IR button?

[dinki]

I would have thought someone would have had a desire to do this as well. Can someone perhaps tell me where I might find information on setting up the menu system (when you right click on a menu screen)? Is there a document that explains what a new command is or if a new launch external program can be bound to a key on the remote?

[mbowling]

dinki, I'm a Homeseer user as well. I use an X10 remote control to send a signal to Homeseer to change the lighting when watching TV. But I can see the cool factor in sending the command from Sage. Are you using the Homeseer Script Connector Plugin to send the message from the remote machine to your Homeseer server?

[dinki]

Actually I'm using wget to run my event by pulling a page from my Homeseer web server. I have a page for lights on event and lights off event. Coupled with my Harmony remote, I am able to stop playback, shut down my tv, amp and lights with a single button press. It all works well, but I just installed the Netflix plugin and I can not control playback using my Girder key press emulation.

[dinki]

BUMP. Surely someone can tell me how to tie an external command to a sage sommand controllable via IR.

[GKusnick]

It might help if you gave us some context. Are you talking about custom menu items in SageMC? Nielm's dynamic menu plugin? Using Studio to create your own STVI customization for the stock UI? Information is available for all of these options, but the details are going to depend on which tools you're using.

[dinki]

Thanks Greg. I did not realize how vague I was being. I'm wanting to tie a SageMC custom menu item (launch external command) to a keypress.

Perhaps this thread needs to be moved to the SageMC subforum?

[dinki]

Can someone tell me if it's possible to set a SageMC launch external program command to a remote control IR keypress? I want to be able to launch a program from any menu/submenu by pressing a defined key on my remote. I want to use SageTV's built-in support for the USB-UIRT IR receiver.

Is there any documentation for doing this or something that would produce similar results?

Thanks

* merged *

[dinki]

Is it safe to assume that this isn't something that is easily done?

[planetc]

I know nothing about this to be honest, but my general outlook on such things is that if you cannot do something the way you plan then it is often worth taking three steps back and looking from another angle.
Have you considered approaching this from the other side and making Sage the secondary function that is controlled rather than the primary that controls all else. As I said, I know little about the subject, but I understand Girder to be a pretty flexible tool in the right hands.

[dinki]

Originally Posted by planetc

I know nothing about this to be honest, but my general outlook on such things is that if you cannot do something the way you plan then it is often worth taking three steps back and looking from another angle.
Have you considered approaching this from the other side and making Sage the secondary function that is controlled rather than the primary that controls all else. As I said, I know little about the subject, but I understand Girder to be a pretty flexible tool in the right hands.

I'm not sure if you read my first post, but I was already using Girder and it has worked, for the most part, great. The problem is that the Netflix plugin does not work with Girder the way I have it configured (sending keypresses). This is in part because SageTV is not in the foreground and does not accept the keypresses.

I would have thought that others would have wanted to extend their remote control's capabilities by being able to add functions using SageTV's built in IR handling.

Does _anyone_ have any idea if this is possible?

[dinki]

I'm back to bring this thread back from the dead. I'm still wanting to get this working and hope that someone might see this and know how to accomplish this task.

Just to refresh, I'd like to tie an IR button on my remote to a custom task menu item I have on my main menu. This would be similar to pressing the videos button and having the 'My Videos' submenu open or what happens when you push the guide button. Is there any way to do this? I'll look into builder if it's possible to tie the two together in there.

[heatvent]

dinki, see post #10 at this thread: http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=42993

I tried to see what interest there was out there to create some control in Sage for HomeSeer. Another Sage user created a nice Sage plugin to control HAL. I sure someone with the right skills could create a functional way to do this but I don't think there's anyone that I could find with the skills and desire.

Anyway, this user was using SageMC menu items to do command line control of HomeSeer. Maybe check with them on how they accomplished this.

[dinki]

heatvent, interesting, but I've moved from Homeseer to Premise Home Builder. I have a menu item set up now that turns my lights on/off via an external program, I would just like to be able to tie an IR keypress to it so that I can shut everything down with one press of a button on my Harmony remote.