Xion Audio Player

Media Key support for Xion via 3rd party program

General Discussion about Xion Audio Player

Postby Garrett » April 18th, 2009, 4:52 am

Greetings,

When I tried Xion I found that it had no support for the media keys on a multimedia keyboard. I'm not sure if there is any plan to add that ability or not. But in the meantime, I made a little program that will allow one to use the media keys to interact with the Xion player. It's freeware.

Media Keyboard 2 Media Player
(MK2MP)

Media Keyboard 2 Media Player gives some media players multimedia keyboard ability, which previously did not have such support, such as the play/pause button, next and previous buttons on multimedia keyboards.


It can be found on my site here:
http://www.paraboliclogic.com/programs/mk2mp/index.html

It is still in beta, so if anyone actually uses this and finds any problems with it, please see the help file for ways to contact me with whatever problems you may find. Hopefully I've already worked out the bugs.
Do nothing be nothing, do something be something.

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Postby logokas » April 18th, 2009, 5:08 am

..wait, what?

Two things.

Number one. Xion DOES have multimedia key support, they need to be configured, s'all. The only things it doesn't support, are those that are doing it wrong, such as my new Razer Lycosa, which unfortunately only supports media players it deems worthy via drivers.

In short, if your multimedia keys are simple keys that can be recorded as keystrokes, there's a good chance Xion can intercept those keystrokes, making them assignable. So do a bit of homework, k?

Two. If your little application can make the media keys of keyboards like mine, work, you're awesome.

EDIT: Dissapointing. Guess Razer is really uptight about how their flashy touch buttons are used.

Oh, and welcome.
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Postby Jikaru » April 18th, 2009, 5:46 am

I loled a little when I read this...what a waste.
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Postby xonenine » April 18th, 2009, 7:05 am

Garrett Wrote:Greetings,

When I tried Xion I found that it had no support for the media keys on a multimedia keyboard. I'm not sure if there is any plan to add that ability or not. But in the meantime, I made a little program that will allow one to use the media keys to interact with the Xion player. It's freeware.


Media Keyboard 2 Media Player
(MK2MP)

Media Keyboard 2 Media Player gives some media players multimedia keyboard ability, which previously did not have such support, such as the play/pause button, next and previous buttons on multimedia keyboards.


Even my generic keyboards seem to support the basic functions in Xion, w/o assigning keys, or drivers. I guess there must be other media players out there that don't do this. :shock: hehe
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Postby Cliff Cawley » April 18th, 2009, 10:12 am

Garrett Wrote:Greetings,

When I tried Xion I found that it had no support for the media keys on a multimedia keyboard. I'm not sure if there is any plan to add that ability or not. But in the meantime, I made a little program that will allow one to use the media keys to interact with the Xion player. It's freeware.

Media Keyboard 2 Media Player
(MK2MP)

Media Keyboard 2 Media Player gives some media players multimedia keyboard ability, which previously did not have such support, such as the play/pause button, next and previous buttons on multimedia keyboards.


It can be found on my site here:
http://www.paraboliclogic.com/programs/mk2mp/index.html

It is still in beta, so if anyone actually uses this and finds any problems with it, please see the help file for ways to contact me with whatever problems you may find. Hopefully I've already worked out the bugs.


Nice little app you have there :)

As others have said, Xion should support the media keys out of the box anyway. I'm fairly sure all Microsoft keyboards work and most others that use the Windows specified media keys.

Its great to see some 3rd party addons :D

Cliff :)
Cliff Cawley
Creator of Xion
r2 Studios
http://www.r2.com.au
http://xion.r2.com.au
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Postby Jikaru » April 18th, 2009, 2:04 pm

I agree it is good to see third party apps but perhaps research would have helped here.
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Postby Garrett » April 28th, 2009, 5:16 pm

Jikaru Wrote:I loled a little when I read this...what a waste.


Nice attitude there. Maybe a waste for you, but it wasn't a waste for me. It resolved a problem for me.

And I shouldn't have to go mucking around with any settings to assign keys to it. It's something that should be already accessible automatically if you're going to support media keys on keyboards.

And to be fair after reading the replies here, I downloaded the latest version of Xion and installed it, and it still does not work with my media keys.

Going into the settings and assigning the key does work, and at least globally, but! you can't simply use the play key to play and pause Xion by assigning it keys. Try assiging your play key to both play and pause in Xion, you tell me what happens if you do that. Nothing, you get play only, so my program still serves a purpose that Xion itself currently is not capable of doing.

You still have an LOL for my program now? And you only think it's a waste probably because you didn't think of doing this, or, are not capable of programming.

BTW, new features added to MK2MP:

Ability to launch your media player by pressing the play button if your media player is not already open. Press play, a prompt will come up asking the path to your player. From then on, if your player is not open when you press play, it will launch your player.

Double clicking on the stop button will close your player.

Sorry if anyone doesn't find my program useful, or finds it a waste, but for those of you who find use for it, I hope you enjoy and I hope my program serves you well. It serves me and a few others out there just fine :-)

~Garrett
Do nothing be nothing, do something be something.

Some software and links: [Parabolic Logic]
My blog, or, My Rants: [MSN Live Spaces]
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Postby Garrett » April 28th, 2009, 5:17 pm

Jikaru Wrote:I agree it is good to see third party apps but perhaps research would have helped here.


Might consider taking your own advice. ;-)
Do nothing be nothing, do something be something.

Some software and links: [Parabolic Logic]
My blog, or, My Rants: [MSN Live Spaces]
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Postby logokas » April 28th, 2009, 6:41 pm

Same goes for you, Garret.

The pause button acts as a Play/Pause double feature button.

Secondly, i don't see why the media keys have to work out of the box? I haven't seen that before. It would either take MONTHS to implement, or is simply impossible. Leaving the assigning to the user is the best solution, because that way, the user is the one controlling the functions of the keys.

There are a million keyboards out there, each and every one has a different set of media keys. Nobody can support them all, but with Microsoft and Logitech, the buttons are at least, configurable.

Your program is not perfect either, don't even bother trying to prove it to us. You don't even need your program to have Xion comply with your keyboard. So, you've actually proved nothing. Now if you can make your program support keyboards that CAN'T be assigned in Xion, THEN you'll be getting somewhere.
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Postby Jikaru » April 28th, 2009, 10:20 pm

Indeed, and btw I can program...I just prefer doing more art than programming at the moment considering I'm getting my Graphics Technology degree and then I'm moving on to interactive design and etc. But before you bring it to a personal level I'm gonna go back on topic...

It is a good program you have created, don't get me wrong about that. BUT IMO it wasn't absolutely necessary, maybe for you, but some keyboard's have their own problems that will not be compatible out of the box and some are fixable. For the few that actually need this, they thank you i'm sure.

Perhaps I went a little overboard saying it was a waste. Sorry, but I'm still laughing.
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Postby Cliff Cawley » April 28th, 2009, 10:31 pm

Jikaru and logokas, please both take a deep breath and stop attacking, insulting people or jamming your opinions down their throats. This includes snide comments. If I was Garrett I probably wouldn't bother looking here again after those comments.

Seriously guys you do this to every new person that shows up on the forums. Cool it. You're entitled to your opinion but when you do it aggressively it doesn't help anyone, not even yourselves.

Garrett I think what you've done is great. I've had to disable default support for Media keys as some users reported that it caused issues for them. I'll have to look at implementing it for the Media keys by default again soon.

Out of interest which keyboard are you using?

Cliff :)
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r2 Studios
http://www.r2.com.au
http://xion.r2.com.au
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Postby Garrett » April 29th, 2009, 3:13 am

logokas Wrote:Same goes for you, Garret.

The pause button acts as a Play/Pause double feature button.

Secondly, i don't see why the media keys have to work out of the box? I haven't seen that before. It would either take MONTHS to implement, or is simply impossible. Leaving the assigning to the user is the best solution, because that way, the user is the one controlling the functions of the keys.


You need to get out more. Almost all recent media players support keyboard media keys out of the box. And it doesn't take months to add such support. It only took me but a few minutes to implement the code to look for media key interaction.

logokas Wrote:There are a million keyboards out there, each and every one has a different set of media keys. Nobody can support them all, but with Microsoft and Logitech, the buttons are at least, configurable.


If they follow the standards for the media keys, then there's no problem. Of course there are going to be a few who don't, such as someone noted above where their media keys don't seem to work with anything.

logokas Wrote:Your program is not perfect either, don't even bother trying to prove it to us. You don't even need your program to have Xion comply with your keyboard. So, you've actually proved nothing. Now if you can make your program support keyboards that CAN'T be assigned in Xion, THEN you'll be getting somewhere.


I think my program is perfect right now. I don't need to prove it to you because the users who have thanked me for adding media key support for their media players that either don't support it, or have problems supporting it, have thanked me for it and tell me how it works as intended on their systems.
Do nothing be nothing, do something be something.

Some software and links: [Parabolic Logic]
My blog, or, My Rants: [MSN Live Spaces]
Garrett
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Postby Garrett » April 29th, 2009, 3:17 am

Cliff Cawley Wrote:Out of interest which keyboard are you using?

Cliff :)


Logitech G11, the previous version of the series with the blue back lighting, not the new red lighting version. I also have various other media keyboards, some name brand, some off brand.

It's all mute now for me anyway. Since Xion seemingly does not need such support from my program, I'll be pulling support for Xion and moving along now. I'll probably go back to using XMPlay instead. At least their users didn't jump down my throat, nor did anyone in the VLC community.

So everyone here can go about their little closed world and I'll return to doing what I do best, looking for ways to help people out somewhere else.

Best regards,
~Garrett
Do nothing be nothing, do something be something.

Some software and links: [Parabolic Logic]
My blog, or, My Rants: [MSN Live Spaces]
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Postby Jikaru » April 29th, 2009, 3:48 am

Wasn't the intention but if that's how you feel...
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Postby Garrett » April 29th, 2009, 4:08 am

That's exactly how it came across as your intent... You and the other person came across as snot nose little brats who have nothing better to do than to bust the chops of other people who are trying to do something good... It's like you're desperate for attention and will do whatever it takes, even dump on other people. I haven't checked the rest of the sections of this forum, but I get the feeling that you two have a habit of causing grief around here.

Anyway, no further discussion is needed regarding my program. Support for Xion is removed, so no need to even consider this subject now.

~Garrett
P.S. Blast away after this because this was my last post here, so get your licks in after this to make yourselves feel better about your actions in this thread.
Do nothing be nothing, do something be something.

Some software and links: [Parabolic Logic]
My blog, or, My Rants: [MSN Live Spaces]
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