Long Presses and Macros Released
By far the coolest update for flirc, was today. Everyone’s flircs just got a lot cooler. Today, I’m happy to announce the addition of long presses and macros. Two features that I’ve been planning on for quite some time, and they are definitely worth the wait.
Macros
Macros allow you to assign more than one function to a single remote control button. Basically, I can have a string of text or a bunch of commands, etc, all execute when I press a single button on my remote. That’s now possible with todays firmware. There is currently no limit on the amount of buttons, but you might see some issues with anything more than 16. We can always change that, the limit is artificial right now.
Long Presses
Some of my favorite remotes don’t have a lot of buttons. Specifically, the apple remote. This update will allow you to assign a second function on any remote control button if you hold it down for more than half a second. Tapping on the button as normal will do the first function, holding it for half a second will not send out the first function, but send out the second.
Long Presses + Macros
You can also combine the two features. Press a button and have a single action, press and hold that same button, and do a macro. Check out the short demo video
Worthy Notes
- There is currently no GUI support for these two features. This is going to be quite tricky to do, so although the software and API’s are all well thought out, I’ll need a bit of time before these can be standard in the GUI. For now, you’ll need the command line utility, and documentation on how to do these features can be found in the current manual.
- To do a long press, you have to hold down the button for half a second, this is currently hard coded, might change this in the future
- Macros keys are all sent out as soon as possible, may update this so users can change these timings
- Deleting a key that has macros or long press functionality will delete every single key associated with that remote control button.
Other Updates
Plugin Support
One of the coolest silently released features was plugin support. All thanks to Yawor who did all the work. He did a fantastic job, and has posted a few items on the forums. This will be formalized into the release soon, and more documentation will be created. Basically, this allows you to create an SVG and XML file, and the graphics and functionality will be dynamically loaded into the GUI. Users will be able to share theirs to help other setup unique setups.
General GUI Improvements
Also thanks to Yawor, a lot of the important GUI items have been re-written to be a bit more dynamic and cleaned up a lot of issues. I’m in debt for his help, he’s a fantastic engineer.
Hosting Updates
I’m giving up on hosting packages. It’s a pain in the ass and took a lot of time and work. I found packagecloud and they take a lot of the work out all the security related issues. If you have the old repo in your distro, make sure you remove that and install the new ones. You can find instructions on the downloads page.
Build Updates
I’ve migrated all the build and release to travis, which although a bumpy start, was absolutely the right thing to do. It’s not a great idea to do build releases on a development machine for many reasons, but I held all the tools on my laptop. No other employee or partner could do a release without me, that’s no longer the case.
SDK Fallen Behind
Because we have everything built on Travis now, the SDK library build and release tools have fallen behind. I should have these built into travis by next week or shortly after.
Raspberry Pi Version Behind
Not quite sure how to do pi release yet on travis, so those have fallen behind. I’ll manually update these versions soon.
Happy Holidays
A very happy holidays and a happy and healthy new years to everyone. Feel free to leave comments, shoot me emails, or start forum discussions.
Jason,
Tried downloading flirc in Ubuntu 16.04 using your recommended repo. The app shows up, but won’t open. When I try to run it from the command line, I get “Flirc: error while loading shared libraries: libQt5XmlPatterns.so.5: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory”
I have looked everywhere for a solution but have come up empty. Thanks
I’ll issue an update. Try this:
sudo apt-get install libqt5xml5
** Edit, sorry this is the correct one:
sudo apt-get install libqt5xmlpatterns5
Worked like a charm, Jason.
Thank You!!!!!
No Problem. Keep me posted.
Can’t wait to try out these new features!
I just updated my GUI using the new packagecloud repository (Linux Mint 18.3), and after changing the software source added by the script to point to Ubuntu Xenial (instead of Mint), it worked.
I am now running GUI v3.9.7, but cannot update my firmware (v3.9.0). I tried going into the advanced settings to force an upgrade, but it just says that 3.9.00 is the newest firmware.
Any idea what is wrong here?
Thanks!
Flirc at this time should already have an android app and why in the he’ll is everyone confining themselves to these remotes that have only a handful of buttons. Why not a quick way by way of android app to set up like A To I remote. Something with a qwerty keyboard on it. Anyone has ever used a friggin android tv streaming device and or KODI realizes real quick the value of a keyboard other than manuely pressing arrows over down or up to q in one letter at a time. Totally asinine. What simple solution you have to help me get flirt to work with RII remote?
I think your assessment is really subjective. I don’t think picking up your phone, unlocking it, opening up the app, waiting for the app connect, and looking at the screen to select the button is ever going to replace tactile feedback, ever. But there are others who disagree.
The remote you are mentioning is 2.4Ghz wireless. It’s not clear if it’s bluetooth or proprietary, however, flirc only works with IR remotes.
I recently bought Flirc USB and it works great with my Amazon FireTV when it’s in wifi mode. i got an amazon ethernet adapter and usb-Y splitter so i can use it wired. if i don’t put the wired adapter box directly into the Amazon FireTV stick, wired internet doesn’t work but flirc still does. if i put the wired adapter box directly into the Amazon FireTV stick, my streaming works with a wired connection but Flirc (behind the ethernet box connection) stops working. is there any way to get flirc to work with Amazon’s wired ethernet adapter?
I need to see a diagram, can you send me something at support at flirc dot tv.
Typically Y adapters are for sending extra power to a USB device. To connect two devices to one port, you likely need a USB hub instead. I use “AmazonBasics 4 Port USB 3.0 Hub with 5V/2.5A power adapter” and it works well. If your devices don’t need extra power, you could probably use “AmazonBasics 4-Port USB 2.0 Ultra-Mini Hub”, which is cheaper.
Thanks.
Mark,
I ordered an Amazon USB 3.0 hub (B00DQFGH80) like you said and plugged the hub’s power adapter into the wall outlet, the firestick’s mini USB into the larger USB-A hub port. then i plugged the flirc’s USB into the hub but it seems like there’s no power going to fire tv stick. i then used the mini-usb y-splitter to plug the firetv stick into the TV and the hub. the fireTv stick then booted up with power. i then plug the amazon ethernet adapter into the hub. there’s no ethernet connection. i must be missing someting or not wiring it correctly. maybe i need a different or other type of y-splitter. how do i know the y-splitter i have provides data and power? can you list the part numbers (adapters, cables, etc) and show us how you connected these together?
Hi Darrin,
This is a bit of a confusing setup. I believe this picture illustrates your desired setup well.
http://www.aftvnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/fire-tv-stick-2-otg-usb-drive-ethernet-keyboard.jpg
Hopefully that helps!
I forgot to mention that the y adapter used in that picture is model 1397895 on Amazon. Hopefully the one you already have works, but if not it seems like this one should.
Mark,
your ethernet connection is a little different (better). it has the correct USB (large A male), where my Amazon USB ethernet connector has a male micro usb connector. i ordered an inexpensive adapter so i can plug that into the hub. i have everything else wired the same and even bought the same y-adapter as you.
it’s due on monday so i’ll let you know. thanks for the help.
Mark,
I got the mini-usb to type A USB adapter and followed your example. it works great. thanks.