A dumb question about remotes...

[dac7nco]

I don't usually watch any TV on my HTPC; Working, I either work/browse on one monitor and have something playing on another, either video or music. Is there a remote the I can hit "pause" on, no matter what window has focus when the phone rings which only pays attention to mpc-hc.exe or winamp.exe? I don't want mute, as I can do this from the remote or from my keyboard.

If I mute, I come back to the system from the call, watch Gibbs shoot someone and don't know how he got there.

I need a smarter remote or better brain. Is this a script I need to write myself?

Daimon

 

[Zaap]

I would try a remote control app running on your smartphone (and service on the PC.)

I used to use UnifiedRemote to control several media apps on an HTPC- it worked amazingly well. (I don't use it currently, but I'm fairly sure it'll do what you want.)

 

[lucklessgorath]

Any Windows Media Center remote. But functionality when the player is not in focus varies from player to player.

Examples that I tested:
Windows Media Center / Windows Media Player: Play, Pause, Stop, Rewind, Fast Forward work when the player is not in focus. Skip forward or backward buttons on the remote don't work unless the player is in focus.

MPC-HC: Remote control is fairly broken when MPC-HC is not in focus. Pause and Play buttons do not work. Skip forward and backwards do work. While Stop closes MPC-HC. But this behavior may be because I have MPC-HC set as the default player for Media Browser.

Foobar 2000: Play, pause, Stop, RW, FF, Previous track, Next track all work when not in focus. The D-Pad, which in Foobar scrolls your play list, doesn't work unless Foobar is in focus. (Loss of using the D-Pad on the remote is no big deal as it is a terribly slow way to browse.)

I no longer have Winamp installed so can't test it.

*** With Foobar you can edit the hot keys and assign, for example, the pause/break key on your keyboard to pause Foobar. Check the box for that hot key to be global and now you can pause your music playback with just the press of a key on your keyboard. MPC-HC also has editable keyboard shortcuts but I can't seem to get pause to work globally with it. ***

 

[dac7nco]

Windows Media Center / Windows Media Player: Play, Pause, Stop, Rewind, Fast Forward work when the player is not in focus. Skip forward or backward buttons on the remote don't work unless the player is in focus.

MPC-HC: Remote control is fairly broken when MPC-HC is not in focus. Pause and Play buttons do not work. Skip forward and backwards do work. While Stop closes MPC-HC.

Damn. Damn Damn Damn. WMP it is then. Thanks for testing all of that!

Daimon