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Why not encourage further development by making a small donation? Any amount appreciated :-)Using an iPod Touch as a remote control
The Remote Control HTTP Server allows you to use any device which runs a web-browser with AJAX support as a universal remote control. Safari on the iPod Touch/iPhone happens to work just fine with AJAX, and therefore can be turned into a pretty nifty remote with it's touch-screen.
What you need to do to accomplish this is actually very simple. The first step of course is to use the Remote Control Manager to create your commands by learning the IR codes of your remote controls. That's a no-brainer. Then you use the Remote Control GUI Designer to create some layouts, using the commands you created with the Remote Control Manager.
Run the Remote Control HTTP Server on the computer which has the USB-UIRT device connected. Configure the port number you wish to use and specify the file-path to your layout files. Make sure that the HTTP server is started, by pressing the "Start" button (Only required the first time you use it, after that it should auto-start, as long as you've specified the port number to use).
To confirm that everything is working alright, launch a web-browser, preferably on a nother computer. Point it to the name of the computer running the HTTP Server, and don't forget to specify the port number in the URL (If you opted for port 80 which is the default HTTP port, you don't need to specify a port number in the URL). Let's say the name of the computer running the HTTP Server is simply "HTPC-home" and it's using port 88. Then you'd simply point your browser to: http://HTPC-home:88/
If everything is OK, the browser should load a page similar to this one:
This is simply a list of all the layout files available in the location you specified in the HTTP Server program. In my case, I've got four layout files. One has commands for certain activities, like watching TV etc. Channels.rcl is a layout I created which has discrete buttons for each and every TV-channel I've got access to. Digital_island.rcl is a layout which has the most common commands for my set-top box. Finally, I've got a layout with the most common commands for all the equipment in my living room. This is just a demo showing how I've set things up. Yours will differ of course.
Try clicking an item in the list - the browser should simply display the layout in all it's glory. You can click the buttons to invoke the commands. The commands are sent using AJAX, so the page will not refresh.
Here's how my channels.rcl layout looks like in a browser:
Now, to use your iPod Touch / iPhone, simply launch Safari (Of course you need to have your Wi-Fi connection properly set up), and point it to the same URL as you used above. Note, for some reason, my iPod Touch could not connect to my HTPC computer by it's name. I actually had to connect to it using the IP address. I don't know if that issue is specific to my setup or just related to the iPod Touch in general.
Here's my iPod showing the layout list:
And after I "clicked" item #2, channels.rcl:
How nifty is that? :-)
Apart from being extremely cool, this "Remote control" isn't limited to line of sight like regular IR is. That means I can use it around the house.