dsandler.org

Thanks to this hint and Sony-Ericsson’s HID tool (warning: very buggy), I was able to bang together a quick and dirty iTunes Bluetooth remote control (for the Bt-enabled Z520a): ds-iTunes.hid. Send this to your phone (Bluetooth OBEX will do) and it ought to be usable immediately. The UI is passable but reasonably blurry and ugly; this is what you get for creating it entirely in Interface Builder with Unicode dingbats for button icons, and then scaling it down to fit the phone’s display. (Like I said, Q&D.) I haven’t tried the keystrokes on iTunes for Windows, so some of them might not translate quite right. You’ll have to try it and let me know.

16 Responses to “iTunes remote for Z520a”

  1. Eric Fung says:

    This works great on my new Z520a! At home I’m running Mac OS X 10.4.5, iTunes 6.0.4 and a MSI BToes Bluetooth 2.0 USB dongle. My only suggestion is a button to launch iTunes if it is not already running, and if it already is running, to make it come to the foreground. I’m going to try it at work tomorrow on a Windows XP machine. Whee, wireless is fun!

  2. dsandler says:

    Hmm. Launching/raising iTunes is a bit trickier, because these HID profiles are only able to send single keystrokes (with optional modifier keys). There isn’t a way to do what you want, using only one keystroke, without some additional scriptable-hotkey application (e.g. Spark) running on your machine.

    I’m interested to see what happens under XP; I fear that the modifier key codes will be different…

  3. dsandler says:

    Just came across this FrontRow HID file (just like the iTunes HID, but controls FrontRow instead).

  4. Soalar says:

    how exactly does this work from step 1-X?

    i’ve uploaded the .hid to my z520a’s “Other” directory. I’m browsing to “Entertainment > Remote Control” yet nothing new appears.

    What are the steps to get this working?

    Thanks.

  5. Soalar says:

    ok got it, you have to send the file into the ‘/’ root directory of the phone, not in the ‘Other’ folder.

    problem is now it will not connect/function, but that is probably due to the properties of my bluetooth sharing/etc.

  6. Arby says:

    The links I found to a Front Row remote HID file were dead so I’ve created my own. I don’t have hosting space of my own, but maybe Dan will post it here on his site…

  7. Gernot says:

    Sorry, the Front Row HID was down (I missed to copy it, when the site moved to a new server), it should be alright now.

  8. James says:

    play/pause function does not work outside of itune.along with anything in that row. otherwise im quite impressed and curious how you wrote this. that is how to write similar remotes. one nice feature might be if you could rate songs somehow. since i dont know the restrictions of the code i dont know how easy or hard that would be.

  9. dsandler says:

    James: Yeah, the remote just sends keystrokes that work within iTunes. Bluetooth HID profiles can only (as far as I know) send simple mouse and keystroke events, so in order to get the remote control to operate iTunes when iTunes isn’t the front application, you’d need to install a hotkey manager (like Spark or Proxi), set up special keystrokes to control iTunes, and then reprogram the remote to send those keystrokes. [If you want to make your own HID apps, see the Sony-Ericsson HID Tool link in the original post.]

  10. dsandler says:

    Oh, and here’s how you might write an AppleScript to adjust the rating of the current song.

  11. James says:

    yeah thats what i found interesting because the row above it did work outside of itunes.

  12. Michael Young says:

    Works great! Only thing is if it is possible to render this picture to 240 x 320 so it will fit the screen of the K800/K970.

  13. KILLER says:

    was playing around with this Winamp Hid file i found today and was wondering in which folder on the phone to place so i had to search inside the phone for the other HID files (Presenter, MediaPlayer, Desktop), i found them in /tpa/system/loconn/remote/archive/ so place all your HID files there and select them in Menu–>Entertainment–>Remote Control ;-)

    Was looking for a program to create my own HID files and google landed me here..

    cheers

  14. KILLER says:

    i created my own HID file now! :)
    easier than i thought though.. i still dont understand why some buttons work on the main winamp window but not in playlist editor window..!?

    Preview:
    www.undrx.net/Winamp.gif

    Winamp v5.24 HID file for Sony Ericsson z520:
    www.undrx.net/Winamp.zip

    Key Maps:
    www.undrx.net/key_maps.jpg

    Cheers

  15. Niall says:

    Got it working on my W850i but had to rename to tar file (no unpack it) so it had a .hid extention. After that the phone knows where to store it for later. WoWzers!!! Work Gr8. Dont mind the small PNG. Tried usingg SE’s tool which is VERY VERY buggy. Couldn’t get it to CMD+ARROW UP Grr! Cheers!

  16. M says:

    Holky shite, you rock my world! I’ve been lookin’ for this forever, how did I miss it? THanks.

Leave a Reply

To prove you're not a spammer, what's 13 × 1?


subscribe to dsandler.org

  •  
  • for faster updates, subscribe with FeedTree

mac software made on premises

toastycode.com: toasty software for the mac pyrotheque: a new (old) fireworks screensaver for the mac
Cuckoo—the bell tolls for your Mac.

twitter/dsandler [RSS]

    loading…

elsewhere

highlights

between the couch cushions

strongly connected

  • erinmak is not to be trifled with
  • pixelknave says moof when upside-down
  • dave is dangerous
  • rod is one groovy mother
  • adam is googling us all
  • amar is not really a pirate
  • angi sees little blue dots
  • harbinger lets you know it's coming
  • jason looks like an idiot in that hat
  • jeff is keeping austin weird
  • regan seems to tolerate jason
  • emann will not abide your IM-speak
  • jim is a stranger in ein anderes Land
  • liscio is pronounced "lee-show"
  • darryl has no need of identifying objects
  • friends as they appear on dsandler.org
  • sportsgirl reports…on all the pro courts

Search

Recent

Archives

dsandler.org is Dan Sandler's website and notebook.

Powered by WordPress and here's why.