Anyone using a UMPC?

Osler · Post by **Osler** » Mon Jun 05, 2006 5:19 pm

Samsung and TabletKiosk are going to be the first ones to have a UMPC on the market. The cheapest is from TabletKiosk. Anyone with any experience with these?

http://www.tabletkiosk.com/config/pc/vi ... roduct=135

Also, Elk is coming out with a new interface for the M1 controller. The nice thing is that it is a Windows CE device and can be loaded with anything you want. It has an ethernet port and supports PoE. The price seems a bit steep for a glorified PDA, but it does have a 7" touchscreen (800 x 480 - same as the UMPC above).

http://www.elkproducts.com/products/m1/ELK-TS07.htm

Osler

yaccri · Post by **yaccri** » Thu Sep 07, 2006 3:39 pm

Scott,

Do you think that the TabletKiosk UMPC (the first one suggested by osler)can run SWRemote with no issues?

Thanks

roussell · Post by **roussell** » Thu Sep 07, 2006 4:34 pm

It should be fine since it has a VIA processor and is running Windows XP tablet edition. the 386 version of the swremote should work without any problems IMO.
Terry

Post by **ScottBot** » Thu Sep 07, 2006 6:11 pm

I would think so too, but I've not tested it.

TakeFlight · Post by **TakeFlight** » Fri Sep 08, 2006 12:06 am

These devices look like the perfect software remote. At least for my needs they look perfect. Well, except for one thing, the price.

When they cut the price in half I might be buying.

dlmorgan999 · Post by **dlmorgan999** » Thu Dec 28, 2006 10:01 pm

I just bought one of these (the Samsung Q1) and it works VERY nicely as a software remote! I wish it was a bit cheaper (I paid $1,000) but the end result is great!

The only thing that's unfortunate is that the hard buttons (specifically the arrows and the Enter key) don't work with HouseBot. If those worked like they do on a PDA that would be even better.

-- Dave

Post by **ScottBot** » Fri Dec 29, 2006 11:52 am

dlmorgan999 wrote:The only thing that's unfortunate is that the hard buttons (specifically the arrows and the Enter key) don't work with HouseBot. -- Dave

Do you know if the arrow keys generate the same keycodes as a standard PC?

dlmorgan999 · Post by **dlmorgan999** » Fri Dec 29, 2006 11:50 pm

That seems to be the case but I can't say for sure. I opened a document in Notepad and I was able to scroll around in it using the hard buttons. I also tried the Enter button and it generated a CRLF as expected.

-- Dave

loo_hoo_ser · Post by **loo_hoo_ser** » Sat Dec 30, 2006 12:22 pm

It could be that the keys on the UMPC are special keys with their own device driver.

As an example, the MCE remote that came with the MCE windows machines had a special driver. Even though the remote appeared to function as a keyboard in some cases (numbers and arrows), the driver was doing the actual translation. I've ditched the MCE driver and switched to using a free product called HIP.

It basically is a program that runs in the background and intercepts any input device and have it perform an action. In my case. I programmed HIP to intercept the MCE remote key presses with keyboard equivalents so that I could use it to control any program I wished (e.g. Theatertek, ZoomPlayer, etc). You can use it to send key presses to Housebot. Here is the link: http://www.byremote.com.au/HIP/Default.htm

You *might* need some kind of a driver that will recognize the extra keys on the UMPC, however. Give it a try and see how it works out for you.

dlmorgan999 · Post by **dlmorgan999** » Mon Jan 01, 2007 5:53 pm

Thanks for the suggestion but I tried using HIP but it didn't seem to make any difference. It's worth noting that there *is* a special program included with the UMPC that allows you to map the hard keys to most any keyboard character you wish.

Scott: how does the existing hard button feature work? Does it look for regular keyboard characters, or do the hard buttons on a PocketPC put out special codes?

-- Dave

Post by **ScottBot** » Mon Jan 01, 2007 6:07 pm

The hard buttons on the PocketPC do send special char codes that the SWRemote looks for.

When configuring the button mappings for the panel, you can also specify the Cursor keys (up,down,left,right,&enter) in addition to the PocketPC hard buttons. Have you tried mapping the cursor keys too?

dlmorgan999 · Post by **dlmorgan999** » Mon Jan 01, 2007 6:11 pm

The cursor keys are actually the only ones I *have* tried so far. What codes do they look for?

-- Dave

dlmorgan999 · Post by **dlmorgan999** » Mon Jan 01, 2007 6:14 pm

Maybe this would be a good feature request for v3. How hard would it be to provide some kind of facility similar to the current hard button support, but that would respond to any standard keyboard key? Would this be hard? I think maybe this (or something similar) is already on the feature list.

-- Dave

Post by **ScottBot** » Mon Jan 01, 2007 6:17 pm

The current character codes it looks for are:
{ "Button 1", 193 },
{ "Button 2", 194 },
{ "Button 3", 195 },
{ "Button 4", 196 },
{ "Button 5", 197 },
{ "Cursor Up", 38 },
{ "Cursor Down", 40 },
{ "Cursor Left", 37 },
{ "Cursor Right", 39 },
{ "Cursor Enter", 134 },

Something more generic could probably be added to V3, but I don't think I have it on the list now.

dlmorgan999 · Post by **dlmorgan999** » Mon Jan 01, 2007 6:33 pm

Thanks for the detailed answer! I'll play around a bit and see if I can get anything to work. I'll let you know what I find out.

-- Dave