Harmony Remotes - Programming

[scubasteve12884]

Can the Harmony 1100 be used as a PC remote as well?  I currently have a home-built media center running Vista and my DVD player, music player, DVR, etc are all bundled together in one package (with several remotes).  For example, can the 1100 be programmed to open Winamp on my PC and display a customized keypad that operates the Winamp hot-keys from the remote pad?  How about opening Windows Media Center and navigating my recorded TV shows?  Any help is much appreciated.

[hhatkin]

Hi and welcome.

Any Harmony duplicates what any original IR remote does.

If you have an IR remote for the PC then it can duplicate that.

H H

[DaneHarmony]

Hello Scubasteve.

Many Linux users are doing things similar to what you are looking with LIRC.  There is a Windows version called winLIRC, but as I have not used either I cannot give advice on how well it works.

Awhile back I used Hauppauge's TV Tuner (that came with a remote) to do things close to this.  It took a lot of editing a irremote.ini file that took IR and converted them to keyboard commands, but only to the open (focused) window at the time.     Through use of the 4 colour buttons, I was able to Alt-Tab, and Alt-F4 my way through things to satisify my needs.

This type of full IR control of a computer is still an area that lacks any real solution. At least a user friendly one.

DaneHarmony