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RMIR v2.12 available
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mathdon
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PostPosted: Sat Sep 19, 2020 9:51 am    Post subject: RMIR v2.12 available Reply with quote

Edit: The latest version of RMIR v2.12 is now RMIR v2.12.15 available here.

RMIR v2.12 is now officially released..

Version 2.12 of RMIR aims to bring it up to date in a number of ways. The build concept remains but this release is numbered as 2.12.0 rather than 2.12 build 1. Build numbers now start at 0 rather than 1 and are integrated into the version number as a third element. The zip package is named RMIR.v2.12.0-bin.zip rather than RemoteMaster.v2.12build1.zip to reflect not only the change of numbering but also to emphasize that the central application is RMIR and not the one with a shortcut named Remote Master but commonly referred to just as RM. This shortcut has been renamed RMDU to bring it into line with the other two, named RMIR and RMPB. References to RM in ReadMes and elsewhere in the application have been updated correspondingly to RMDU. The "-bin" at the end of the package name is a result of the build system being changed from Adobe Ant to Adobe Maven, a more modern build system that greatly simplifies the building of new versions. The Java jar file remains named RemoteMaster.jar as it unifies the three applications into a single program.

RMIR incorporates IrpTransmogrifier by Bengt Martensson (Barf). This is a program for decoding, analyzing and rendering IR signals that is used by RMIR but is entirely separate from it. Command-line access to IrpTransmogrifier itself is available if required through the command files irptransmogrifier.bat (for Windows) and irptransmogrifier.sh (for Linux and Mac OS X) in the RMIR installation folder.

The supported platforms are 32-bit and 64-bit Windows, Linux and Mac OS X, together with experimental support for Raspberry Pi. This version, like the others since 2.09, requires Java 8 or later. It supports all currently known types of UEI remotes, including XSight and Simpleset remotes. UEI has closed down the EZ-RC.com website that provided support for XSight and similar remotes. RM/RMIR provides complete replacement support for these remotes, including the ability to upgrade the firmware to the last version that UEI issued. XSight users new to RMIR, especially ones who have been directed here from the legacy page at EZ-RC.com, should read the Wiki article Getting started with XSight and Nevo for further information.

No special action is needed to perform a firmware upgrade on an XSight remote. Just do a download in the usual way. If a firmware upgrade is available it will be offered. You may install it or not, at your choice, and if you choose not to install it, you are given the opportunity not to be offered the upgrade again in future.

The XSight and Simpleset remotes are supported by RMIR directly via their USB interface, without the need for any cable other than the USB lead supplied with the remotes. Other remotes are supported through their JP1 6-pin connector with JP1.x interface cables that use an FTDI chip. These cables are also available with a Prolific chip instead of the FTDI one, but many remotes will not work with these cables. More information on this is given below. It is strongly advised that you use a cable with a genuine FTDI chip - there are also cables with counterfeit FTDI chips on the market and these too will often not work.

Remotes that support the Bluetooth UEI phone app can access RMIR through their Bluetooth interface, in several ways. All supported OS platforms can use the BLED112 Bluetooth dongle, currently available for $10.45 in the US or for GBP8.52 (UK 8 pounds 52 pence) in Europe. Windows users have two additional access methods. One uses the Bluetooth stack that is built in to Windows 10, but the remote needs v2.00 of the Bluetooth extender installed and this installation requires a one-off use of a JP1.x cable. The other is available both for Windows 10 and some earlier Windows versions (but so far only tested on Windows 8.1) and does not require this use of a JP1.x cable, but needs the installation of the BlueSoleil Bluetooth stack. See the Bluetooth thread Bluetooth is coming to RMIR for more details.

To upgrade from v2.11 without losing your settings, delete everything in your installation folder other than the RemoteMaster.properties file that contains your settings. Then unzip the new installation package into that folder and you are done. Alternatively, if you wish to keep your v2.11 installation and port your settings to v2.12, follow the installation instructions below and then copy the RemoteMaster.properties file from your v2.10 installation to this new one. In this case, however, you will need to use the menu item File > Set Directory to change the locations of the RDF, Images and AddOns folders from being in the old installation folder to the new one.

The RMIR menu item Help > Check for updates checks for new builds as well as new versions. If a new build or version is available then this menu item displays a message containing a hyperlink that will take you straight to the download for the update. This works in any build from v2.11 on, despite the change of version numbering in v2 12, but not with versions earlier than v2.11 due to a change in the SourceForge website that maintains the distributions.

To install RMIR for any OS, first unzip the installation package to a new folder that is not read-only. For a Windows OS this means, in particular, that it should not be unzipped into a subfolder of the Program Files folder. After unzipping it, do the appropriate one of the following:
  • If your OS is Windows then run Setup.vbs by double-clicking or otherwise. This will create three shortcuts, one each for RMIR, RMDU and RMPB. They will be created in your installation folder, but they are also copied to Start > All Programs > Remote Master if you are running a Windows version that has a Start menu. You may copy them to your desktop, or any other location, as you wish. Setup.vbs also creates file associations to open .rmir files in RMIR, .rmdu files in RMDU and .rmpb files in RMPB.

  • If your OS is Linux then run setup.sh from Terminal as a shell script. If the current directory in Terminal is the RemoteMaster installation directory then the command "sh setup.sh" will run the script. It creates three .desktop shortcuts, one each for RMIR, RMDU and RMPB. They will be created in your installation folder, but they are also copied to your $HOME/.local/share/applications folder to ensure that they appear on your Dash. setup.sh will also add you to the dialout group of users, if you are not already in it. If you need to be added, then it will ask you for your sudo password as this step needs to be run with root privileges. This step is needed to enable RMIR to access USB serial ports without RMIR itself being run as root.

    The distribution also contains a text file linux_xsight.rules. If you have an XSight or Nevo remote, you may need to copy this to the directory "/etc/udev/rules.d/". It may be re-named if desired, provided the extension .rules is kept. This file provides a user-friendly name for the XSight as a USB device. Some users have found that Linux systems cannot find the XSight/Nevo remote unless RM/RMIR is run as root, even after running setup.sh, unless this file is present.

  • If your OS is Mac OS X then there is as yet no special installation procedure.
With all three OS's, RMIR can be opened without using a shortcut by double-clicking or otherwise running the Java file RemoteMaster.jar. RMDU can be opened from RMIR with the menu item File > New > Device Upgrade and RMPB with the menu item File > New > Protocol. The instances of RMDU or RMPB so opened are independent of the RMIR instance from which they are opened, so you can then close RMIR and leave RMDU or RMPB open if you wish. RMDU can also be opened from a command line by running RemoteMaster.jar with an argument -rm and RMPB with an argument -pb. Please note that although it is optional to run Setup.vbs in Windows as RMIR, RMDU and RMPB can always be opened in these ways, in Linux you need either to run setup.sh or to use some other means to add your user id to the dialup group of users. This need only be done once ever, however, as it is a system setting that is not specific to the RemoteMaster program.

A few remotes have an external 5-hole connector rather than the 6-pin connector in the battery compartment that is common in UEI remotes. These need an adapter to convert the 5-hole connector to the standard 6-pin one. Detailed instructions for making such an adapter are given here. Remotes that use a Maxim processor can all be connected with a standard JP1.2/3 interface cable but only one that uses the FTDI chip. Cables with chips of other manufacturers such as Prolific have difficulty communicating with the Maxim processors. This is discussed in some detail in this thread. The most recent processors used by UEI are from Texas Instruments (TI). These can certainly be connected by JP1.2/3 cables with the FTDI chip. The situation with other chips is not yet known. The remotes with TI processors either support Bluetooth as described above or have RF capability through the RF4CE protocol, depending on the processor concerned.

When using XSight remotes (and similar ones such as Nevo) with Windows 8.1 and Windows 10, Enhanced Power Management needs to be disabled for access to the remote through the USB port. Changing this setting affects only the connection for that specific remote, leaving other devices accessed through USB ports unaffected. RMIR v2.12 checks for this and displays a message giving instructions for disabling it if it finds that this setting is still enabled.

RMIR is available only as a Java file and from version 2.09 onwards has required a Java 8 or later runtime environment, either 32-bit or 64-bit. Versions from 2.04 through 2.08 required Java 7 or later, version 2.03 and earlier only required Java 6. The release package includes the following support files:
  • DecodeIR v2.45 as library files for Windows (32-bit and 64-bit), Linux and Mac OS X.
  • jp12serial v0.24 as library files for Windows (32-bit and 64-bit), Linux, Mac OS X and Raspberry Pi.
  • digitmaps.bin with digit maps up to number 744.
  • protocols.ini which is a database of protocol executor data.
  • RMIR.sys that contains the data needed by RMIR to perform firmware upgrades of the XSight remotes.
  • The RDF File Specification, Version 4.
  • The RDF File Specification, Version 5 as revision 14 of an Addendum to Version 4.
An update to any of these files will result in a new build being released, so there is no need for separate updating of any of them. Version 4 of the RDF File Specification covers RDF files for remotes with interfaces up to JP1.3. Version 5 is required to support remotes with interfaces from JP1.4 onward. Version 5 is under continuous review as UEI remotes with new features are discovered, with revisions of the Addendum being issued as required.

Please visit the JP1 Community Wiki for information about how to use RMIR. A link to the Tutorial in the Wiki is also included in the Help menu. Please note that as this project is supported solely by volunteers, the Wiki may not be up to date. This version of RMIR contains many new features required to support the newer types of remote. At the time of its release, these are not covered by the help files contained in the Wiki. RMIR itself, however, shows notes and tooltips (the text shown when you hover the mouse pointer over a button or table entry) designed to make its use as self-explanatory as possible.

The download package is available in the following folder. Just click on it to start the download.
Please see above for installation instructions.

Links:
The RemoteMaster project home page.
IrpTransmogrifier manual.
JP1 Community Wiki
Tutorial (part of the Wiki)
Getting started with XSight and Nevo (also part of the Wiki)
Nevo and XSight Remotes (thread specific to these remotes)
Bluetooth is coming to RMIR (announcement thread for the new Bluetooth interface)
RF Support in RMIR (announcement thread for RF support through RF4CE)
RMIR XSight Support (development thread)
RMIR Simpleset Support (development thread)
RemoteMaster on Raspberry Pi with Raspian (development thread)
RMIR: Prototype IR function in RM (development thread)
IrpTransmogrifier: new program/library for IRP protocols (development thread for IrpTransmogrifier)
How to install Java 8 on Windows XP (YouTube video and written instructions)
RM/RMIR v2.11 available (announcement thread for last official version)
ChangeLog.txt (also included in the installation package)
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Last edited by mathdon on Sat Jul 17, 2021 8:40 am; edited 6 times in total
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The Robman
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PostPosted: Sat Sep 19, 2020 10:45 am    Post subject: Re: RMIR v2.12 available Reply with quote

mathdon wrote:
... with a shortcut named Remote Master but commonly referred to just as RM. This shortcut has been renamed RMDU to bring it into line with the other two, named RMIR and RMPB. References to RM in ReadMes and elsewhere in the application have been updated correspondingly to RMDU.

I beg of you PLEASE reconsider this, RM has been called that for close to 20 years, and even if you rename it everywhere in your readme, are you going to go back over 20 years of posts and rename all the references to it there? I agree with renaming it from "Remote Master", but please rename it to RM, that's what I do every time I reinstall the RMIR package. Actually, I rename all 3 shortcuts to "a RM", "a RMIR" and "a RMPB" so they appear at the top of the folder and I don't have to search for them.
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mathdon
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PostPosted: Sat Sep 19, 2020 12:16 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Rob, I am happy to reconsider this but I await other views. We know from posts by new users that the name Remote Master attached to the device upgrade editor is a cause for confusion. And it is not only new users that it can confuse. I also find it confusing when writing descriptions or explanations that involve it. It strongly suggests that is the main program, and RM clearly is a short form for Remote Master. With three shortcuts called RM, RMIR and RMPB it still gives the impression that RM is the main one and RMIR, RMPB are supporting apps. Since I was making a major change to the way RMIR is built, with the move from Ant to Maven and the use of semantic version numbering, I felt this was a time to make a further break with the past to try to remove possible confusion.
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The Robman
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PostPosted: Sat Sep 19, 2020 3:37 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I agree with the change from "Remote Master" to RM, but as we've called RM "RM" since its beginning, I believe that most people will continue to call it that, even if its "official" name changes to RMDU.
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mathdon
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PostPosted: Sat Oct 17, 2020 6:01 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

RMIR v2.12.1 is now officially released.. There are no major changes from v2.12.0 but a number of bugs have been fixed.
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mathdon
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PostPosted: Sun Nov 01, 2020 1:37 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I have now posted RMIR v2.12.3 as a development version in the RMIR Development folder on SourceForge. The main addition in this build is support for the latest processor we have encountered in a UEI remote, the GreenPeak GP541. This support has required an update of the jp12serial library from v0.24 to v0.25. Both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of the Windows dll are included in RMIR v2.12.3 but versions for Linux and Mac OS X are not yet available. This RMIR build includes RDF, map and image files for the URC-2068BC2, the only remote known so far to use this processor. See this post in a thread on this remote for more details.
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mathdon
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PostPosted: Tue Nov 03, 2020 12:43 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I have now posted RMIR v2.12.4 as a development version in the RMIR Development folder on SourceForge. This fixes an issue that caused the Bluetooth support in RMIR to not find certain URC7880 remotes which apparently had a different manufacturer to the one that I used to develop that support. See this thread for more details.

In the course of testing the modifications, I found that the Windows WCL interface for the Bluetooth support does not work with Java 14, though it does with Java 8. It is not just the modified version that is affected, this seems true of the earlier version too. This is a Java issue, not an RMIR one, and probably has no solution. Support with the BLED112 dongle is not affected.
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mathdon
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PostPosted: Fri Nov 06, 2020 9:51 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thanks to Barf, builds of jp12serial v0.25 are now available for all supported platforms. I have tested the new features of v0.25 on both Windows and Linux and with both 32-bit and 64-bit versions and so am preparing an official release of RMIR v2.12.5 that will include them. Otherwise this will be as development version 2.12.4.

If anyone knows of anything else that should be added or fixed, such as new RDFs currently in development, now is the time to say so before v2.12.5 is finalized.
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PostPosted: Fri Nov 06, 2020 12:52 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Just FYI: There has been no significant changes to IrpTransmogrifier since the last official version, so no need to update.

Congratulations to the great job!
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n8nagel



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PostPosted: Sun Dec 20, 2020 2:22 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Good afternoon,

I have what I believe is a basic question, but I don't know the answer so I hope that you will bear with me. Unfortunately my work will remove any installation of Java from work machines, so I'm having to use one of my personal machines to run RM and all are Linux (Mint 20 to be exact.) I have followed the instructions and have the software up and running, however, I am not sure what I need to do to communicate with my remotes (AR Xsight Colors). In the Remote menu, no matter what I select for Interface, either RMIR will not see my remote, or the program will crash. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!
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mathdon
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PostPosted: Thu Jan 28, 2021 12:22 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

@n8nagel

I am sorry that no-one has replied to your question. I have been away from JP1 work for some time and so have not been in a position to reply. But I don't think I can help. You need a Linux expert and I am not that. I have Ubuntu 18.04 on a recently acquired second machine that I use for testing, but am a beginner with it.

I am about to release RMIR 2.12.5 and have put it on Ubuntu 18.04 for testing. Without any further setup I found that it would download my XSight Touch, which is almost the same as your XSight Color. That was with the interface set to Auto-detect. Nothing special should be required to communicate with your remote under Linux. Perhaps Mint 20 is different, but I know nothing of it so am unable to help you further.
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PostPosted: Thu Jan 28, 2021 12:49 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

n8nagel, have you copied linux_xsight.rules (from the root of the rmir tree) to /etc/udev/rules.d ?
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mathdon
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PostPosted: Thu Jan 28, 2021 1:24 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

RMIR v2.12.5 is now officially released. I apologise for the long wait, as I promised this in a post above dated last November, but I have been away from the JP1 world for some time.

The change that will affect most users is an update to Setup.vbs, the setup program for Windows users. This now takes the Java version from the JAVA_HOME environment variable if this exists, which gives users an easy way to control which of multiple Java versions is used. To use this feature, simply set the system environment variable JAVA_HOME to the desired Java path, such as C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.8.0_241 or C:\Program Files\Java\jdk-14.0.2, or create this environment variable with such a value if it does not exist.

For Java 11 and later, Setup.vbs also allows a scale factor to be set for the text size, to improve readability on high-definition screens. This option is not available on Java versions earlier than Java 11. For Java versions supporting this option, you will be asked to enter a scale factor if desired, such as 1.25 or 1.5. If you leave this blank, Java will use the scaling set in your Windows display parameters (1.25 on my machine, for example).

In addition to this, v2.12.5 includes the changes made in development builds 3 and 4 described earlier in this thread, together with the update of the jp12serial library from v0.24 to v0.25. Other than any still under development, the RDFs given under RDFs - Development in the File Section have been incorporated into RMIR and deleted from that development folder.

Please report any issues by posting in this thread.
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PostPosted: Sun Jan 31, 2021 10:41 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Are versions newer than 8 only for developers? If you go to Java.com, they only offer version 8 update 281 for download.
Also, does RMIR work with 64-bit Java yet under Windows? I remember there was in issue in the past, but don't know if it was fixed.
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PostPosted: Sun Jan 31, 2021 1:54 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

andyross wrote:
Are versions newer than 8 only for developers? If you go to Java.com, they only offer version 8 update 281 for download.
Also, does RMIR work with 64-bit Java yet under Windows? I remember there was in issue in the past, but don't know if it was fixed.

Oracle has changed its website for Java releases and they can now be found at http://jdk.java.net/. The latest release is Java 15, at http://jdk.java.net/15/.

As far as I can tell, current releases are only available as 64-bit Java. RMIR works with 64-bit Java and has done for a long time. I'm not sure how long, as I cannot recall there being such a problem. Perhaps I was using 32-bit Java at that time and was not aware of the issue, but I have used 64-bit Java for some years now.

When I installed Java 14 (I don't have Java 15 yet) I found that it no longer came with an installer, nor with installation instructions. I don't know if that is still the case, but I used the instructions I found here for Java 11. You may find these useful if there is still no installer.
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