New plugin for NetRemote to controll Freevo

[Loke]

Hello group,

Ive just started looking into developing a plugin for the netremote program, which will allow me to controll Freevo, a HTPC frontend running under GNU/Linux. For more information about Freevo, please see freevo.sf.net.

Any help I can receive is greatly appreciated. What I want, is to use my Compaq iPaq with WLAN running PocketPC and NetRemote to be able to control Freevo. Freevo has a built-in remote control server which accept commands over a TCP/IP network. Perhaps code already exist to do this for other plugins?

Ive never developed anything for Windows before, so this will be a learning experience. Im only used to Linux, so Ill be using WinXP under VMWare to get the work done I guess. Can someone please elaborate abit what tools I would need etc? Where do you get compilers under Windows for example? I think I have Visual Basic and Visual C/C++ floating around here somewhere. Any of these usable ?

I see a sample driver / SDK has been released for NetRemote. I take it this was release to ease the development of such third-party plugins?

Thank you for any assistance and feedback.

[Ben S]

Hi Loke,
Have you programmed in C++ under Linux? I wouldn't say there is anything Windows centric in plugin development that would be a roadblock if you're experienced in C++. You could even (conceivably) use gcc to compile the plugin.

I use Visual C++ (as part of Visual Studio .NET) for my development. Does Freevo support HTTP style fetches for commands? Do you want to pull data back, or just control the Freevo?

[Loke]

Sorry for the late reply - pretty busy time for me the last few months...

Yes, of course I can use gcc - never thought about that :-)

Ideally, it would be great to pull data from Freevo - but I dont know how Freevo handles this yet (if at all). As a start I'll just use Netremote to controll Freevo. Its a pretty simple consept; Freevo has a built-in remote server which accepts clear text words like PLAY, DOWN, UP etc over a TCP socket, and acts accordingly.

I havent had time to look at the plugin example in the sdk yet, but I recon its only a matter of creating a socket, sending the packet, and closing it again - and of course link the correct button to the correct action.

My C++ experience isnt very big, but Ive worked with some KDE programming and alot C development. What really helps me, is to be able to look at code others have written. I find this the best way to learn how things work.

I guess it would be great for Netremote if it could also support the various GNU/Linux HTPC frontends through plugins :-)

Thank you for your reply!