Tuesday 11 October 2016

USB Remote v1.60

What's new in latest version:

Macro Panels tab:

Macro Panels allow you to group your macros and easily execute them, with just a single click (or a long click).

Macro Panels tab

Color of text and background can be easily modified.

For each panel consists of rows and columns of buttons. For each button you can assign standard-click and long-click macro, text and background color. You can also show/hide individual buttons.
To add, modify and delete panels, click on "Panel" button. Mark a panel as the default one, to make sure it will be automatically loaded each time the app is started.
To edit properties of a button, click on "Button" button, select which button you want to modify and finally, select one of available actions: edit name and color, assign macro, show or hide.

Panels are stored as .txt files in /USBRemote/Panels directory and can be manually edited. For more info, go to USB Remote web page and select Macro Panels link.

Text tab:



Interface of Text tab was slightly redesigned: there is now a "Auto" and "Manual" typing mode switch. It is no longer necessary to open settings screen to change typing mode.

"Manual typing" mode - use this mode when you want to be 100% sure that the text is correct before it is typed on your PC. When ready, press "Type" button. If you enable "Type on enter" option in settings, instead of pressing "Type" button, it is enough to start a new line: by pressing Enter key on your soft keyboard or starting a new line when using voice input (you can do this by saying "new line" when using Swype+Dragon keyboard).

"Auto typing" mode - text is typed as soon as it appears in the text field. Since this version, application will also apply all corrections and changes to the text that was already typed on the PC. To make this process faster, application navigates through text using arrow keys when necessary. It is assumed that you are using text editor in which pressing arrow key moves cursor by one character left or right. If your text editor behaves differently, this feature will not work correctly and you should use "Manual typing" mode. Application also assumes that text was not modified in any other way: by you or auto-correct/auto complete mechanism. Application only keeps track of text that is currently present in text field, so it is HIGHLY recommended to clear the text field (use clear button on the right side of the text field) frequently (after each sentence), to avoid accidental changes to the text that was already typed. To help you with this, by default "Clear on Enter" option is enabled: text field will be automatically cleared when you start a new line. IMPORTANT: when in "Auto typing" mode, do not use backspace key on your keyboard to clear text as this will also do the same to the text on your PC, use clear button instead.

As a result of the changes, some options were removed from text tab settings and it is no longer necessary to set keyboard compatibility. Also, text can be no longer cleared as as you type, but that only messed up with text prediction anyway. 

There were also some modification made to voice commands. Now it is necessary to say activation keyword (if enabled) directly before each command keyword, for example: "command save command enter" (previously, "command save enter" would also work). Also, text field is now by default cleared each time a voice command is executed.



Added more actions to media tab:

New consumer control actions:

  • home (launches homepage on system-default browser, acts like a home button on Android OS),
  • back (goes back to a previous webpage, acts like a back button on Android OS),
  • forward,
  • refresh,
  • search,
  • launch browser,
  • launch email client,
  • launch calculator
  • custom

Selecting "custom" action allows to manually provide "Usage ID" (in decimal format) from HID consumer page (0x0C). Here is pdf file with list of all Usage IDs. List starts from page 75.
Consumer control actions may have different behavior, or may not be supported at all, depending on USB host, OS and currently running application.

Several minor modifications and bug fixes:


  • fixed bug when macro executed from widget/tasker plugin could get stuck,
  • fixed timing problems with macros,
  • improved execution of macros containing JUMP action: dialog screen will no longer disappear on rotation, added stop button to the dialog,
  • improved support for permission system (Android 6.0 and later),
  • state of "switchable" keys row in custom keyboard tab is now correctly restored after screen rotation,