On Sun, 13 Nov 2011, Mike Miller wrote:

> On Sun, 13 Nov 2011, Michael Berkowski wrote:
>
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>> 
>>> But I have another question - can I control the roku remotely from my
>>> laptop while it streams music from my storage server?
>> 
>> Yes, you can. It has a very simple API (from which various mobile apps are
>> built).  The Roku merely listens on port 8080 for commands like "press up",
>> "press down", "press home", or even just "press u", "press d", "press h".
>> 
>> It's pretty fun to try out.
>> 
>> $ telnet roku.ip.ad.dr 8080
>> Escape character is '^]'.
>> J0A15D013978
>> ETHMAC 00:0d:12:12:12:12
>> WIFIMAC 00:0d:23:23:23:23
>>> press u
>>> press l
>>> press l
>>> press ok
>> 
>> - From this you might be able to script something more useful.
>
>
> Wow.  That is fantastic.  If no one writes a GUI with keyboard 
> shortcuts, I will be amazed.  The Roku developers don't already have 
> one?


This looks like the sort of GUI I had in mind, but I don't think it does 
the keyboard shortcuts one would want:

http://blog.stellartech.us/?p=461

Specifically, one would want "Home" to be the Home key, "up, down, left, 
right" to be the arrow keys, "Select" to be Enter, "Play/Pause" to be the 
space bar, and maybe Ctrl-arrows (left and right) for "Rewind/Forward".

I learned something from his tactic of using aliases:

alias ru='echo "press up" | nc -n $rokuIP 8080'
alias rd='echo "press down" | nc -n $rokuIP 8080'
alias rl='echo "press left" | nc -n $rokuIP 8080'

Apparently, "press u" and "press up" are the same command -- only the 
first letter is used.  So "press pause" and "press play" are the same 
command.

Here's a little more about the commands (for N900, but maybe the same for 
other devices):

http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=72165

I was surprised that I couldn't find more official documentation.  I 
wonder where that is hidden?  I also found this:

http://www.jpsaman.org/jpsaman/node/3

That seems to be for Roku HD1000, but it might work with other Roku 
devices.  Again, where are the official docs?

Best,
Mike