[Feature] Control EmulationStation via HDMI CEC remote control

[fmaida]

There's this cool feature of HDMI connection that allows to use the same remote control of the tv set to also control an external device. For example on Raspbmc you can use it and it is completely supported.

IMHO It would be super-awesome if on the Raspberry Pi we could use the TV remote control to navigate through the EmulationStation menus... I'm not suggesting that we should use the remote control instead of a joypad to play games, but it would be super handy to be able to move from Kodi (that already support CEC) to EmulationStation, back and forth without having to change the controller.
Maybe EmulationStation could support two different inputs, one from a joypad and one from a CEC enabled remote control.

[robertybob]

I like this idea !

[ghost]

I support this idea. Having the exact same thoughts as @fmaida, i would like to navigate from Emulationstation to Kodi without having to switch controllers. Just installing cec-utils doesn't do the trick.

[Bluelightcrew]

this is a really good idea

[gloaec]

+1

[Bluelightcrew]

The guy has got it: http://blog.recalbox.com/forums/topic/my-setup-and-perhaps-some-inspiration-for-new-recalbox-functionality/

[CeRiAl]

Hey guys!
I have added native libCEC support to EmulationStation (without the need to install any other tools).
You can find it here: https://github.com/CeRiAl/EmulationStation (the libcec-support branch)
It already works quite nicely, but I still want to change/fix/clean some stuff before creating a pull request for this.
Feel free to try it out and report any bugs! :)

[tristan202]

@CeRiAl Any chance you can update it for libcec 3.0? It is required for Kodi 15.X.
I get build errors trying to compile it against libcec 3.0.

/home/tristan202/emulationstation/src/EmulationStation/es-core/src/InputManager.cpp: In member function 'void InputManager::init()':
/home/tristan202/emulationstation/src/EmulationStation/es-core/src/InputManager.cpp:17:28: error: 'CEC_CLIENT_VERSION_CURRENT' is not a member of 'CEC'
#define CEC_CONFIG_VERSION CEC::CEC_CLIENT_VERSION_CURRENT;
^
/home/tristan202/emulationstation/src/EmulationStation/es-core/src/InputManager.cpp:151:28: note: in expansion of macro 'CEC_CONFIG_VERSION'
gConfig.clientVersion = CEC_CONFIG_VERSION;
^
/home/tristan202/emulationstation/src/EmulationStation/es-core/src/InputManager.cpp:178:72: error: 'cec_server_version' is not a member of 'CEC'
LOG(LogInfo) << "Initialized libCEC version " << gParser->ToString((CEC::cec_server_version)gConfig.serverVersion);
^
distcc[14289] ERROR: compile /home/tristan202/emulationstation/src/EmulationStation/es-core/src/InputManager.cpp on localhost failed
es-core/CMakeFiles/es-core.dir/build.make:192: recipe for target 'es-core/CMakeFiles/es-core.dir/src/InputManager.cpp.o' failed
make[2]: *** [es-core/CMakeFiles/es-core.dir/src/InputManager.cpp.o] Error 1
CMakeFiles/Makefile2:248: recipe for target 'es-core/CMakeFiles/es-core.dir/all' failed
make[1]: *** [es-core/CMakeFiles/es-core.dir/all] Error 2
Makefile:136: recipe for target 'all' failed
make: *** [all] Error 2

[WarlaxZ]

+1

[tarpdalton]

#600

[biskyt]

I would find this feature really useful. It's annoying when I click on the wrong menu entry in Kodi and launch emulation station by mistake, then have to hunt down my game pad before I can close out and go back to Kodi!

[cr4nk89]

any progress so far?

[robertybob]

Emulationstation isn't being maintained any more, so no.

[77newtype]

What's the progress?
expect very much

[tarpdalton]

Status of this repo:
https://github.com/retropie/retropie-setup/wiki/emulationstation#development-status
#563 (comment)
Some of the forks are being actively developed:
https://github.com/Aloshi/EmulationStation/network

[dillbyrne]

Hi all. I wrote a program to do this at https://github.com/dillbyrne/es-cec-input
it is light on resources and only acts on remote presses when kodi or retroarch are not running. It can run on boot as a non root user and has 2 dependencies in the repositories. I figured I'd share for others who are interested.

I only needed a,b,up,down,left,right,start and select for my purposes but it is easily extendible if you need more

[robertybob]

@fieldofcows is doing a lot of work on RetroPie's Emulationstation branch, perhaps you could submit a pull request to him so others can test? :D I remember CEC support being the third most requested thing after removing the Emulationstation splashscreen (now implemented!) and a fix for the white screen of death!