Remapping Keystrokes of a Remote Controller

Requirement

Power Point Presenter

Certian keystrokes sent by some remote controllers execute Windows system functions (ex Volume Mute, Volume Up, Volume Down, etc). If you want to repurpose these keys to perform a SoundMill Easy Player action, you may need to Remap the keystroke. This is because these Windows system function keystrokes get intercepted by Windows and executed before they reach SoundMill. So in the case of "Volume Mute", the Windows master sound controller will get muted when you press that key on the remote.

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Solution Summary

To solve this problem, you need to Remap the system function keystroke to another keystroke. In this article, we will remap the "Volume Mute" keystroke to a "z" keystroke, then assign the "z" keystroke to an Easy Player action shortcut. We use a free utility named AutoHotKey to do the remapping.

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Procedure

In summary, we create a simple AutoHotKey script (VolumeMuteRemapper.ahk attached) that remaps VolumeMute keystroke to "z" keystroke (see Listing 1).

Steps

Download and install AutoHotKey. (We tested with the AutoHotkey_L version which has unicode support and some more extras, but either version should work). ( AutoHotKey Download Link , free utility.)
Create the AutoHotKey script. In Notepad, open a new document and copy/paste the script code in Listing 1. Save the document as "VolumeMuteRemapper.ahk" to any folder.
Start the AutoHotKey script. From Windows Explorer, just double click on the VolumeMuteRemapper.ahk script.
In Sound Mill, set the action shortcut to the letter "z" because that is what Soundmill will see when the VolumeMute button is pushed. Don't forget to Reload the Favorite shortcuts after you edit it. Follow the User's Guide steps for setting up Favorite Actions Shortcuts.
Now turn the remote on and test it.

Listing 1. Volume Mute Remapper script.

/*
AutoHotKey - Remaps Volume_Mute keystroke
*/
#NoEnv  ; Recommended for performance and compatibility with future AutoHotkey releases.
SendMode Input  ; Recommended for new scripts due to its superior speed and reliability.
SetWorkingDir %A_ScriptDir%  ; Ensures a consistent starting directory.

Volume_Mute::z

Notes

Once you start the AutoHotKey script running There will be green "H" icon in the system tray. If you right click it, you'll see a context menu of AutoHotKey control actions. The Exit action stops the script and ends the remapping.
Also, you can change the script to remap to any other keystroke you want. I picked "z" arbitrarily.

Language

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