3.6
RedRat Control
Most of the applications described so far are intended for the output of IR signals to control TVs and
STBs. RedRat Control operates differently in that it is designed to allow control of applications on a PC
via infrared remote control. For example, if a media player is running, RedRat Control can be configured
to respond to IR commands from a remote control handset and send appropriate instructions (play,
pause etc) to the media player.
4
Platform Support
Historically, software for RedRat devices has been developed on Microsoft Windows using the .NET
framework, so this is where there is still the best RedRat device support. However, many applications,
particularly larger scale STB testing systems often use Linux, so we have now ensured that the RedRat-X
is supported on Linux.
The RedRat core code (RedRat.dll) will run on both Windows and on Linux/Macs using Mono.
Applications using the console/terminal window and not using any Windows-specific functionality will
therefore also run using Mono. At present, Windows applications using a GUI interface (WinForms or
WPF) will not run on Linux or Macs, though developing cross-platform GUI applications is a potential
future area of development.
With the RedRat-X, both USB and network communication is supported on Windows and Linux.
5
RedRat Hub - Sending Commands from Applications
RedRat Hub provides perhaps the most straightforward mechanism for integrating RedRat devices with
third party software.
When RedRat Hub starts, it loads any required IR datasets and then establishes communication with
RedRat devices. Client applications then open a socket to RedRat Hub and send quite simple commands,
such as:
ip="192.168.1.40" dataset="Sky+" signal="play" output="3"
This will send the IR signal
play
from the
SKY+
dataset via output 3 of the RedRat device found at the
given IP address (irNetBox or RedRat-X).
name="RRX-1" output="4" dataset="SKY+" signal="play"
The second example sends the same signal via output 4 (blaster output) on the RedRat-X with the name
“RRX-1”.
RedRat Hub is a very scalable application in that it can support a large number of client applications (in
the 100s) concurrently sending commands to RedRat devices. It manages any resource contention, i.e. it
will ensure that commands are sent to RedRat devices in a manner that they can handle.
Example client code is available for C#, Java, Python, Perl and PHP.
