A nifty piece of software called Mira lets you dust off your Apple infra-red remote and make good use of it to control a Keynote presentation or operate VLC as you watch a movie, and more.
Many of us have an Apple Remote Control for Front Row laying around at home. Many of us never use it. A nifty piece of software called Mira lets you dust it off and make good use of it to control a Keynote presentation, to operate VLC as you watch a movie from the sofa and more.
The first thing to do is find the remote control. Like me you may also need to dust it off and remove the cellophane.
Mira installs as a System Preference pane. It comes with built-in profiles for 55 apps although you can easily construct more or use it to launch applescripts remotely.
The demo is limited to six items in the master menu (right), which is launched by pressing the menu button on the remote control.
Plus and minus buttons on the remote control navigate through the options and switch to the selected app. If it's not open, Mira opens it for you.
Mira doubles the control it offers by distinguishing between short presses and longer "duo-presses". In VLC, for example, the former starts and pauses the movie and the latter switches between normal and full screen view.
The function of each button on the remote control is configurable through the preference pane.
Again, in VLC the defaults do a good job:
It also turns your remote control into a device to control a Keynote presentation remotely (well, from within 33 feet):
The recently updated version of mira has fixed a problem with the recognition of external IR ports, which means you can now use it trouble-free on older Macs as well.
Mira is shareware -- US$16.95 ($21.78) -- and is available from the developer's, (Twisted Melon), web site.