App Profiles

App Profiles turn HippoRemote Pro into a customized remote control for your favorite applications. We've made all our profiles available so you can modify them or use them as a starting point for your own profiles. Follow the instructions at the bottom of the page to upload them to your iPhone or iPod.

If you just want to add an app profile that's listed here but isn't a built-in one, simply go to the “Profiles” screen in HippoRemote Pro, tap the “+” button to see a list of downloadable profiles, and then tap the desired profile's “Install” button.

Built-in Profiles
Boxee, Chrome, DVD Player, EyeTV, Firefox, Front Row, Gmail, Hulu Desktop, Internet Explorer, iTunes, Keynote, Mac OS X, MediaPortal, Movist, Opera, Pandora, Plex, PowerPoint, QuickTime Player, QuickTime Player X, Safari, thesixtyone, VLC, Winamp, Windows 7, Windows Media Center, Windows Media Player, Windows Vista, Windows XP, XBMC, Zune

Game Profiles
Braid
Canabalt
Portal
Rocket Knight
The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom
Trine

GesturePad-enabled Profiles
EyeTV ✦
Hulu Desktop ✦
Windows Media Center ✦

Website Profiles
Clicker.TV
Netflix Watch Instantly — Most controls work only in fullscreen mode.

Other App Profiles
Chromium
WebKit
Zinc

Miscellaneous Profiles
Keynote — Shake Menu disabled.
PowerPoint — Shake Menu disabled.

User-created Profiles
AIMP2 — by Janis V
Arcsoft TotalMedia Theatre — by Russell Estcourt
EyeTV — by Chris Hulett & Dan Moss
GOM Player — by Krunoslav Labazan
Google Reader — by Michael Sumner
J. River Media Center — by Russell Estcourt
Media Player Classic — by Russell Estcourt
MythTV — by Mark Crowther
QuickTime (Mac) — by James Packer
SageTV — by Mike Rytting
SlingPlayer (Sky+) — by Zak Beck
Spotify — by Jodyone & Fintan Fairmichael
Ubuntu — by Alex McKenzie
Zoom Player Home MAX v7 — by Noel Estep
Zoom Player v5.50 — by John Kua


Creating Your Own App Profiles

A profile is just a collection of image and text files. All images should be in the PNG format. All text files are plists (XML) and case-sensitive.

The easiest path towards making your own profiles is to download and edit an existing profile that's close to what you have in mind. We've also a blank template image so you can create profiles that match our look and feel.

Blank Template

Tools Needed:
  • Text Editor
    Any basic text editor (Notepad on Windows, TextEdit on Macs) will suffice.
  • Image Editor
    Photoshop is great if you have it. Otherwise, on Macs, Pixelmator and Acorn are solid options. On Windows, Paint.NET is feature-rich and free.
Required files:
  • icon.png
    The profile icon as a 32x32 pixel PNG image.
  • trackpad.plist
    This file contains many of the core options for a profile, including:
    1. appname — Optional. The name of the program that should start when the profile is selected.
      e.g. Boxee, Firefox, Hulu Desktop
    2. auto_pause — Optional. The keyboard shortcut or macro triggered when interrupted by a phone call.
      e.g. [CTRL+p]
    3. auto_resume — Optional. The keyboard shortcut or macro triggered when resuming after a phone call.
      e.g. [CTRL+SHIFT+p]
    4. initial_tab — Optional. The index of a button on the shortcut bar to trigger when a profile is selected.
    Also, this file contains the list of the buttons that should appear in the shortcut bar that runs along the bottom of the trackpad. You can specify up to five buttons. Each button has three required fields:
    1. text — The button name for display.
    2. image — The name of the PNG image file to use as the button icon. Do not use images larger than 32x32 pixels
    3. action — The keyboard shortcut or macro executed when the button is tapped. Refer to the Macros Reference for a complete list of available commands.
      Overlays: To bring up an overlay, use the [OVERLAY:<OverlayName>] macro. You also need to include an <OverlayName>.plist for specifying the buttons and a pair of image files for display.
      Game Controller: To bring up the game controller, use the [GAMEPAD] macro and include a gamepad.plist file.
    4. action_mac — Optional. Used for specifying a Mac-specific shortcut.
Optional files:
  • <OverlayName>.plist
    This file fully describes an overlay. It specifies the image files to use for the normal and highlighted states. It specifies the locations and sizes of the buttons in the overlay. And it specifies the actions to execute when buttons are pressed.
    1. id — The name of the button. It is not displayed on screen but is used by VoiceOver for accessibility.
    2. x — The upper left x-coordinate of the button.
    3. y — The upper left y-coordinate of the button.
    4. height — The height of the button in pixels.
    5. width — The width of the button in pixels.
    6. action — The button's action.
    7. repeat — True/false value of whether the button should auto-repeat when held.
  • macros.plist
    A list of shortcuts displayed by the [MACROS] command. Each macro has the following elements:
    1. text — The display name of the macro.
    2. action — The action.
    3. action_mac — Optional. Mac-specific action.
  • gamepad.plist
    Activated by the [GAMEPAD] macro. The gamepad can be configured with a button-pad or a trackpad. Additionally, up to six hotkey buttons can be assigned.
    The simplest way to get started is to modify one of the existing gamepad-enabled profiles available above.

Automatic App Launching

If you're using HippoVNC on your Mac or PC, selecting a profile will automatically start/switch to the corresponding program. Here's how to get this to work with your own profiles.

Mac: In the appname field of trackpad.plist, enter the name of the program exactly as it appears on your computer. As long as it's in your Applications folder, HippoVNC will find it and launch it.

Windows: Setting things up on Windows is rather complicated right now. We'll be simplifying the process in an upcoming release. Here's what to do for now:

  1. In the appname field of trackpad.plist, enter the name of the program you're creating the profile for.
  2. Go to the HippoVNC folder on your PC and open the file named profile.ahk in a text editor.
  3. Scroll down to the bottom of the file and add the following chunk of text, replacing the bracketed items with what's appropriate for your profile.

appname = <Your profile's appname>
IfInString, appname, %1%
{
    Process, Exist, <Application Executable>.exe
    aPid = %ErrorLevel%
    if %aPid%
        WinActivate ahk_pid %aPid%
    else
        Run %A_ProgramFiles%\<Path to Executable>\<Application Executable>.exe, , UseErrorLevel
    Exit
}
Upload Your Profile to Your Device

When you're done editing plists and images, bundle all the files together into a Zip archive. The name of the Zip file will be the name you see in HippoRemote.

IMPORTANT: Be sure to zip the individual files and not the folder containing the files. The Zip archive should NOT contain a folder.

To upload the Zip archive, launch HippoRemote, go to the screen that lists all available profiles, scroll up to reveal a row labeled “Upload a Profile...”, tap on the row and follow the instructions.


Share Your Profiles!

Once you've finished your profile, don't keep it to yourself. Share it and let the entire community benefit!

You can either email it to us and we'll post it to our web repository, or you can put it on your own web site.

If you plan to host your own profiles, create a download link with a hipporemote:// prefix. This way, iPhone users can tap to have it automatically installed into HippoRemote Pro.