slimCODE

Great software - thanks for all your work!  I'm having a problem with the slimVolume plugin.  The Mute works fine with my Dell keyboard but I can't get the volume knob to work correctly.  It just doesn't appear to fire the Volume Up/Volume Down hotkeys, so I never see the volume display.

Do you have any suggestions?

Thanks for the comment!

Try the following:

• Edit the "VolumeDown" hotkey (Win-K, then select "VolumeDown" and press Enter).
• Put the focus in the "Or press hotkey here:" textbox (Alt-H).
• Press (or turn) your volume down media key.

What do you see appear in the textbox? I do depend on the media controls to act as a keyboard key, and return a keyboard virtual key value, though I don't depend on the "VolumeDown" value explicitly.

I have a Dell Inspiron 6400, and the front volume controls (mute, volume down and volume up) respectively trigger the "VolumeMute", "VolumeDown" and "VolumeUp" keyboard values correctly. Maybe there is some special Dell software enabling this? I have "Dell QuickSet" installed by default. It does enable "Function-PageUp", "Function-PageDown" and "Function-End" to act has volume controls, and they do trigger the keyboard values and make the slimVOLUME bar appear.

Thanks for the reply.

I have a Dell SK-8135 (http://fabu.beareyes.com.cn/2/lib/200506/29/235/image014.jpg) that has a volume knob, not separate buttons for up and down.  When I follow your instructions nothing appears in the textbox so I can only assume the knob isn't firing the correct (or any) key events.

I'll look around for an updated driver to see if that will fix my problem.  Thanks for your time and help!

Effectively, it seems your knob isn't firing any keyboard code. slimKEYS depends on those, as it is primarily a keyboard hotkey handler. But I'm planing a remake of slimVOLUME to support Vista (which requires a completely different approach to volume level handling). It may (I repeat, "may") turn out slimVOLUME won't require a hotkey anymore to display the volume level, even on XP.

As for my comparison with my Dell 6400, I was confused. I thought the Dell SK-8135 was a laptop! q;-) On my desktop, I have a Dell keyboard too, but I don't know the model, and there is no apparent special driver. It uses the MS 101/102-Key driver. 

In the meantime, if your knob isn't changing the volume, and are not only looking for the volume display, but also the volume change, you can use keys like "Win-PageDown" and "Win-PageUp" (for example). It's not perfect, but it can help.