jaaiden / htctl

An application for HTPCs for launching shortcuts using a controller

Welcome to htctl!

htctl is a cross-platform application for home theater PCs to launch shortcuts using a controller or gamepad.

Disclaimer and license

This program was created very quickly and specific to my purposes. I take no responsibility for anything that may impact your system in any shape, way, or form.

htctl is licensed under the GNU General Public License v3.0.

How to run

There are no binaries available yet, so you'll need to have nodejs installed and compile everything yourself.

Steps to compile and run htctl:

1. Clone the repo
2. Run npm i to install all dependencies
3. Configure settings.json with your shortcuts (see below)
4. Run npm start to start htctl

Changing settings and modifying shortcuts

All settings and shortcuts are defined in the settings.json file, found in the root directory of the project. Below is an example of said file:

{
	"width": 1280,
	"height": 800,
	"isFullscreen": false,
	"dev": false,
	"shortcuts": [
		{
			"name": "firefox",
			"type": "app",
			"icon": "fab fa-firefox fa-fw",
			"path": "\"C:\\Program Files\\Mozilla Firefox\\firefox.exe\"",
			"args": ""
		},
		{
			"name": "steam",
			"type": "app",
			"icon": "fab fa-steam fa-fw",
			"path": "\"C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Steam\\Steam.exe\"",
			"args": ""
		},
		{
			"name": "steam big picture mode",
			"type": "site",
			"icon": "fab fa-steam fa-fw",
			"path": "steam://open/bigpicture",
			"args": ""
		},
		{
			"name": "quit",
			"type": "quitcmd",
			"icon": "fas fa-times fa-fw",
			"path": "",
			"args": ""
		}
	]
}

Lets look at what each setting does:

width - the default width of the app window when not fullscreened

height - the default height of the app window when not fullscreened

isFullscreen - whether or not to start the app in fullscreen

dev - whether or not to show the dev tools on startup

---

The shortcuts list defines what shortcuts to show in the app menu. Each entry should be its own json array, with (most) of the following properties defined:

{
    "name": "app name to show in the list",
    "type": "shortcut type",
    "icon": "fontawesome.com icon to show in the list",
    "path": "the path to the executable or site",
    "args": "additional arguments to pass to an app shortcut"
}

The type property can have one of the three following types:

• app (executable application)
• site (website address)
• quitcmd (when selected, it quits the application)

Feel free to add as many entries as you want, but keep in mind only three will be shown at a given time, so you might want to keep the list a bit short!

Icons can be found for shortcuts at fontawesome. Keep in mind only the free icons are currently used.

Modifying the design

If you want to make changes to the design of htctl, there are Sass files located under src/sass that you may change. Make sure to install node-sass globally (using npm i -g node-sass) and the following command to update the dist css: node-sass src/sass/app.sass dist/app.css.

The html and js files can easily be changed within the pages subfolder with no compilation command needed.

Contributing

If you would like to contribute to this project, feel free to fork the repository, make changes, and submit pull requests with detailed info on what you added/changed/removed.

Credits

• NodeJS & npm
• Electron
• Bulma
• node-sass
• jsgamepad
• mousetrap
• opn