Any way to add the mouse support back in? I have a Logitech DiNovo keyboard + touchpad combo on my media center pc and using only keyboard controls just feels a little weird coming from XBMC/Kodi. I know they’re on roughly the same codebase.
Please note I have tried other suggestions regarding this to enable it. Doesn’t work on my system for some reason. OpenPHT on Arch Linux
Several Linux implementations of PHT have write-protected the storage holding the “guisettings.xml” file, which is where the mouse usage is disabled by default. Changing the “enablemouse” entry from the default “false” to “true” will then have no permanent effect, unless you first remount that storage with read-write permissions. (And I can’t guarantee it will work even then, as I’m not familiar with your platform… 
)
Best regards: dlanor
On Linux no, unless you compile it yourself.
But for windows, yes. Downgrade is an upgrade! 
https://support.plex.tv/hc/en-us/articles/201142378--Deprecated-Plex-Media-Center-Windows-OS-X
I think it’s a bad idea to downgrade from PHT to PMC (which barely works with modern PMS).
PHT and OpenPHT both have the ability to use mouse, though it’s not enabled by default.
You just need to change the “enablemouse” entry in “guisettings.xml” from “false” to “true”.
Under Windows this is extremely simple, but in Linux-based versions the area where this file is stored is often mounted as non-writable, which can be a problem.
Once you have that setting fixed you also need to add a “mouse.xml” file to tweak mouse button responses and install some custom skin that displays the mouse pointer (eg: the “Night” skin by forum member bkury).
Using skins without mouse pointer can also work, as the cursor highlight of selected entries can suffice.
I’ve written several posts on this topic in the past, specifying precise methods and file paths to use.
So anyone wanting to do this under Windows should just search for those posts.
Those wanting to do it under Linux may need additional methods though, to deal with mounting the necessary file systems with write access.
Best regards: dlanor
Actually, write access isn’t the issue with rasplex and openelec. Guisettings.xml is writeable in openelec and Rasplex. The issue is that in both PHT is always running, keeps the settings in memory and flushes them to guisettings.xml upon exit. Since PHT is always running any changes made to guisettings aren’t read in for that session, and are overwritten when PHT is shutdown or rebooted. The way I got around this on my openelec box was to create a copy of guisettings.xml, make the changes I wanted in the copy, then wrote a startup script that would overwrite the existing guisettings.xml with my custom copy. A bit cumbersome but works.
@dlanor said:
Under Windows this is extremely simple, but in Linux-based versions the area where this file is stored is often mounted as non-writable, which can be a problem.
Best regards: dlanor
Hi, where is this file in Windows, I cannot find “guisettings” in the PHT folder?
Thank you
@MagnumDoomguy:
I think the methods needed may vary for different systems.
Your method is clearly workable for the systems you mention. But for RasPlex I use a simpler method.
I just use a text editor on my Win7 system to open and edit guisettings.xml through the RasPlex samba fileshare as “Userdata/guisettings.xml”, after which I restart the RasPlex program through the SSH command “killall plexhometheater”. Apparently this bypasses the ‘flushing’ you mentioned (or it wouldn’t work, which it does). But this probably also depends on not having made any setting changes in the GUI for that boot session, as that probably would force a flushing even on this kind of restart.
Unfortunately the same method does not work for the current beta versions of OpenPHT for OpenELEC.
But your method probably would work there as well.
Another method that may work, though I haven’t tested it yet, is to use SSH systemctl commands to stop the application before editing and then start it again afterwards. (I’ll test that later today.)
Best regards: dlanor
@skpManiac said:
Hi, where is this file in Windows, I cannot find “guisettings” in the PHT folder?
Like many other files important to PHT it’s not stored in the installed program folder, but in the program’s associated appdata folder (this is standard usage for most modern Windows programs).
For standard PHT its appdata folder path can be accessed as “%appdata%\Plex Home Theater”
The %appdata% part will be expanded to an absolute system path of the form:
“C:\Users\YOUR_USER_NAME\AppData\Roaming\Plex Home Theater”
but the short form is easier to use and specify in guides, since it’s the same string for all users.
This means that you can use “%appdata%\Plex Home Theater\userdata\guisettings.xml” to edit settings and you can place any custom skins you need in the folder “%appdata%\Plex Home Theater\addons”, and if you want to add a proper “mouse.xml” file this should be stored in the folder “%appdata%\Plex Home Theater\userdata\keymaps”.
All of the above path specifications relate to the standard PHT from Plex Inc.
The usage is similar for the OpenPHT implementation except that you replace each instance of the substring “Plex Home Theater” with the substring “OpenPHT”.
Best regards: dlanor
Thanks for that - I did look Program Data, but not in APP DATA 
Oops
Now it is enabled, the mouse cursor is invisible when I go hover over the PHT program, is there more than one setting I need to change?
Thank you for your help 
Can anybody help with this please ?
Running PHT with Mouse support on but the mouse cursor disappears in the PHT window
I have turned MOUSE TRAILS Off (this is an issue for Nvidia 3DTV) - I have switched to the BLACK skin, and tried multiple options in plex and Windows (Win 10 Pro x64) and still no joy, so any help appreciated - Thanks
Unfortunately very few PHT skins bother to display a mouse cursor, due to the long-term policy of Plex Inc to ‘hide’ the mouse support of PHT. One of the few skins that do show such a cursor, while also being reasonably up-to-date on PHT features is the skin “Night” by bkury. Its v1.8.6 release lags only a little behind current PHT features, and once bkury finishes Night v2.0 it will probably be fully updated to match current OpenPHT. But even as it stands v1.8.6 works quite well for most aspects of OpenPHT.
If you prefer to use the “Plex Black Edition” skin by DeadEyeFlint, I find that it works reasonably well even without a mouse pointer, though it does require special care in the home menu. That is due to the XBMC-inherited insane method of auto-scrolling the home menu whenever the mouse is moved. So trying to move the mouse to select an entry in the home menu is a bad idea, as the entries will keep moving about. There it is better to keep the mouse stationary and use its scroll wheel to select an entry.
For the Night skin there are some different options for how the home menu should be handled, and one of these eliminates the menu auto-scroll feature, and if you have more menu entries than there is room for on the screen (which can also be adjusted through font size choice) you can still use scroll wheel to reach them. The relevant settings are found in the settings submenu “Home Screen” where you can set “Menu Type” to “Simple List” and also adjust other features such as the menu font and max number of entries in the menu (the max increases with small font). My own favorite settings are “Simple List”, “13 Items”, “Small”, “Aeon” (the last is a font style).
Btw: Don’t confuse the “Home Screen” submenu with the “Home Menu” submenu, the latter being where you choose various content of the home menu.
Best regards: dlanor
