That doesn't sound very fun :-(.

Can the serial commands be directly assigned to a button or does a smart macro need to be created first and then the macro assigned to the button?

Also, one of the reasons I would like to serial control is that i have had some problems locating the IR receiver on my Denon AVR-4306, so the IR emitter hasn't performed as well as I would like. Can someone point me to the location where I should be attaching the IR emitter to for the best performance?