You set the value for a variable in the Macro pane for the currently selected button.

Select the button that you want to use to alter the state of a variable, then double click the UI Variable button (it's the one with the little red rectangle containing the letters UI, pluse a little blue page and a little yellow page).

The UI Variable Setting dialog box lets you select a variable from the variable list, then set what value the button will give to that variable using the drop-down immediately beside the OK button. If you haven't yet created the variable you need, you can also create the variable in this dialog box.

So I suspect that if you hadn't yet discovered this, probably what's going wrong in your macros is that you're thinking that some other event is setting variable values for you. It sounds like perhaps you're thinking that the button press itself sets the variable, when it does not. In fact, you can control the state of many variables at once with a single command, all set at this one step of the macro using the UI Variable Setting dialog box.

I think that as a programmer you're probably thinking that the MX-980 uses higher-level coding than it really does. At best, programming an MX-980 is merely scripting. We designed it that way because for 99% of installers, scripting will meet their needs without complicating their programming jobs. To make the scripting capability usable but not the focal point of the macro command list, we employ various UI elements to serve up the macro capabilities. For guys like you who know their way through a compiler, you're probably looking for the equivalent of a command line that unfortunately doesn't exist.

Having said all that, do know that once you know where all the features are, it's quite a snap to program an MX-980. You've just got to keep in mind that you don't have your full vocabulary of logic at your disposal.

Best regards,
Dale