alright, i posted this on the URC forum as well, but thought i would post it here to get some other thoughts/reactions... also, sorry for the rambling

alright, i know this probably wont work, but its worth a shot asking, and also an idea for urc to implement... (yes, i know it would be alot of work to implement) also, this thought is due to my computer programming background...

ok, im coding rs232 for an onkyo tx-sr705 and a crazy thought i had was with the direct tuning command for the radio....
the rs232 command is:
!1TUN"nnnnn"
where "nnnnn" is equal to the tuning channel/frequency
Onkyo's description:
sets Directly Tuning Frequency (FM nnn.nn MHz / AM nnnnn kHz / XM nnnnn ch) put 0 in the first two digits of nnnnn at XM

the current command would look like:
!1TUN100.30

is/would there be any way possible to set the "nnnnn" as a variable which has its value assigned by a button press (on the button, set the variable to something like 100.30) so rather than keying each station as a serial command, just key one with a variable, in my example below, represented as X

my command would look something more like
!1TUNX
where X is a string entered by a key press that triggers a macro before the serial command is executed

just thinking of a way to maybe save us all alot of time when writing serial commands... onkyo has quite a few commands that are formatted in this way, so it could be very useful.

sorry if your confused, cause i kinda am too at the moment... just thinking out loud...

thoughts?

rr,

I agree with you 100%. There have been MANY times I have wanted the ability of what I call "strings". It would save a HUGE amount of time and enable some pretty damn cool stuff. If URC is listening.....this would be AWESOME!

Where I've always wanted to use them is with if/then statements......ie...

If whatever is true
then set string 'xyz' to "abc"
else set string to "def"

You could then use that string value for SO many things!!!

And your idea for button press assignements is awesome too. I wanted to do the same thing for rs232 control of DirecTV when using the setuserchannel command. Like you said, the only way to currently do this is to create the entire rs232 command for EACH and EVERY channel you want..... With what you are proposing you would create the single rs232 command or prefix of it rather and then the actual channel number would be the string that is assigned by button presses.....then the system would need to be able to concatenate the two together to make the final rs232 command sent to the device.....it would be sweet wouldn't it?!

Good post rr.......

URC....Seriously, this would be VERY cool!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thanks, im glad someone was able to understand my rambling. there are so many different things that we could do with strings if urc would give us the ability. also, i think when/if we ever get two way, then strings will almost be a necessity. there are so many great programmers of these things out there that could do so much more if they had the ability of strings.

Agreed Sir......One of these days hopefully....