I've been working with MX-Editor and I'm looking for input how to set it up. I've read parts of the manual, and it suggests setting macros to run when you depress a MAIN menu item so that depressing DVD, for instance, will change the inputs on the receiver and/or TV so you can watch a DVD. That's all well and good, except my wife simply won't use anything but the original remotes, at least not yet.

The upshot of that is that I can't use the direct macros because the reciever might already be set up to watch a DVD when I press the MAIN screen DVD button. So all I want it to do is change to the DVD controls. Easy enough... so here's the design question... how do *you* handle the situation where you want separate controls for swapping receiver/TV devices?

I thought of setting up a different screen called SWAP or WATCH and have nothing but macros that swap inputs and settings on the receiver and TV. Or I could use Press and Hold macros on the MAIN device keys -- I think. Is it possible to have the normal function of a MAIN screen key to go to the device screen, but if held in for some length of time, it runs a macro instead?

Maybe I blazed through the manual too quickly (page 51, Advanced Programming) but it doesn't seem very clear about this.

The normal function of a MAIN page device button is to go to the first page of that device when pushed. You can program a "push-and-hold" macro by adding some delay time (0.5 or 1 second) to the beginning of the macro. That way, pushing the button will go to the device page and holding it down will execute the macro.

There shouldn't be a problem having a direct executing macro on a device button if you have discrete commands (ie: separate on/off and input commands) for each step. Then, if the system was already set for watching a DVD, executing the macro will essentially do nothing.

Mike
www.SurfRemote.com

I thought that the MAIN should just go to the device, but the Editor manual suggests that it should have a macro that switches all components so it in essence becomes an activity.

Sounds like the push & hold macro is the way to go. The problem with having it swap inputs, even when discrete, is that my receiver (Denon 2700) interrupts the audio if you hit the same button; e.g., I already using the Aux1 input to watch TV, I hit the Aux1 button again and you'd think that nothing would happen, but what happens is that the receiver blanks out the audio and then reswitches to where it already is. Not smart enough to figure out it's already where you told it to be so do nothing :)

You don't need to setup a push and hold macro. If you want to switch between devices without running the macro, hold down the main button while pressing the device button. No special programming required!

Ahh, I see. That is a problem. I guess you can take your pick between the push-and-hold macro and going to the device page as mentioned above.

Thanks guys, I didn't know that there were alternate ways of handling the same type of behavior. I'll read up about push&hold macros and the MAIN/device button push and figure out which I'd be more comfortable with.

|I encountered a similar problem in that the system i have is quite prone to going out of sync with the wife around. i use the device buttons on the main page (press and hold) to switch on and configure everything by running a macro. the off button of that device switches everything back off and returns the remote to the main page.in this way you minimise the chance of things going out of sync and it's so easy even the woman will get it. also, for each device there is also an on button - this is used to individually switch that device on or off - use this to recover from misshaps... the only thng you have to make clear is that if you are going to switch from sky to dvd, switch off the whole system with the off button of the first device before running the macro from the main page for the second device start up and config macro.

i hope this made sense to you, it really does work and she's managed to get the hang of it pretty quick - i must've done something right.


good luck, it's really a great remote...


On 11/25/03 08:52, George Marengo said...