To the powers that be at URC:

I haven't even recieved my MX700 yet (just ordered last night) and I can already tell from playing with the editor what the biggest draw back for me is - not being able to program the MAIN button! What is up with that?

Seems like an easy enough thing to do...could we please have this feature in a future Live Update?

Maybe I'm just too used to my Pronto Pro...that's right, I'm selling the Pronto and switching to the MX700...that's how much I like the design, except for this MAIN button thing. :)

It would just be sooo much easier and astheticaly (sp?) pleasing to put the system into a known state with a macro on the MAIN button, instead I will have to put a BACK (to main) command on the LCD, or I've seen suggestions to use the hard power keys for this. I'm a bit afraid of the WAF concerning this point. :)

If anyone has any programing tricks or suggestions that pertain to this problem, don't hesitate to chime in!

Thanks!

What is it that you want to do with the MAIN button?

Okay,as an example:

To play a DVD I need to change the picture mode on my TV by cycling thru the options in a macro (no discrete codes for the pic mode on my TV, and my TV does not remember pic modes for each input, unfortunately). Once in DVD mode and on the DVD page it would be nice to be able to just hit MAIN and cycle back thru the pic modes and return to TIVO (MAIN) mode.

The way it is now, I'll have to either put a macro for this on an LCD button labeled BACK (to MAIN), or put the macro on the Power Off button. To me it would be more logical to have that macro on the MAIN button.

This is a small inconvienence I know, I just don't understand why programming the MAIN button isn't at least an option.

Going back to MAIN does not control anything unless you shortcut from each of the hard-labled buttons to buttons on another device (like your Tivo). In your case, I think you'd be better served to place a button on the LCD screen for your DVD device called TIVO that would take you to the first page of your Tivo device (and change the pic modes), putting you in position to have full control of your Tivo. Going to MAIN just adds another button push to get to the Tivo device.

That being said, I still wouldn't mind seeing the option to program a command or macro to the MAIN button. You can never have too many programmable keys. ;-)

Mike
www.SurfRemote.com

"In your case, I think you'd be better served to place a button on the LCD screen for your DVD device called TIVO that would take you to the first page of your Tivo device (and change the pic modes)"

Now there's a good idea I didn't think of! I could make the first page of each device nothing but shortcuts to all other devices with macro commands appropriate to what device I'm coming from.

Rather than "waste" the first page of each device,
try putting your "jump to devices" page as say,
FAV page 1. Then you can always get to it by hitting
the FAV button and get back to wher you were (should
you want to) by hitting Main.

Unless I'm mistaken (since I haven't got my remote in my hand yet), FAV LCD buttons will not jump to another page. If they do, this is a good idea!

Also, it seems that the main power ON/OFF buttons can't be programmed with a jump either, is this true?

FAV macros are just like any other macro - they can jump to another page.

They same is true of the Power On and Off buttons. Basically, a macro is a macro is a macro on the MX-700/800.

Thanks for the info. But it seems that the emulator in the software does not work exaclty as the remote itself will (I won't get my MX700 'til tommorow). When I program a page jump at the end of a macro on the power buttons or the FAV LCD buttons, it does not perform the jump in the emulator.

Searching through the archives, I came across this thread from 2004. I am hoping that there has been some kind of firmwware upgrade to all you to program the Main button on each device page. I want to exit the device page back to Main in the known state just as Alan (the original poster) wanted do. Sure, I could add a LCD command but if someone hits the Main button to go back then everything messes up :-(

Peter

This is why we want to program the MAIN button how we choose:

URC is damn good at knowing how a remote should work, but their design won't work in every case for every customer. But hard buttons (non LCD buttons) cannot be re-labelled to customer liking. As a result, I've had customers get confused over the MAIN button vs. the MENU button, and actually request that MENU bring them to the "main" page (which they consider to be the remote's "menu").

Potato, potato (this euphemism does not work well when typed instead of spoken).

Another example...the PAGE button cycles through non-hidden pages in a device, but if you don't want to overburden your customers with more than they need, you may find that most times you only use one page of options (we do anyway, keeps it less confusing and believe me our customers are NOT AT ALL tech savvy). So as a result, this button is generally useless and it does nothing. I could at least make it 'page down' for a cable box or something. I hate buttons on a remote that do nothing.

So MAIN should be like any other button, as re-programmable as possible to suit customer taste.

Ya ya, customer education gets around any 'confusion', but i'm in agreement with those who think if URC 'can' make something user configurable, they should.

PS: Pronto used to have this issue with the silly up and down arrows...thank god with all hidden pages, they disappeared.

The MX-3000 will soon have this ability (MAIN and PAGE +/-), so maybe that will find its way to the MX-850 etc. as well.

Mike

Email URC at :
[Link: universalremote.com]
requesting this feature. I just did.. who knows it might just work ;-)

Peter