I'll have to agree with Daniel about the actual timer implementation. It falls short. It's almost as if they had a bigger list of ways to use the internal clock, but cut it short to get it to market. Perhaps we'll see better implementations in future software upgrades.

Dave

SOLVED IT!!!!!

Every morning, at 3am, a timer in the Pronto pushes a button entitled "all off in 30 secs". This button performs the following actions:

- Beep
- Delay 30 secs
- Runs "Everything off" macro
- goes to "home" page

When you're running beeps or delays, the right button changes to "STOP" enabling you to cancel the operation if required.

Therefore, every morning, my Pronto will beep. If I'm still watching the tv, I've got 30 seconds to press the stop button. If I don't everything'll go off.

Problem solved!

It's still a little crude, in that I would like it to display a sub panel which tells you what's going on and how to stop it, but for now it's good enough!

Oh happy day.

A sub panel with the robot from Lost in Space.. Arms flailing along with a flashing "WARNING" would be nice...

But then you would want to keep guests over til 3AM.

If only the Pronto could play WAVS.

"Danger Will Robinson"

If the guys at Philips would release the OS
under GPL so that we can all hack around or even
a simple scripting language that could enable
us to create all sort of plugins? Then this baby
could even pay your bills if you really wanted to.

;-)
Nick

I'd just be happy for a dribble-proof version that didn't mind being slept on after a night out drinking.

Simon, could you upload your ccf with your timer macro? My timers don't seem to work as you describe. I downloaded version 3.62 of the system software and version 1.05 of ProntoEdit but I cannot cancel out of a macro. "STOP" does not apear for the right hard button and pushing it does not cancel out of the delay. I must be doing something wrong.

I also had previously tried this method to stop a macro, and found no success. HOWEVER, the macro I experimented on with an actual Pronto was one that had a lot of commands, only which a few were delays. I had created a specific macro in Prontoedit that was full of only delays, and found I still could not get the macro to quit (during Emulation) by hitting any soft or hard key, so I gave up. It's a mystery to me, because I have seen these other posts that claim they can cancel out of a macro! So, maybe it requires DELAYS in the macro to work, but will not work during emulation mode, only on a real Pronto. Honestly, I did not try my experiment using only Delays on the actual Pronto, just the emulation. Also, I had defined all the hard keys, mayber defining them overrides the "stop macro" capability. Does anyone know the answer to this mystery? Larry

I did some more experimenting and found that if I manually push a macro button with delays in it the "STOP" appears for the right hard key and I can cancel out. But when a timer kicks off a maco the "STOP" does not appear and I cannot cancel out of the macro. Also for the life of me I cannot get the timer to take the Pronto to the Home page. My timer turns off all my equipment but nothing I change takes it back home. Anyone have the answer?

Thinking about it I haven't actually fully tested the "cancelling out of it" bit. Like you, I've got it to work when the STOP button appears whenever a macro is running. I'll have to go and experiment with the timer, and probably swear some more. If I get success, then I will post you an example of the CCF.

Going home...
On the Properties for the button that the timer pushes to instigate a 30 second delay it is set to jump to the home page. (Jumps will not occur on aliases, only on buttons that are actually "clicked".). However, I have noticed that 'sometimes' it doesn't go home (can't find any rhyme or reason in this one yet though).

Daryl,

As Simon says an alias to a button executes all of the actions of the button EXCEPT any jump at the end.

As far as I know, you cannot get a timer to do any jump.

Aliases don't reference jumps, and timers are basically a timed alias. Thus they don't activate jumps.

Now, on the other hand, the RC5000 has a slightly different architecture and aliases now execute any and page jumps (since you can have more than one). The problem is the RC5000 doesn't support features. So, you've got half the functionality in one remote and the other half in another... now if only we could get the two together.

So what you're saying Daniel is that the RC5000 can handle panel jumps within its action lists?

I didn't realise that the two were so different (since the sales blurb basically says they're the same remotes released by two different people!).

Hopefully they'll pool their resources sometime.

Simon,

Quite the opposite it seems, the dickwads have split the 'pronto' development path and ruined any chance of becoming a de-facto URC standard.. Last Phillips product I ever touch...

L

Simon, the differences are actually quite subtle. Both products use exactly the same CCF file format.

Pronto supports Timers and programmable beeps (both of which RC5000 ignores).

RC5000 supports Jumps within macros (enabling animation), and Backwards and Forwards jumps (both of which Pronto will ignore in next release).