I am programming my TSU7000 and I am in the process of creating device pages for each of my components - on the button properties page of PPENG is it preferred to "link" to the learned IR codes or to use the "IR" command? Is one more efficient over the other? Are there differences? Thank you.

Neither one is more efficient than the other except for when you deal with them in the editor.

To the topic -- I think this is talking about teaching a code to a particular button or getting it out of the database
versus
doing the same thing somewhere else, then telling your button that when you push it, to "link" over to the command wherever it resides, and implement it.

I have approached these remotes in real curmudgeonly fashion, especially after seeing how randomly useless the early default pages were (grumble gumble spit). Every device had several panels with many buttons I could not use -- but one or two important ones here and there -- and a couple of pages with most of the buttons I needed. I have mostly opened those up and edited them to put the buttons where I want them. I have also shamelessly stolen from this site.

As to commands, I simply learned commands from the factory remote on a separate panel with buttons just large enough to read. Then, every time I program a button on a working panel, I link it (used to be called "alias it") to the panel with the learned codes.

What made me start to do this was my frustration at continually running across commands that did not work quite right, or worked fine but did the wrong thing, and finding them labeled "Learned." This told me nothing. With my own master command panel or two or three for each component, every command, because it is linked to a named button, now has a name associated with it in the editor whenever you look at it. You will never see "database" or "learned;" instead you will see "play" or "opn/cls" or some such. If I see "play: where I should see "pause," well, there is my problem. If I see "play," then I know I need to troubleshoot my learned code. I also use all lower case names to help distinguish those from names I place on buttons.