With URC spending an admirable amount of time in these forums (thanks MUCH for seeing what Customers really want!!), I thought I'd throw this out there.
I have made the journey from the MX-500 to a 700 and 850. I just finished programming my brand new 900! The 700 goes to the kids; I keep the 850 & 900.
I took you through that history for a reason. As I was doing the 900 programming, I initially wondered why I wasn't seeing some things show up in "900-ese". For example, the command names from the IR database were still truncated to 5 characters. Then I realized that ALL of the MX Editors read the same database and most did not have 7 character capability. OK, got that piece, but SOME things are done in 900-ese.
In the older MX Editor versions, 4 pages were enough in the LCD Button Editor because that's all that were available. Here is a feature request that might make some sense for the MX units that have the capability for MORE than 4 pages under a device.
In programming the 900 for a new device, adding commands or rearranging commands, the Button Editor displays only 5 pages. One of the main reasons I wanted the 900 was because there was so much more capacity available for commands. For example, I am using 11 pages for my Denon 3803 and most of my other devices extend beyond 5 pages.
My experience over the last couple of days is that it is very time consuming to move individual commands around in the LCD Button Editor if there are more than 5 pages in a device. You must move commands to a "staging" position and scroll back & forth to move them where you ultimately want them. It's twice as bad if you have a device at 10+ pages.
My suggestion(s) are this: 1) For the newer, "more than 4 pages" devices, expand the LCD Button Editor to display more pages. I don't know what the right number is, but it is more than 5. If you used 40 commands on an 850, you would need 7 pages on a 900. The Button Editor could get pretty wide pretty quick. Maybe you make the width something a user could set. Maybe a better solution is to make the size of the boxes/fonts a little smaller and show two rows of 5 buttons (one on top, one below). Maybe the Editor auto-expands to show the number of pages used.
I like the idea of a smaller/box/font and stacking two rows of 5 pages.
2) Keep in mind that no matter how many pages are displayed, it won't be enough for everybody. With that in mind, provide the ability to grab a command with the cursor by holding down a mouse button (say, on page 7) and drag it to an edge of the left border of the Button Editor and have that cause the Editor to scroll to page 1.
3) Right now, the Button Editor shows more pages than are actually being used. (If I am using pages 1-8, the Editor shows (blank) page 9 and onward as long as I keep scrolling to the right.). Tweak that so taht I only see the pages I am using (1-8) but if I scroll to the right, I can see page 1 as the next page beside page 8.
As an example, here are the pages I would see in the current "set up for 5 pages" Button Editor: 1-2-3-4-5, 6-7-8-9-10 with 9 and 10 blank because there are no commands.
Suggested change would show this: 1-2-3-4-5, 6-7-8-1-2.
Once you get past 10 pages, this # 3 suggestion gets a bit difficult.
For the $$$ involved and the capability provided, the current method doesn't work very well, especially if you are a Custom Installer without extra time available. If #1 (the two rows of 5 pages) and #2 above could be implemented together, it would be a major upgrade. If only 1 piece could be done, the two rows of 5 gets my vote.
