I was using the mx-3000 with a template rcc put together by the guys who did our home theater room. The coding was a mess, layouts were poorly organized and the visuals left something to be desired.... (see samples of our screens BEFORE).

My brother and I decided to come up with a new navigation method for the remote along with a theme - and then rewrote most of the macros. Once we got into the software suite we realized we could do some pretty cool stuff. Being that we're both big mac fans - we kept realizing that apple had solved simple navigation issues with their dock in OSX.

Originally the screens looked like Tiger, but we saw some pre-leopard screen shots and decided to adapt them. All of the artwork/menus were created mostly from scratch. While we borrowed lots of ideas visually - the only images that we used were the icons in the "dock" and video games screen. All the rest was drawn in illustrator. (oh and apple's osx wallpaper)


Key features of the programming:
- All buttons have an "after" button that gives visual feedback when being pressed
- The remote knows what device control screen you are on, and what activity you are doing - It shows this using a white arrow under the device that is active
- When a device is active, that icon in the dock becomes a direct jump to that devices controls while other icons perform an activity switch
- Our room has 2 tv's - 1 projector and 1 plasma (this had to work into it)
- We plan to add a battery meter in the top left and may alter the activity icons so t that the one in use attracts more attention
- Power Off button on every screen (hold for 3 seconds to shut off entire room) - tap is ignored
- Can change activity from every screen
- Sim2 projector and video game selector switch do not have discreet power commands, remote now handles this. It is now impossible to accidentally turn off the projector (which used to cause 5min cool down wait time)


Before
[Home (Step 1), Activity Choice (Step 2), Cable Remote]




(How can you professionally deliver this screen to a client? Blank buttons without function on the screen for no reason)

After

[Home, Step 2 doesn't exist]





(This is what the lights screen looks like if you are currently playing video games. Pressing mario will jump right to the video game selector, while pressing any other device will switch the room into that mode)

I love how the original programming had the default stock buttons just slapped in front of a background image. :P

Nice work!

I like the fact that the number buttons don't have defined edges. It makes the screen seem much less crowded.

How did you get the mirror effect with the icons on the bottom bar?

Sean

Yea the original was laughable.

The screens were all designed first in illustrator/photoshop, the mirror is a photoshop effect, the entire square including the icon, effect, wallpaper and "dock level" is actually one button that sits on top of a version of the screen that is missing the icons

Bruck,

This is awesome, being a hugh Mac fan myself. Is there anyway you can upload your config to the file section of this website?

Good job, I'm not a fan of the 3000, but I like the Mac layout...

Here is a link to one that is close to his mac

That layout is really good, not sure what the 1st company charged you to do tha but it looked like very basic programming.Yours is very nice but wouldn't be cheap for a company to produce ( most customers won't pay for it). I'm very anal about graphics when it comes to a TS, it also bothed me that a professional would call that a finished project when the buttons weren't straight.

Again nice job

I disagree in the fact that most will not pay. They can and they do. It does take time and once you learn have it you always have it. What is nice about Remotecentral.com is that Buck can share what he has done and others can improve off of it. I have spent hundreds of hour if not more learning off of the orginal templetes from URC and learned how to make my own buttons and back grounds.

It looks like Bucks programer was over his head, and has never been to RC, otherwise he would have seen and downloaded some of the cool files produced by other.

@ Buck maybe you can sell your templete to the guy that programed your remote.

Lee

Nice job Bruck, very clean interface.

Might have to convert back to being a Mac user!

Yeah, Bruck. Would you be willing to post your .rcc file in the files section so others may benefit from your creative genius? I eagerly await your response.

I love it! It's brilliant Bruck. I've been a loyal Mac member since 88', and I'm still hoping for URC software on the Mac, but they still have no plans to release it. Sadness. You must of spent days on this one... Nice work.

Just some props for Bruck: As a guy who's designed more than my fair share of custom MX-3000 templates, I can tell you that Bruck spent much, much more than days on this. This kind of work requires weeks or months. Even more to make the file easily editable so that others can modify it to their own needs. So hats off to Bruck!

Best regards,
Dale

Make is editable? Where can we download it, is Bruck sharing this one? I'd pay for all the hard work done.

So now that we know how much work it took, it seems futile to bash other peoples work/programming like the original guys. The remote worked right? Most clients won't appreciate the creative process anyway, they just want it to work, but in our cases we want what Bruck has done.

The original programming is completely unacceptable. It looks hokey, unprofessional, and quickly slapped together. Regardless of how good you are at graphic design/photoshop, you can use and modify a template to look a lot better than that.

The new design is really cool though.