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.

Thanks for listening.

Ray

So it's too difficult to press the << and >> buttons at the bottom of the button editor page? I have a device with 7 pages and you just need to press the >> button to see the ones you can't see and it automatically shows up to 21 pages. If you have only 7 pages made, and then when in the button editor you add something on say page 10, when you close button editor it automatically adds pages 8-10 to the device.

Honestly, I would rather them spend time on variables rather than this....but that's just my .02.

keep the 900 plus add a charger and have the light go on like the mx810 can't cost that much $$.

I have sold over 200 of the 900's. The only complaint is the backlight..

It's not about pressing the << or >> buttons. That is clearly simple and works. The issue is moving a command from page 9 of a device to page 2 of the device. That command needs to be "walked" forward.

Wow, that's a pretty obscure request....I can see your point but how many 9 page devices do you have? And isn't that kind of counter productive to what the remote is supposed to do?

How about the variables that were promised and repromised first. Not to belittle your request, but we were here first. ;)

Actually I ran in to that the other day. I was trying to pull a multi channel button forward on a Yamaha Z1. I thought that maybe it was just me but it took about 5 times as long as I thought it should. Instead of enlarging the page they could just make it cut and paste...

5 times 10 seconds is still only 50 seconds....

You can cut and paste but not in LCD Button editor.

If you have large # of pages you want to reorder why not create a dummy device with the codes in it
another labeled what you want it to be
Save
Universal Browser -load the current file then dump out of the u-browser to where you want. 10pages 2min

I simply click View>Page View Mode.

Double-click all the pages of the device from the tree view (on left) and arrange them on my screen. I can now drag from any screen to any other. If I don't need to open all screens, just open the ones you do need.

That's slick. I've had my 900 for a while now and never new that was there.

Thanx

That is very useful. Thanks for sharing that information with everyone Eric.

Wow, nice find. I guess we get so used to using the editor the way we do that no-one thinks to go into any settings. Definitely saved some time for me.

Wow I never clicked on view in the 900 editor. That Rocks Thanks Eric.

Eric - problem solved! That's terrific. Thanks much.