Temporary Device Reassignment; The Light Button - One for All EXTENDER A1 FOR URC-7780 Instructions Manual

8. Temporary device reassignment

Section 5 showed the use of the Z_Devn keys to achieve permanent Home Theatre reassignment in a
macro assigned to a physical button. It is more likely, however, that you will want only a temporary
change of device. This is achieved with the X_DEVn keys that were not covered in section 4.
The key X_DEVn switches to Device n for all subsequent keys in the macro, regardless of their Home
Theatre grouping, but does not change any of the permanent Home Theatre assignments of the current
device. This switch of device continues until there is either another device assignment key Z_Devn,
permanent or temporary, or the macro terminates, or the temporary assignment is explicitly cancelled.
Cancellation is performed by the key X_CANCEL, which is the 73rd device reassignment key mentioned
in section 5. Note that in a nested macro the temporary device switch continues until the entire macro
ends, even if the X_DEVn key is in an inner macro.
As an example, suppose I want to put a macro on key A that turns on both the current device and Device
1, which is set as the TV. Then either of the following macros will achieve this:
or
They differ only in the order in which the devices are turned on.
A second example also illustrates the use of T-Shift. The setup code for my TV assigns functions to two
of the Aspect keys. Repeated pressing of Brightness+ cycles through a number of preset picture settings.
The 16:9 button opens a list of various aspect ratio settings that you need to scroll through with the TV
navigation pad Up and Down buttons and then press OK on the desired one. I have therefore created key
moves for Device 1 on the Colour+/− and Brightness− buttons that map to Device 1 Up, Down and OK.
When any device is selected I can now press 16:9 to open the aspect ratio list on the TV, then Magic
followed by Volume+/− (i.e. Colour+/− ) to scroll the list and finally Channel− (i.e. Brightness−) to
select. But I do not find this natural. I want to press Magic before I press 16:9, i.e. before I start the
whole aspect adjustment process. I have achieved this with the macro
The first two macro keys open the aspect ratio list on the TV, but on their own they would leave
Volume+/− and Channel− performing their volume and channel actions. The T-Shift turns them into
Colour+/− and Brightness−, which are in the Aspect grouping and so operate Device 1 and which in turn
pick up the key moves assigned to these keys to perform the required scrolling and OK actions.

9. The Light button

To me, the behaviour of the Light button in the unextended device is the most irritating feature of the
URC-7781. The backlight is on a timer. When you press any button, the backlight comes on and remains
on for about 7 seconds. You want to turn it back on without performing any function. So you press the
Light button – obviously! But the light doesn't come on. Moreover, it no longer comes on when you
press any other button. The only way to turn the light back on now is to press the Light button again!
What on earth is happening? Well, the backlight behaves as though there are two switches between the
light and its power source. One is a timeswitch that is turned on by any button press. The other is a
toggle switch that is toggled by the Light button. When the light is on, both the toggle and the timeswitch
are on. When the timeswitch goes off, the light goes off. You press the Light button. Like any other
button it turns the timeswitch back on but it also turns the toggle off – and groan, still no light, not until
you press Light again to turn the toggle back on! The Light button performs this toggle action regardless
of the reason that you are pressing it, and since it is also the Escape key in long Magic keypress setup
operations this is, to say the least, irritating.
A = Power, X_DEV1, Power
A = X_DEV1, Power, X_CANCEL, Power.
Shift/16:9 = X_DEV1, 16:9, T-Shift.
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