The Special Protocols; Device Specific Macro - One for All EXTENDER A1 FOR URC-7780 Instructions Manual

The Light key still has an Escape action in the extender, as described in section 7.4, but when it is pressed
as an Escape key it has no effect on the backlight. Instead it gives two flashes of the LED to show that it
has performed an Escape action. Also, if it is pressed when the backlight is off but the toggle is on then it
does not toggle the toggle switch. Bingo, the Light button does what you expect – when the light times
out and you press the Light button, the light comes on! The extender is worth installing just for this
improvement!
One further feature of the Light button is that when it toggles the toggle switch, but not otherwise, the
keystroke gets passed through for key processing. This key is available in IR.exe lists as LightTog. I
must admit that I cannot see a use for this facility, in contrast to the similar passing of Shift keys for key
processing described in section 7.6, but my design philosophy was to give maximum flexibility for
customisation and this is part of that philosophy.

10. The Special Protocols

The most powerful uses of the extender come from combining the nested macro facility with the Special
Protocols. Each of these protocols enables you to assign to a device/key combination a function that is
not available in the unextended remote.
If you select the Special Protocols tab in IR.exe, and press Add, you get a form in which you select in the
first section the device/key combination you want to bind. The next section is headed Parameters. If you
drop down the Type box you get a cryptic list: DSM, LKP, DKP, Multiplex, Pause, ToadTog. These are
shorthand names that in full are as follows:
DSM:
LKP:
DKP:
Multiplex:
Pause:
ToadTog:
Some of these names are not much more informative than their shorthand versions, but at least they are
pronounceable names! When you select one, the rest of the form changes to allow entry of the additional
information needed for the chosen function.
You will see that the drop-down box also lists a device and setup code in parentheses, e.g. (TV:1103) for
Device Specific Macro. You can find this device under the Devices tab. If you select it, the Protocol ID
displays a hexadecimal value, in this case 1FC. You can find this protocol, listed as $01FC, under the
Protocols tab. It is this protocol that actually performs the special function. Do not delete either the
device or the protocol. Indeed, with the exception of the protocol $01F9 that provides the Long and
Double Keypress functions you will see under the Protocol Information display that the protocol data is
very short, so you would recover little space in deleting it. If you were desperate for space and knew you
would never want to use the Long and Double Keypress functions you could delete this protocol, but be
aware that you cannot re-install it without completely re-installing the extender from scratch.
For the technically minded, the 'real' code for the other special protocols is elsewhere, to maximise the
Move/Macro space available to users and to make greatest possible use of the EEPROM block occupied
by the extender.
Each of the special functions will now be described separately.

10.1 Device Specific Macro

This one is fairly self-explanatory. An ordinary macro, available through the Macros tab of IR.exe as
described in section 4.2, is device-independent in that it sends its key sequence whatever device may be
currently selected. A device-specific macro is one that takes effect only when a particular device is
Device Specific Macro
Long Keypress
Double Keypress
Device Multiplexer
Pause
'Toggle-Only Actuated Devices' Toggle
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