Strategy for remembering what button does what

[Mark W]

Is there any methodology or system any of you use to figure out what functions to assign to what buttons, and then to help you remember it for all your devices? How about labeling the buttons in any way. Anyone found a marker or paint that works well to label important buttons? I guess there could be different methods that might work better than others. I have found that if I am very familiar with an old remote that I'm replacing, that I will use button location on the universal remote that matches the button location on the old remote. trying to use a button name that starts with the same letter as the old button name might work. How about making cheat sheets? Does that work for anyone? My cheat sheet would be lost in a matter of days. I thought it might be helpful, interesting and possibly funny to share ideas.

[Mark Pierson]

How about making cheat sheets?

If you're building upgrades in KM, just print the Key Map sheet. Its sole purpose in life is to serve as a hard copy reference (that will of course be lost in a matter of days ).

[gfb107]

How about making cheat sheets?

If you're building upgrades in KM, just print the Key Map sheet. Its sole purpose in life is to serve as a hard copy reference (that will of course be lost in a matter of days ).

RM also has a Key Map panel that can be printed.

[The Robman]

While we can give you ideas, at the end of the day, you're the only one who can decide what will work and what won't.

If you are very used to an OEM remote, this will probably have a bearing on your button selection. However, when you buy a new device and have never used the OEM remote before, you will have more freedom to program the universal "properly".

For buttons that you use all the time, find a button that "feels right", regardless of how it's labelled. You won't need a label to remember these buttons as you'll never have a chance to forget them, but a cheat sheet might be useful for guests.

For buttons that are more seldomly used, see if you can find a button with a label that kinda means the same thing, or like you suggested, starts with the same letter.

If an example will help, here's some of the thought process that I used to decide what buttons on my 15-1994 to use for my ReplayTV.

The two buttons that are used the most are the IR (Instant Replay, skips back 7 seconds) and QS (Quick Skip,skips ahead 30 seconds) buttons. I wanted the IR button to be on the lefthand side of the remote and the QS button on the right. On the OEM remote, they were positioned above the REWIND and FAST FWD buttons. Now, if I were programming a remote that had |<< and >>| buttons I would probably use those. For a remote like the URC-8811, I would use the F.REW and F.FWD buttons, but alas the 15-1994 doesn't have anything like that, so I used the TV/VIDEO and ENTER buttons. Neither of these buttons perform a useful function for ReplayTV, so they are available, and they are positioned immediately above the REW and FWD buttons, so this one was a positional judgement.

For a button like the JUMP button, I chose a button where the new label seemed to indicate the same operation. You type a number then press JUMP to jump to that position in a show (eg, 2-3-JUMP would jump you to the 23rd minute of the show). So, I chose the MOVE button for this (ie, MOVE to the 23rd minute of the show), even though MOVE is supposed to be a PIP button.

Replay has 2 GUIDE buttons, one is REPLAY GUIDE which brings up a list of recorded shows, and the other is CHANNEL GUIDE which brings up the current channel guide. There's just one GUIDE button on the 15-1994, which is sub-labelled PROGRAM. I decided to assign the REPLAY GUIDE function to this button as this is the guide that I use the most. The button beside the GUIDE button on the 15-1994 is the SURROUND button, which serves no purpose for Replay, so I put the CHANNEL GUIDE here. The idea being that all you need to remember is that the channel guide is on the button next to the guide button.

For the LIVE TV button I chose the LAST button because they both begin with "L".

For the INPUT button I chose SWAP, I think of this as the "Swap inputs" button.

Finally, there's the REPLAY ZONES button, which is pretty much impossible to place using all normal methods. Every device has at least one button like this where there's no suitable labelled button for it. I always place these hard to place buttons on the PIP button, so that's where I put REPLAY ZONES.

Hopefully that gives you some idea of my thinking for button placement, take from it what you will.

[ElizabethD]

I doubt there is, short of using a 3-button hotel-issue remote
Thinking out loud:
1. Paints are solvents. Buttons would get glued to the case and then you will not have a problem any more
2. VISIO picture (imported from OEM docs) with color-coded bubbles showing device+function, scattered all around, might work. Not for me, cheat sheets get lost.
3. Excel: paste button assignments from KM into device columns. Align by functions or buttons, reduce printing to one sheet, buy a microscope to read it ... it's still a cheat sheet, darn.
4. Above, with tiny UPS barcodes (the kind your dentist has on the novocaine tubex) printed on a sheet - needs someone to invent a barcode reader and IR transmitter all in one
5. Is seven the magic number of items people can remember? They give memory training courses someplace, that might help.
6. Intensive use of extender macros can unify several functions into logical enough groups that having to remember won't be such an issue.

[ElizabethD]

Mark, Rob: You guys type fast. When I started, there were no replies! Neat ideas.

[jon_armstrong]

Rob probably described the most actively used keys in most setups, the PVR. I can attest to Rob's placement, as I have a 1994 and a Replay and used Rob's upgrade from the beginning. I think the other considerations to simplify remembering are good Macros.

The extender is an advanced feature but worth thinking about as you go forward. You want to get everything working well before tackling one, but here goes:

I use an extender and that allows macros to be programmed to the device keys. Like you, I have an HD Projector and a DirecTV HD satellite receiver that also has an OTA TV receiver. So Cable/Satellite is HD satellite, shift-Cable/Satellite is RD satellite, TV is HDTV and shift-TV is RDTV, you get the picture. For any of those device or shifted-device buttons; the Projector is turned On, it's video inputs set, the receiver is turned On with audio input set.

At the end of the macro, without pushing a device button the vol/mute controls the receiver, the Ch+/-, FF, Rew, Play etc. controls the appropriate device (DSS, VCR, PVR, DVD). So I don't really have to remember the buttons, because the macro sets all the input commands and since they are all discrete commands if one is missed you simply press the appropriate device or shifted device button again.

I don't think your projector has a discrete On and Off command. So I would program the shift -Plug n Power key (pretty easy to remember) to be the power toggle for the projector and you could use a macro, because a macro works from any device mode. Secondly, you don't want anyone to accidentally turn On or off the projector although many take a long press for On and/or off.

So you turn the projector on manually, they all take a while to start up an many won’t accept input commands for a few seconds after start. Then you can setup macros on the device keys for all the other input commands and you get to the same place conceptually. You turn on the projector and hit TV to watch TV etc.

The good news is that even without the extender you can program macros to shifted-device keys. So you can start to get the feel of where you can go.

[e34m5]

Here is something I did:

I made new labels on self sticking label material. I have one of those new label makers that I had bought at Wal Mart, the ones that look like mini printers.

I then stuck these new labels on to the buttons. Although the labels will come off in time it's real easy to apply new ones. I also used labels on the back of the remote to document what some of the Macro do.

So on the back of the remote it says some thing like:

Long DVD= Turn on all for DVD
Short DVD= Power ON/OFF for DVD
M1= Turn all off
.
.
.
etc