DiscreteON/OFF phantom buttons in RDFs

Post by **The Robman** » Sun Dec 06, 2015 8:04 pm

So did anybody else delete Vicky's post?

Post by **ElizabethD** » Sun Dec 06, 2015 8:59 pm

I voted for Phantoms but not forcing Discrete ON/Off label. But forcing the label is also ok, especially in the remotes which have tons of Phantoms.
There was one remote where I wanted to use tho labelled Phantoms for something else, since I didn't need discrete power, and the label confused me. I wish I could remember which remote and which upgrade it was, but I can't.

Barf · Post by **Barf** » Mon Dec 07, 2015 4:34 am

It is a matter of design. 3FG has expressed it fairly well.

An RDF (remote description file) describes a remote (= hardware + firmware). The phantoms are not present in hardware, but in the firmware, so they belong to the RDF.
Key have names, not only keycodes, which are what they are identified by (physical key have a symbol or text printed on then), which are not a priori bound to the final use.

I do not like using perceived understandability for beginners as an argument for bad design.

I have voted accordingly.

pH7_jp1 · Post by **pH7_jp1** » Mon Dec 07, 2015 6:44 am

Is there something that can be done in the way RDFs are defined and processed that would make it easier for a user to maintain their own overrides? That is, instead of actually modifying the RDF by editing the line that defines PHANTOMn - have an override section that allows overriding that name to be DISCRETEON. Then when a new RDF is published the only thing that would need to be done to achieve the user's customization is to copy the entire "override" section into the new RDF without modifying any lines of the published RDF.

tranx · Post by **tranx** » Mon Dec 07, 2015 7:30 am

As pH7 jp1 has suggested, would it be feasible to modify RMIR so it could display an editing box, greyed out for other buttons, for the titles of individual phantoms?

PS is there a reason why any overriding editable section could not belong to upgrades containing phantoms, rather than to RDFs?

mdavej · Post by **mdavej** » Mon Dec 07, 2015 10:58 am

I think this concept of override should simply be called Alias and should apply to all buttons. But this is a big change, and probably isn't worth the effort. The notes field sort of handles this already, but not directly.

With true aliases, if you put an HDMI2 function on Xshift-2 (alias HDMI1) and DiscreteOn on phantom6 (alias DiscreteOn), a macro with those two commands would read DiscreteOn;HDMI2 rather than Xshift-2;phantom6.

So the RDF would remain a pure representation of the remote buttons, but the RMIR file would handle any button renaming via aliases.

I haven't really thought this all the way through and don't know all the ramifications of such a feature.

I guess the simplest approach would be to add an Alias field to the Keymove tab. If the Alias isn't empty, use that reference in all macros, else, use the original button name from the RDF. After all, this is mainly to keep track of what function is actually on what key and to make macros more readable.

pH7_jp1 · Post by **pH7_jp1** » Mon Dec 07, 2015 1:31 pm

We are now up to 12 people on the planet that care about the issue. All 12 of us know how to cope with it no matter what. I suspect it isn't worth a lot of effort to make any change unless a simple solution can be found.

Post by **The Robman** » Mon Dec 07, 2015 3:05 pm

But if the vote is lost, what happens next? Does someone go through all the hundreds of RDFs that already have this feature? And what happens to all of us that use thsi feature when we open our saved IR or RMIR files and the button names have gone? Should we all protect our RDF folder and make it read-only to prevent this intrusion?

If we're not going to delete it from all of the existing RDFs, are we just going to live with the inconsistency?

Personally, i cannot believe that a majority (so far) of people with an opinion about this are in favor of restricting people's ability to program their remotes the way they want to, after all, this group is supposed to be about unlocking functionality, not restricting it based on anyone's individual preferences.

Post by **vickyg2003** » Mon Dec 07, 2015 3:44 pm

The Robman wrote:
Personally, i cannot believe that a majority (so far) of people with an opinion about this are in favor of restricting people's ability to program their remotes the way they want to, after all, this group is supposed to be about unlocking functionality, not restricting it based on anyone's individual preferences.

I don't see how calling something discreteOn vs phantomxx restricts the ability to program ones remote. It is just a label. I have several remotes that have a phantom labeled discreteOn that I use for other purposes. I'm all for having all useable phantoms identified. But a name is just a name. If you go about standardizing on discreteOn won't it confuse folks that have used phantomxx for something else? 0r what if they used a different phantom for their discreteOn. Really isn't this what notes are for?

pH7_jp1 · Post by **pH7_jp1** » Mon Dec 07, 2015 3:44 pm

I have been assuming all along that the existing RDFs would not be changed for the reasons that you stated. I would be much more vocal if it is implied by the NO to phantoms named Discrete that it should be removed from where it already exists.

Post by **ElizabethD** » Mon Dec 07, 2015 3:54 pm

Perhaps I misunderstood everything in this thread and voted for phantoms but no labelling.
Rob, what is it that would limit users' choice?
Could we get one other poll option - No idea, not qualified to answer, leave things alone - something along these lines.

Ed · Post by Ed » Mon Dec 07, 2015 4:04 pm

I've lurked around here for quite awhile. I've gotten a lot of valuable advice, programmed quite a few remotes and had lots of fun doing it

Until now, I had no idea I could go into the RDF and change the name of buttons to improve the readability of my macros. When I program a remote, I spend a lot of time paging back and forth to my button mappings to reconfirm what phantomx does for device y, etc., and I'm sure I've introduced bugs by not doing that carefully.

It would really be nice to have the aliasing functionality Dave describes, but it does sound like a lot of work and, bottom line, I've managed without it for quite awhile.

I'm not sure that makes me the 13th person who cares or not!

Ed

Post by **The Robman** » Mon Dec 07, 2015 4:08 pm

This all came about because I suggested to Graham that he include DiscreteON and DiscreteOFF in his RDF for the URC-6440 extender, after a new user (JezW) asked how I was able to use such buttons in my 15-1994 extender (after he saw the screenshots on the wiki) and he wasn't able to do the same in his 6440 extender.

This caused me to look at the 6440 RDF and I was surprised to see that they weren't included as they have been fairly standard to date. I had no idea that I was asking a controversial question, but then Graham came back that he disagreed with the suggestion based on the argument that the RDF should 100% reflect what's in the remote, which would imply that phantoms should not be in there either. You can't have that one both ways. Then 3FG joined the discussion saying that he was "strongly opposed" to letting us have DiscreteON and OFF in the RDFs.

If these nah-sayers win the day, what are we supposed to do? What do we say to the next user who asks why those button labels are available in other RDFs but not theirs? And if we tell them how to edit the RDF themselves, do we then need to advise them not to accept any further RDF updates?

I had absolutely no idea that such a simple request would cause all this, but I am thoroughly disgusted by it. I think it's time for me to take another long break from JP1 because this is not fun.

mdavej · Post by **mdavej** » Mon Dec 07, 2015 4:49 pm

We have what, 10,000 users at least and have taken a very unscientific poll of 12 of them so far. Not a good sample size. Besides, one of the founding fathers of JP1 and site owner should have veto power anyway (IOW, please stick around Rob).

Post by **The Robman** » Mon Dec 07, 2015 5:03 pm

I hear ya Dave, but it was people's attitudes that drove me away the first time. When you do something for fun, it has to be fun, and dealing with stuff like this isn't.

JP1 Remotes

DiscreteON/OFF phantom buttons in RDFs

Should RDFs include phantoms, including DiscreteON/OFF phantoms?