Creating A Better Upgrade
Written by vickyg2003
One of the ways every JP1 user can be a valuable contributor to the forum is to create and submit complete upgrades for their equipment. This never even crossed my mind when I first started with the forums, because there was always good coverage for my equipment already built in to the universal remotes. Duh! That came back to bite me! As long as there is any function on the remote that isn't in the generic upgrade, that information needs to be documented. OEM remotes die. Its a fact of life.
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Functions and Buttons Tabs
Whether you are using RemoteMaster (RM) or KeyMaster(KM) you’ll have a tab called functions and another tab called buttons. The names on the buttons sheet represent your JP1 remote. The names on the functions sheet should represent your original remote (plus meaningful names for working functions that were missing from the original remote). The initial names on the functions sheet don't represent your original remote only because RM or KM can't see your original remote. As a courtesy, RM and KM fill in the function names with the buttons on your JP1 remote. You should delete any functions that don’t apply, and add any functions that are on the OEM remote. Even if you are not going to assign these functions to buttons, it is important to include these on the functions tab, so that your upgrade is complete.
Just for clarity I'll repeat that important information.
- The names on the buttons sheet represent your JP1 remote.
- The names on the function sheet represent your OEM remote.
Function Names
When you are creating the function list, make sure to note double functioning. Often your OEM remote buttons are used to do different functions. They may have small print on or above the buttons, that indicates those functions. That is important information. If you don’t have the OEM remote in front of you its difficult to imagine for example, that the “pause button” for playback, might also be the “up button” when you are in working in the menus.
The best way to handle this is to use a compound function name (eg, "pause/up_arrow").
File Name
When you save your upgrade file, please use the brand and model in the name, in that order. Please don't include your name or the JP1 remote mode.
For example, a good name might be: Pioneer_DVD525.txt
Some not so good names might be: URC-7560-Pioneer-DVD.txt or Matts-dvd-upgrade.txt
The reason for this request is that when we download your upgrade, it's going to be much easier to tell what a file called Pioneer_DVD525.txt is for compared to Matts-dvd-upgrade.txt, and if we're looking for a Pioneer upgrade, the Pioneer_DVD525.txt will sort properly whereas the URC-7560-Pioneer-DVD.txt file won't.
Uploading Your File
You should now share your upgrade by posting it in the proper file section. There is no review or approval process. Once you’ve posted it, its out there to help the next guy. You can always come back later and see how many times the file has been downloaded to know that you’ve helped lots of other people.
If you want to make a superior upgrade, you can check other peoples upgrade for similar equipment and see if you can find any other commands that work on your equipment but are not on your OEM remote. You’d be surprised at how often there are features that are not on the OEM remote! The more complete the upgrade, the more useful it is.
A partial upgrade is better than no upgrade at all. If you don't have time to make a complete upgrade, post your work-in-progress. You have the ability to edit/update your own files when you get around to finishing the project. That way if this becomes a low priority project, and you don't get around to finishing it, we still have a starting point.
