Programming a T1-B+ in Integration Designer APEX

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1 Programming a T1-B+ in Integration Designer APEX OVERVIEW: Programming a T1-B+ in APEX is different than in Integration Designer 9.x. The auto-programming of APEX and mapping commands to tags allows for a more automated approach versus the old method of dragging and dropping codes from IR, RS-232 and driver libraries. Getting Started Start by opening APEX and creating a new file. When the system prompts you, select an XP-6 processor which will be added in the Global area. Next, add a room (in this case a Den ) from the Rooms tab. Next, select the Controllers tab, and while making sure the Den is selected, add a T1-B+ controller. When the add workspace feature pops up, be sure to uncheck the page creation. No need to create a home page. 1 P age

2 Adding Devices Now we will add our devices. For this example, we will add 4 source devices, a receiver, and a TV. Under drivers, we will add a Sony TV (All Models) and a Yamaha Receiver (Main Zone) to the Den. For demonstration purposes, we will not add pages for these devices as we will not give the client any control of them. However, this is just a good habit to get it into because in the case of the T1-B+ it will not make a difference. Pages are not added this way for hard-button-only based controllers like the T1-B+. Make sure when adding the Yamaha driver, you check the Set as room audio source option. This will ensure that every device will use the Yamaha receiver for audio. 2 P age

3 Let s finish up our drivers by adding a Roku driver. We can create pages for this device, but it will not really matter because this is not where pages are created for the T1-B+. This will be evident later. The rest of our sources will be IR devices. We will add the following devices: Cisco RNG Series Code Group 1 Cable Box Sony Blu-Ray Most Models Apple TV Media Manager Be sure to assign an IR port for each of the three IR devices: 3 P age

4 After you add the last device, close the Add Workspace Item window. Your Workspace tree should look like this: I always like to rename my IR and driver libraries to a simplified name. In addition, for the devices I am using, I like to sort them by dragging them to the right order in the tree as they appear in the remote. In this case, CABLE, BLU-RAY, APPLE TV and ROKU should be named and sorted. 4 P age

5 Next, configure the drivers you have added. You will need to set the IP addresses, control method, and in the Roku driver, the player name and serial or IP address depending on how you are controlling it. You can also create some channel presets that the Roku can auto-launch. Simply select the driver and click Driver Properties in the Driver Configuration window. The driver settings will allow you to adjust the various parameters. Now comes the critical part of setting our controller properties, which will create the pages we need. Click on the T1-B+ in the workspace tree and then click Properties. You will see a familiar settings dialog with some tabbed options. 5 P age

6 T1B+ Properties General You can adjust the Power Down Time default setting from 10 seconds to a larger value to ensure the client doesn t have the remote shut off during a session. Backlight Adjust the controller backlight levels based on how bright you want it to be. Output Set the default output mode and two-way options. Flag Names If you know in advance any flag names you wish to place on the controller, not the processor, you may add them here. Notes General description of the system, the client or any other things you want to document. The next tab we will focus on is the Key Labels tab. These will match the labels and order in which they are placed on the T1-B+. Source 1 will be the button on the top row to the left. The choices in the list match the key labels included in the box with the T1-B+ remote. If you are using custom keys created using the LaserShark service, choose a similar label. The customer will not see these names, but it will serve a guideline on the controller for button placement and programming. For now, we will skip over the Source Setup tab. This tab is useful if you have already set up your devices and want to easily change the target source for any key. For example, if the client wanted to change the order of the sources on the remote after it had already been programmed you could do it here. More on this later. 6 P age

7 Creating Pages Let s create the pages for our interfaces. Click on the CABLE source, and select Add Blank Page under source configuration. You will see a Select page to add popup. Click OK and it will add the page and auto-program it with all the associated control macros. Continue to the next source device and add a blank page. APEX will count the sources numerically as you add them, so be sure to follow the same order as your button order. After you enter in all your devices, each device will have an associated source page. Each source page will have the control codes auto-programmed for the IR device. Based on the order you entered the sources, APEX will also tag the top row activity buttons on the remote. 7 P age

8 At this point you should perform any additional tag maintenance. Make sure you populate any missing commands and make sure you tag your buttons as needed and create necessary source macros. Once you are finished you are ready to create activity macros. Select the activity device button for CABLE, and right click and create a room macro. This button is already tagged for you. Create your room macro as needed on the cable activity button: 8 P age

9 Once you have finished your CABLE macro, copy it to the tags that represent the other activity macros in your system file. Once all four source macros have been completed, go to the first source, in this case the CABLE interface, and right click on the activity button. Select Add Tag to All Pages which will insure the cable activity macro will be available on every source page. Repeat for each activity button. Once you have completed adding tags to all pages, the only macro you need to create is on the Power button if you choose to make that your controller POWER OFF. Since that button will be tagged POWER by default and house each source s power command, you must rename the tag. Select the dropdown menu and set it to Activity: Power Off. You may have recalled that we set up a power off page when we added our code sets. This page was only added for generating the power off tag. 9 P age

10 Once the tag has been set, program a room macro to turn the system off. Then, make sure to right click on the button and Add Tag to All Pages just like the activity buttons. This will ensure the power off button can be accessed on every page. At this point, you have a completely programmed system. You can continue to perform any maintenance, relabeling, or extra functionality. Swapping Sources A great feature which has been added to APEX is you can easily swap the source devices by selecting the T1B+ controller properties and selecting the Source Setup and changing the order of any of the Source keys. For example, if you want the CABLE device to switch from source #1 to source #4, you can swap them by simply changing them on the Source Setup tab. Additional information and training materials can be found on the RTI dealer website. 10 P age