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AHANIX iMon Universal IR Remote Control System
April 1st, 2004
Author: Tekime
Ahanix iMon Review - Configuration
The iMon Remote Control System lets us configure more than just the supported applications. Out of
the box, the iMon is configured to handle some of the most common Windows applications, such as PowerDVD,
Windows Media Player, WinAmp, and PowerPoint.
The real power comes with configuring our own applications. Even better, an application doesn't require
iMon or IR support, as long as you know the application's keyboard shortcuts for the commands you
want to access we can set them up for control via the iMon Setup program. Starting with the
Program CMD tab we can begin adding and configuring whatever applications we want to.
At the top of the screen we can define new applications and remove existing applications from the
iMon setup program. You can change key/shortcut associations by selecting the respective application
and defining your shortcuts directly below.
Not only can you configure your own applications, but you can export your settings for other iMon
users! This is a great addition since you can now share your configurations with other users, and
save yourself time by using configurations that have already been created and tested.
The next tab in the iMon Setup screen is Windows CMD. This is where we configure the Windows-specific
buttons on the iMon remote.
HTPC users might not care about a lot of these, and you must disable them
in order to assign them to other programs. For your average user who wants to use the remote for
total PC control, these are best left untouched.
The Windows CMD screen doesn't let us create new Windows-specific commands, but we can
move on to the next tab to do this: Customized Windows CMD.
The Customized Windows CMD screen is pretty straight forward. Like the Program CMD
tab we can define new associations for our iMon Windows buttons here. For even more Windows
functionality, next we see the Macro tab.
If you want to execute a series of commands via a Macro, you can create new button associations here
to do just that. Creating associations is pretty much identical to the other screens. Finally, we have
the Launcher tab.
The Application Launcher provides quick access to your favorite applications at the touch of
a button. This screen lets you define what applications you want shown when you select the application
launcher button on the iMon. When you press the Application Launcher button on the iMon, a list of
your applications is displayed as shown:
The icon on the far left launches the Virtual Keyboard, at which point you will see an on-screen
keyboard. This is basically the same as typing text into a phone, except it was a real pain to
skip to the next letter. I wouldn't plan on writing any books with this little feature.
As you can see the iMon Setup program gives us a lot of flexibility. The iMon provides a lot of
control over your entire PC, as opposed to restricting itself to media/HTPC systems. This is great
in my opinion, because HTPC users can just disable the Windows-centric stuff and get a ton of
functionality out of the remote. The rest of us can enjoy the fact that we now have a supreme level
of control over our computers.
Realistically though, if I want to type something I'll use my keyboard. If I want to browse the web
I will use my mouse. So what benefit does the iMon offer to normal PC users? Let's move on and put
the iMon to some use, and see why I enjoyed using this device so much.
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