Pause Program

[stephen_redford]

Surely the pause message should pause the program commands and the program timer until its closed; and it should allow you to use the railmaster to do other things outside of the program whilst its paused! 

If this is not the case what is the purpose of the command? 

[Chrissaf]

One use of the 'pause' command is to introduce a delay to allow a programmed step to complete before moving on to the next step in the program. This is usually where a 'play sound function' command is issued. If the next step in the program is triggered before the sound function has completely played through, the next program step can potentially be lost and ignored. The same issue arises when under manual control, if you play a long sound function on a sound enabled loco (coal shoveling on a steam loco for instance), then the RM manual advises waiting for the sound to finish before sending a new DCC command to the loco. The 'pause' command is doing the same thing, but in a program.

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This is covered in the RM 1.64 manual on Page 143, but as usual with Hornby documentation is not well explained

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Look under the heading: Programs – points, signals loco operations being ‘missed’

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Remember, that the DCC decoder in the loco will carry on doing its last commanded function until told to do otherwise. Thus, when your RailMaster program has a 'pause' line in it, the locos will not pause, they will continue doing whatever they were last commanded to do. It is only the RM program that is waiting at that line in the program until the pause timer has expired.

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I'm sure that other's here who make extensive use of RM programs (I personally do not) can probably highlight other scenarios where the 'pause' command could be useful.

[Chrissaf]

PS - I should have added, but the post Edit timer expired (a pun).

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The 'pause' command has got nothing to do with pausing the program so that you can nip down to the kitchen and make a cup of tea / coffee, answer the phone / door or divert your attention to making a change to your RM track plan etc.

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In my two replies above. I am assuming that your question relates to a 'pause' command used within a program. If it does not, and it relates to a pause button external from the running program (if there is one that I have never noticed before), then my apologies as I have clearly misunderstood the question.

[stephen_redford]

but you can delay the next command by adjusting the run time. if after closing the pause message the program continued from the next command then your explanation would make sense, but as the timer is still running the next command is the one to be issued depending on how long you leave it before responding. 

So I still think it's an error in the software. The clock should pause when the command is issued and restart on your response. This doesn't mean the whole layout has to stop, the locos should continue as they were before. 

Scenario is where I want to pause a program while I uncouple some carriages before continuing. Uncoupling sometimes takes me a while!

[Chrissaf]

There are a couple of users on this forum who make extensive use of programs in RM. I'm sure, once one or other of them see your post and your follow up clarification they will be able to offer you a satisfactory reply.

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They do normally reply to any post they see with reference to 'program' in the topic title (as your's does), so you shouldn't have to wait too long. If in the meantime your post falls off the first page onto the second, then bump your post to bring it back up the rankings to the top of the forum section.

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It may take some time for them to see the post, so do please be patient and check back often. As I said in my first reply, I personally don't use programs and based my reply on what was written in the RM manual.

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The other thing you could do instead, is ask your question by e-mail directly to the RM software developers HRMS via support@rail-master.com

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If you choose to do that instead, then do please feed back your replies from HRMS back into this thread for the benefit of other's who in the future might be searching for an answer to the same question.

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[stephen_redford]

Thanks chrissaf. I will wait a while and see what happens.

[St1ngr4y]

Hello Stephen,

When I first started with RM programs, I also noticed this about the Pause command in a program. Another thing is that while the message box is being displayed, you can't use the RM main screen to, for example, switch a point or move a loco. I came to the conclusion, a long time ago, that this command is fairly useless. To refresh my memory, I have been searching the latest (1.64 Jan 2016) RM guide, but I can't find a reference to the Pause command, even though it is still available in the software. Maybe the developers have decided that its use is "limited" too.

Ray

[St1ngr4y]

Why is the blue "quote" button not available on the original post?

Ray

[96RAF]

I don't know Ray  - that's one for Adam

 

I've just hit the green reply to this post button in the op and it gives me a blank reply box.

 

Had I wanted to quote from it I would have used the manual copy and paste then 66 icon, this example  by copying that green button

(Reply to this Topic.

 

 

[Chrissaf]

Ray is one of the RM program users I spoke of. Could it be that the 'pause' command is a 'back door' command left over by HRMS to aid development & testing?

[St1ngr4y]

Could be Chris. The thing is, when the command is obeyed, it displays a message box on the screen, with a single "tick" button in it. This is a modal window which means that it retains the focus and nothing else on the RM screen can be clicked - you just get a system sound when you try. As Stephen says, when this command is actioned in a program, the program clock should stop until the "tick" button is pressed. This might not be desirable, of course, if there is a train running at the time. A Railmaster program relies on timings to start and stop trains, so if the clock is stopped while a train is running, the outcome might be disastrous (until LD comes along  😉 of course)

Ray

[Chrissaf]

Ahhh !! that explains things a lot clearer. I did struggle with understanding what was meant by the references to the 'message window' made in original post.

[St1ngr4y]

While on the subject of RM programs (and I apologise in advance for hijacking the OP's thread), I noticed this when developing a program using the editor window. When I develop a program, the sequence of events is:-

Make changes to the program

Save the program

Test the program within the editor

Repeat these three sets of actions until program working satisfactorily.

 

Most of my programs consist of two parts - the first part sets points and signals for the route the train is to take, and the second part runs the train, switching signals as the train passes them.

One day recently, I was in the middle of a program development session, and I had just started the program running in the editor window, when I remembered there was a small tweak to the program which I had forgotten to do. In my haste to stop the program execution before the train started moving, I clicked on the X button instead of the Stop button. This of course closed down the editor window. At that point, I thought that the execution of the program would stop automatically - but no, it carried on. I was left looking at the main RM screen, and each line in the program was being displayed in the usual place when a program runs, albeit without the clock running at the right hand end of the line.

I tried clicking the run program button (which was blue) but it told me there wasn't a program running. I reloaded the program editor, and without even loading up a program, pressed the Stop button, which worked. By this time the train had started to move, so I had to "manually" stop it using the loco's throttle on the main screen.

If no one has had a senior moment like mine and done this, then I'll report it as a possible fault.

Ray

[RB51]

Unfortunately, Ray I have many SM's - but none like your latest - yet! R-

[Chrissaf]

I find lots of applications (nothing to do with rail) fail to take into account user error scenarios. The developers are so focused on the application working correctly when the user is using it correctly, they fail to incorporate software routines to catch issues when the user does something completely unexpected. As per your example, clicking the wrong button by mistake.

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I would have expected RM to come up with a message such as "Do you really want to close the editor as a program is running" or words to that effect.

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Take MS Office for example if you click the X button by mistake in an open document you normally get a popup asking if you want to save changes first (provided that there have been some changes). RM Program editor should, ideally, be no different in that respect.

[St1ngr4y]

To be fair, it does do that if you hit the X button before saving the changes you have made. But you are right, it should intervene if you hit the X button when a program is running.

Ray