Moving a loco up a long loco list

[cowside]

The up and down arrows in the loco settings screen move the loco up or down one place in the list. With a long list a newly added loco at the bottom takes an age to get towards the top (this obviously depends on how you order). It looks as if a row is moved one row up or down in the Access database, and presumably because of computer memory limitations the time to move a loco one place extends the more times it moves. I have found it best to exit Railmaster and start again when the delay gets long - I imagine Access is saving the database so the memory is cleared. Anyone found a quick way to move the loco a number of places in one step? (Has anyone done this by editing the database?)

[Britannia Builder]

The first column in the Access database is called 'Order' and contains a sequence number which is presumably used to display the locos in the chosen order. If you move a loco in position 'n' up one place it will have its Order field changed from n to n-1, and the one that was in position n-1 will be changed to n. The physical rows in the database remain in the sequence in which the locos were originally added.

 

Thus in principle you could reorder the loco list by editing the Order field directly in the database, but unfortunately Microsoft Access doesn't allow the database to be edited - I suspect that Hornby have (quite reasonably) doctored the database in some way to prevent this.

 

Regards, John

[NormanQ4]

@cowside

Why don't you just select the loco in the list and repeatedly click the arrows quickly.

That's what I just did and the loco moves up or down in a flash.

[cowside]

Thank you both. I feared that modifying the Access db might be problematic. I did try clicking the up arrow more than once, but that just seemed to lengthen the time to change. I was also concerned that the Access database might get confused, then fall over and create more problems!