RDS Posted November 25, 2013 Author Share Posted November 25, 2013 @St1ngr4y Ray Further to your comment above (and my answer) re the 'Stop the Program' icon, I have noticed that when RailMaster is first loaded and until a program has been run completely, that hovering over the icon correctly displays 'Run the Program'. It is only after a program has been run that it then always incorrectly shows 'Stop the Program'. It then remains incorrect until RailMaster is closed down and re-started. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
St1ngr4y Posted December 2, 2013 Share Posted December 2, 2013 In another thread I have described a method of running a chosen program at RM Startup. This means there are three different ways of configuring RM:- 1. The System Settings window 2. The Railmaster.ini file 3. By a command line parameter. Could not categories 2 and 3 be merged with category 1 so that all of the settings are accessed in a similar way? Ray Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MetmanUK Posted December 2, 2013 Share Posted December 2, 2013 St1ngr4y said: In another thread I have described a method of running a chosen program at RM Startup. This means there are three different ways of configuring RM:- 1. The System Settings window 2. The Railmaster.ini file 3. By a command line parameter. Could not categories 2 and 3 be merged with category 1 so that all of the settings are accessed in a similar way? Ray My guess is that the settings in 1 are stored in 2 (or should be!) so the latter gives a quicker way of developing 'programs'. Option 3 gives flexibility of when/how to run 'programs'. Therefore I think all 3 should be retained. Sorry to disagree! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
St1ngr4y Posted December 2, 2013 Share Posted December 2, 2013 MetmanUK said: My guess is that the settings in 1 are stored in 2 (or should be!) so the latter gives a quicker way of developing 'programs'. Option 3 gives flexibility of when/how to run 'programs'. Therefore I think all 3 should be retained. Sorry to disagree! I think your guess is wrong - none of the items in System Settings are in the .ini file nor vice versa. There is an entry in System Settings to specify the name of the layout to load up at start, so why can't the program to be run at start be in there too. Ray Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RDS Posted December 2, 2013 Author Share Posted December 2, 2013 @St1ngr4y I agree with you. To me the settings window is the obvious place to have this, using a drop down box, similar as you say to the start up layout. This could also be left blank for those who do not want to use the feature. We have already asked higher up this thread for the start-up zoom level to be included on the settings window and I am hopeful that this is already being addressed by the Hornby RailMaster team in a future update. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
St1ngr4y Posted December 2, 2013 Share Posted December 2, 2013 @RDS Ok, I'll start with this one... It's good that when designing your layout, you can assign default positions for each point and signal, and that you have the choice of having RM fire each point or set each signal when the layout is loaded. However, I have about 45 points and 24 signals on my layout, and I found that allowing RM to set them all to their start values was taking a long time. I was wondering if it would be possible to leave blank the start values of those items you want to omit from the startup routine. For example, you may find it unnecessary to set all of the points in a fiddle yard, but desirable to set all of the points on the main line. In this way, the setting of your chosen items at startup would take less time to complete. Having set startup values on all of my points when I designed the layout, I tried to blank some of them, but the layout designer (currently) won't let you do this. Ray Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RDS Posted December 4, 2013 Author Share Posted December 4, 2013 The points icons in v1.54 now have arrows, pointing Left & Right and this is to aid those people, (myself included) that suffer from Colour Blindness. However, when selecting the Layout Designer screen, one of the options down the Left hand Side is an Icon marked 'Add Point Control Button and other Functions'. This icon shows a picture of the points icons. Even with a Red / Green colour blindness problem, I can easily see the difference and identify the colours. When the Points icons are selected and positioned on the screen, they then become completely different colours, which to me are nothing at all like the colours used on the Left Hand Side and certainly do not look like Red & Green any more. Could the colours on the Layout be the same as the colours on the icon please. Also, the arrows seem a reasonable idea when the point is shown in a vertical piece of track but when the point is horizontal, the arrows seem to me to point in the wrong direction, by 90 degrees. Or I have I misunderstood the purpose of them? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
St1ngr4y Posted December 4, 2013 Share Posted December 4, 2013 RDS said: The points icons in v1.54 now have arrows, pointing Left & Right and this is to aid those people, (myself included) that suffer from Colour Blindness. Maybe this is another argument for at least making these buttons optional. Ray Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HornbyRailMasterSupport Posted December 4, 2013 Share Posted December 4, 2013 The red and green point control buttons cannot be made optional in favour of just pressing the point itself. Only allowing toggling of a point is not a good idea as users may wish to switch a point in a particular direction if it is a( sticky or b) if they are not sure they pressed it in the first place. The red/green, left/right functions also follow in the programming system and through the hand-held devices. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RDS Posted December 4, 2013 Author Share Posted December 4, 2013 @HornbyRailMasterSupport Thank you for your comments. Do you have a view on my comment earlier today regarding the very dark colours chosen for the point buttons compared to the nice bright Red / Green displayed on the Design screen icons. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
St1ngr4y Posted December 4, 2013 Share Posted December 4, 2013 HornbyRailMasterSupport said: The red and green point control buttons cannot be made optional in favour of just pressing the point itself. Why not? If a user looks at the blue indicator, they will know which way the point is switched. Incidentally, if & when diagonal points are introduced, where will the red/green buttons 'snap' to? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
St1ngr4y Posted December 4, 2013 Share Posted December 4, 2013 HornbyRailMasterSupport said: Only allowing toggling of a point is not a good idea as users may wish to switch a point in a particular direction if it is a( sticky or b) if they are not sure they pressed it in the first place. The red/green, left/right functions also follow in the programming system and through the hand-held devices. This is why the word 'optional' was used. Those people who prefer the red/green buttons could OPT to use them for the reasons (a) and (b) you give. Then those who would prefer to click the point itself to toggle it could OPT to do without the buttons. Could you clarify the final sentence please - I don't understand it. Ray Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RDS Posted December 9, 2013 Author Share Posted December 9, 2013 Please always use a unique version number for a change to the RailMaster software. Even the smallest of changes MUST have a new number. For example, there are (at least?) 2 different versions of the software, both carrying the version number of 1.54. In this instance, the user may not know which version they have loaded and the RailMaster software is unable to prompt the user to update. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
St1ngr4y Posted December 9, 2013 Share Posted December 9, 2013 When a Help Request is issued through Railmaster itself, can a unique reference number be allocated to it please? This way, if no resolution has been forthcoming after a reasonable amount of time, the user can request an update via email quoting this reference number. Ray Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
walkingthedog Posted December 9, 2013 Share Posted December 9, 2013 St1ngr4y said: Why not? If a user looks at the blue indicator, they will know which way the point is switched. Incidentally, if & when diagonal points are introduced, where will the red/green buttons 'snap' to? They're saying the red and green are part of the programming system so can't be changed without affecting the whole programme. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
St1ngr4y Posted December 9, 2013 Share Posted December 9, 2013 walkingthedog said: They're saying the red and green are part of the programming system so can't be changed without affecting the whole programme. What do you mean by the 'programming system'? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
walkingthedog Posted December 9, 2013 Share Posted December 9, 2013 I took it to mean an integral part of the programme. Think I'll go before I get out of my depth. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
St1ngr4y Posted December 9, 2013 Share Posted December 9, 2013 I agree it could be a hefty change to the program, but I'm sure not an impossible one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
walkingthedog Posted December 9, 2013 Share Posted December 9, 2013 I couldn't programme anything but if you think it can be done suggest how. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
St1ngr4y Posted December 9, 2013 Share Posted December 9, 2013 OK you asked for it... What is being suggested is to use the point icona themselves in the Layout Designer to configure the points i.e set their addresses, decoder types, default settings, routes etc., and to make the red/green buttons optional extras for actually switching the points when they appear on the main screen. The program code to do the configuration is already there - it is called when you right click a red/green button. All they need to do is call this code when you right-click the point icon. The .pln file which is used to hold your designed layout may need changing if there are two records, one for the buttons and one for the point, to store the configuration information in the other one. All of the points except the Y points, are already capable of being switched by clicking on the point itself rather than the red/green buttons. This feature simply need to be extended to include the Y points too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
walkingthedog Posted December 9, 2013 Share Posted December 9, 2013 I did didn't I. Now tell Hornby. I am not worthy stingray. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
96RAF Posted December 10, 2013 Share Posted December 10, 2013 St1ngr4y said: OK you asked for it... What is being suggested is to use the point icona themselves in the Layout Designer to configure the points i.e set their addresses, decoder types, default settings, routes etc., and to make the red/green buttons optional extras for actually switching the points when they appear on the main screen. The program code to do the configuration is already there - it is called when you right click a red/green button. All they need to do is call this code when you right-click the point icon. The .pln file which is used to hold your designed layout may need changing if there are two records, one for the buttons and one for the point, to store the configuration information in the other one. All of the points except the Y points, are already capable of being switched by clicking on the point itself rather than the red/green buttons. This feature simply need to be extended to include the Y points too. I agree with S'R4y it is all fairly simple. Here is an example extracted from something I worked on a while ago: Essentially you define a point (T1 et seq), its type (L or R), angle (0, +/-45 or 90) and position on the plan (grid x,y), then its addressing states (0 or 1). If state-0 then send dcc signal to that acc decoder address, value or if state-1 then send it to the other port. After that it is as easy to link what the the lights/signals do to match those states. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
96RAF Posted December 10, 2013 Share Posted December 10, 2013 Oops it didn't paste the extract properly. It should show this: etc, etc Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
96RAF Posted December 10, 2013 Share Posted December 10, 2013 Obviously forum admin has set it up so code is prohibited - sorry admin. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
96RAF Posted December 10, 2013 Share Posted December 10, 2013 Lets try it in simplified plain text Turnouts T1 pointright45 rotation is 0 gridx is 3 gridy is 5 state state-id is 1 accessory system-id is dcc address is 1 value is 1 end of that state state state-id is 0 accessory system-id is dcc address is 1 value is 2 end of that state end of that pointright45 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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