[cjakeman]

 Aldarion, on 16 January 2022 - 03:30 AM, said:

I change it quite often. I usually have it on when I'm driving for fun. But most time I have it turned of when I'm developing and testing rolling stock or capturing videos for youtube I will definetly have it off.

Are we talking about the same thing here, Rui?

Do you really turn off logging when "developing and testing rolling stock"? If so, then why do you do that?

[steved]

I think he's talking about the windowed option.

[cjakeman]

And so, after 252 posts, at last we come to the end of this analysis, though perhaps the most critical discussions are still to be had.

I'm thinking of making changes step by step as follows.
We now have a consensus on many of these changes but some will need further discussion here.

• revise text in Manual and labels in Menu.exe
• remove redundant options from code and Manual
• add help icons to options
• change sense of controls
• change defaults to meet aim of highest quality graphics (e.g. Dynamic Shadows) and simplest behaviour
• use better ways to handle some awkward options
• re-organise tabs
• consider adding controls for "Activity options override user's" and "Route options override user's"
• consider adding sliders for groups of controls

In more detail:

2:. Remove redundant options from code and Manual
We have consensus on the following options, which will be removed:

• Options > Audio > MSTS Bin compatible sound
• Options > Video > Fast full-screen alt-tab
• Options > Video > % cab 2D stretch
• Options > Curve dependent resistance
• Options > Tunnel dependent resistance
• Options > Wind dependent resistance
• Options > Experimental > Extend object maximum viewing distance to horizon
• Options > Experimental > ECTS circular speed gauge
• Options > Experimental > Load day/night textures only when needed
• Options > General > Map window
• Options > General > Large address-aware binaries
• Options > General > Enable web server
• Menu > Debrief evaluation

There are others which which could potentially be removed. They could be hidden first so we can see whether that gives rise to any push-back.

• Options > Curve dependent speed warning
• Options > Experimental > Precipitation box size

4. Change sense of controls
Changes presentation only, the default and user's current settings are unaffected.

• change sense where a checkbox has a double negative. E.g. "Suppress control confirmations" => "Show control confirmations"
• change sense of any inconsistent controls from basic to advanced, low to high, legacy to current

6: Use better ways to handle some awkward options
These may be replaced by in-game prompts, warning in the log file or new parameters

• Open/close doors on AI trains
• Location-based passing path processing
• Adhesion controls
• Run electric locos on non-electrified routes
• Options > Experimental > Show shape warnings
• Options > General > Retainer valve on all cars
• Options > General > Graduated release air brakes
• Options > General > Brake-pipe charging rate

7. Re-organise tabs

• remove Experimental and Update tabs
• discuss better arrangements for other tabs

9. Consider adding sliders for groups of controls.
As agreed, these would not remove access to individual controls but provide a convenient way to try adjusting multiple controls at once.For example:

• audio-visual from low-spec to high-spec
• behaviour from basic to advanced
• compatibility from current to legacy

[cjakeman]

 Weter, on 16 January 2022 - 09:02 AM, said:

Hello, Chris.
Maybe, this would be a good time to repeat that wish about buttons and fields size/or font size for translated text to fit in.

Good point.
Can we discuss this via a PM, please?


Something I forgot to put on my long list is a button on each Options Tab for "Reset to defaults".


P.S. If you think I've made any mistakes in compiling the list of work from all these posts, please say so.

[Genma Saotome]

Weter makes a useful point... font size. A switch to 4k monitors at native resolution reduces all app windows to just 25% of the visual area of the old 2k displays. Any chance of an alternate for the initial window size and font size? Ditto where feasible elsewhere, such as function text in the black bar. Hold the choice made in the registry so it can be used before displaying anything. All us old guys using modern monitors will be thankful.

[steved]

CTRL + wheel up.

[cjakeman]

 Genma Saotome, on 16 January 2022 - 01:10 PM, said:

Any chance of an alternate for the initial window size and font size? All us old guys using modern monitors will be thankful.

Very good point.

I don't think it's part of this Menu Options project, but definitely worth doing. I've added a card for this to the Open Rails roadmap.

[Eldorado.Railroad]

I have read the whole thread.

For us "old people" having a "resizeable" menu window would be most welcome. I have a higher than average DPI setting for my screens as I cannot read "grain of sand" fonts. But when I do this, the OR menu window barely fits on my screen. Having scroll bars for the menu window would solve that.

Please either make the watchdog timer an option, and as an option allow the user to set the maximum time. In my experience the watchdog timer created more problems than it solved. I think Carlo's Monogame has dispensed with it altogether. Over the years with my work on microcontrollers, watchdog timers were important for certain functions, but OR is not a critical, life threatening piece of software! If OR hangs, kill it in the task manager or reboot. No drama.


Over the years I have tried to complete a utility that purposefully turns dynamic shadows off/on for specific shapes. Notably turn them off for vegetation as these are performance killers. I had a working version that parsed an individual world file and set the static flags according to certain criteria. However it was based on using a text editor to do some of the grunt work. The performance was rather pathetic. If the world files were ASCII as opposed to unicode (yes I can convert back and forth!) it would have made the task simpler and much quicker. I have some code that I have not looked at in several years that did this without the crutch of an external program. But it has not been completed, and it is VERY tedious to debug across multiple world (100s) files. I would be so very very nice if OR would read the .ref file and if present turn dynamic shadows off/on for any given route shape instead. The "shadow all shapes" feature is a nice "shunting" of a rather tedious problem, but doing so kills performance and also creates some rather odd visual artifacts.

Given the "unsolvable" memory issues in the current versions of OR, it would be nice to have a button, to clear and reload shapefile/texture data. Yes, brute force and blunt, but would at least free up memory and not crash.

As noted on the first line, I read the whole thread. Bravo to all who put their thoughts and minds to this endeavor. Thank you. This thread started many months ago.

Steve

[steved]

"but OR is not a critical, life threatening piece of software"

I beg your pardon.

Randy

[Genma Saotome]

 Eldorado.Railroad, on 17 January 2022 - 08:46 AM, said:

Over the years I have tried to complete a utility that purposefully turns dynamic shadows off/on for specific shapes. Notably turn them off for vegetation as these are performance killers. I had a working version that parsed an individual world file and set the static flags according to certain criteria. However it was based on using a text editor to do some of the grunt work. The performance was rather pathetic. If the world files were ASCII as opposed to unicode (yes I can convert back and forth!) it would have made the task simpler and much quicker. I have some code that I have not looked at in several years that did this without the crutch of an external program. But it has not been completed, and it is VERY tedious to debug across multiple world (100s) files. I would be so very very nice if OR would read the .ref file and if present turn dynamic shadows off/on for any given route shape instead. The "shadow all shapes" feature is a nice "shunting" of a rather tedious problem, but doing so kills performance and also creates some rather odd visual artifacts.

Steve

Steve's suggestion of using the .ref file is good; I know the shadow information is stored in the world file but what can one do if you change your mind about something? An edit to the .ref file is easy. Changing the shadow instructions for each instance in all of the world files isn't. A corner case perhaps but still a useful change.