Elvas Tower: "New" Trackviewer.... - Elvas Tower

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"New" Trackviewer.... Rate Topic: -----

#11 User is offline   conductorchris 

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Posted 27 December 2021 - 04:02 PM

This is terrific. A big thank you for taking this on.

I know you are just getting into it, and everything is accomplished step-by-step. Nevertheless, here is something I've been thinking:

Activities that can call consists or make loose consists at random from a list of possibilities would be terrific and would let one come back to that activity over and over. I know that altering consists runs the risk of monkeying up the carefully planned activity timing and working. But that is how the real railroad is. Having built in functionality to change the static consists according to template logic (ie, a list of cars that would be appropriate to ship or receive at each siding) would allow one to have endless variety in activities that involve switching. And even for eye-candy when running.

Christopher

#12 User is offline   Amtrak115 

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Posted 27 December 2021 - 07:41 PM

 Genma Saotome, on 27 December 2021 - 11:42 AM, said:

For myself, I've advocated moving subsets of sprite text somewhere else and then move the text that so that only activity relevant sprites appear. For example, if sprite text is placed on every industrial spur you would only want to see those sprites where you are spotting or picking up cars.


Dave, when you say "sprite text", your talking about track/spur labels that can be enabled through some push of the button. Is this a route editing function currently or you advocating these texts to be part of an activity file stream....

Barry

#13 User is offline   Amtrak115 

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Posted 27 December 2021 - 07:47 PM

 conductorchris, on 27 December 2021 - 04:02 PM, said:

Activities that can call consists or make loose consists at random from a list of possibilities would be terrific and would let one come back to that activity over and over. I know that altering consists runs the risk of monkeying up the carefully planned activity timing and working. But that is how the real railroad is. Having built in functionality to change the static consists according to template logic (ie, a list of cars that would be appropriate to ship or receive at each siding) would allow one to have endless variety in activities that involve switching. And even for eye-candy when running.

Christopher


so what your saying is supplying an activity file with an ..... I'm going to call it an "include" file (not a good name), which contains a list of sidings and cars to be spotted on the siding. Is this what you thinking....

#14 User is offline   Genma Saotome 

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Posted 27 December 2021 - 11:45 PM

 Amtrak115, on 27 December 2021 - 07:41 PM, said:

Dave, when you say "sprite text", your talking about track/spur labels that can be enabled through some push of the button. Is this a route editing function currently or you advocating these texts to be part of an activity file stream....

Barry


AFAIK the idea behind displayed sprites was to identify sidings, perhaps stations too, but they could be used to identify industrial spurs or even specific spots (e.g., Door 3) or hey, grade change 1 mile ahead. Pretty much whatever your imagination can come up with. The problem with them they are all shown when you toggle the display sequence. If you use them at every possible industry you've probably got far too many showing and the ONE you need to see is not going to be immediately obvious. OTOH if we could pull out the ONE we need at attach it somehow to the activity that uses it when you roll into town it will be the only sprite(s) you see -- just what you need.

I think its a very sensible idea but there is the matter of finding the sprite you want and somehow indicating that it is what you want. IF said indication is held in the world file then I suppose the world editor would need to know what the codes mean. OTOH it seems more practical to me that given the "trackviewer" program can see these data it might be possible to select the ones you need and save them in a new file. And it doesn't need to be just industry spots... if you think about it you don't need to see the siding name of anything other than the siding you need to enter and wait so those too could be copied into a new file. The OR software would need to be changed to look at this new file when sprite text is toggled on. I've no idea how difficult that sort of change would be and then of course is the transition between old activities and new ones so somewhere there is a need to set an option to use the new approach this time and the original method the other time, etc., etc.

Do you know ER diagram notation?

#15 User is offline   Genma Saotome 

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Posted 28 December 2021 - 12:00 AM

 Amtrak115, on 27 December 2021 - 07:47 PM, said:

so what your saying is supplying an activity file with an ..... I'm going to call it an "include" file (not a good name), which contains a list of sidings and cars to be spotted on the siding. Is this what you thinking....


No. The data model is complex; Car initials and serial numbers belong in the .wag files and they need to appear above the cars; Sprite text locations belong in the world file. Which sprites you want to display within an activity belongs in a new type of activity file, probably best if it something new. What cars to drop or pickup (the waybill concept) AFAIK are handled in instructions in the existing activity files, which might be good enough, but i've given no thought to that issue. A thoughtful design might pull those out and put them somewhere else... or leave them where they are. I really don't know.

Is that more clear?

#16 User is offline   Genma Saotome 

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Posted 28 December 2021 - 12:02 AM

Something else to consider: Does it make sense for the activity design to specify sprite text color and perhaps even its LOD? I don't know if it is technically feasible but there could be merit there.

#17 User is offline   Amtrak115 

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Posted 28 December 2021 - 01:22 PM

 Genma Saotome, on 27 December 2021 - 11:45 PM, said:

Do you know ER diagram notation?


yes, but it's been awhile....

Barry

#18 User is offline   Amtrak115 

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Posted 28 December 2021 - 01:26 PM

I haven't got into the activity design yet. but while working on Trackviewer, my mind goes to all the possibilities...and occasionally I'll look at how OR handles activity files etc. while thinking about where I'm going with Trackview...

Anyway....All the ideas have been noted. and added to my "whatif" list....

Barry

#19 User is offline   Weter 

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Posted 28 December 2021 - 06:02 PM

Hello, Barry.
Do you mind, if I ask a "silly"question?
Every testing release contains "dummy" Activity Editor, which is out of useful function.
They say: "it's well on progress".
So, You can guess, what I would ask ;)
(hint: contributed track viewer seemes to me self-enough already)

#20 User is offline   conductorchris 

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Posted 28 December 2021 - 06:43 PM

Barry, I actually think the include model is a good one for activities. Even better if you could randomly pick from a list of possible includes.
But I know Ryan has been thinking a lot about new file formats and has been leaning to JSON.

Christopher

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