[R H Steele]

This is something that struck me when I used Vx1720. The car numbers were spaced up into the sky - much easier to see, but still a cumbersome solution ... for a fact better than crowding them all together so it is an illegible mess. I don't know if an elegant solution can be found. In OR and MSTS F7 shows ALL the car numbers not just the ones you are interested in. Suppose I was interested in car numbers 32817 - 0 to 5 AND there was some way to enter 32817 into OR and then activate F7 which then shows only cars associated with 32817 - no other car numbers appear. I certainly don't know if this is possible - from a programming point of view .. it might prove too difficult. Of course this is not a feature of msts, however, when OR moves into it's own phase (new file types, toolset, support for entirely new OR content) then it might be something to add. Any thoughts ... am I asking too much?? Just daydreaming, rhs

[James Ross]

One idea that's come up before is to have it toggle between all car labels and only those which are listed in the current activity (e.g. in work orders). Another idea is to give it a mode where it only labels the train (so just 1 label per consist).

[thegrindre]

Actually, I see no reason to 'lite' up all numbers. :pardon:
Only displaying the ones in the Work Orders would be sufficient, IMO. ;)

:oldstry:

[Genma Saotome]

If we add some new fields to a future .wag, .eng, and activity files we could capture and display things like the locomotive number, car initials and numbers, lading, consignee, and perhaps weight. With such data in hand it would be obvious that not all should be displayed at once which would lead to figuring out what made sense to show under which conditions. We're not there yet... in part because of priorities, in part because adding new data to files presents a variety of issues, incompatibility w/ MSTS being just one, and in part because there are not many programmers right now working on OR.

Phases 1.01 thru 1.99 are expected to be largely about Activities, leading ultimately to a new Activity editor. One of my hopes for features in that period is to figure out how to limit the display of sprite text to just the text useful to each activity rather than display everything that's recorded in the world files. Creating that feature set might present an opportunity to address other text display issues as well.

[James Ross]

We should be able to limit the display to just activity-relevant labels today, if someone wants to code it. Obviously additions to the data files would enhance the options though.

Also, what are your outstanding issues with text display?

[R H Steele]

Interesting information. I assumed this was being looked at, especially when I saw the changes in the newest OR release. Eventually with enough input I'm sure the team will arrive at the best solution. One thought, just showing the numbers of those consists associated with the current working activity is fine, but sometimes in complex activities there are quite a few consists together...hard to separate the numbers, not impossible just difficult. Will keep watching the releases for developments. Thanks, rhs (aka gerry)