Track colour not matching section colour-
Create track with several Sections, with multiple pieces of track per Section
Click a piece of track in one Section to select it
Copy it to the clipboard
click on the workspace and paste that piece of track [it shows as coloured like the Section it came from]
Drag it and drop it to connect to one of he other Sections
Issue: The colour remains that of the originating Section, not the one it's currently connected to
If you copy and paste track with section info, this section info is copied as well.
If you don't want that, remove the section info first after pasting and before connecting.
David.
I could see that, if you were moving an entire section, but I'm not convinced that it should apply when doing a copy/paste. I think it ought to be handled like other situations and any track that is pasted should acquire the attributes of the section it's connected to. In other words, if you don't have isolators between the piece(s) being connected and the section you're connecting it to, it really should become part of the section you connect it to, including such things as colour, no?
David, this looks like the same bug as I reported you last week. For me it is a bug and not a cosmetic issue.
Sander
It's not a bug, it's on purpose.
What happens is the following: whenever you copy/paste track with section info, a copy of the section info is made. This is very useful if you copy/paste large parts of a layout to another one. You don't want to recreate all the sections if you copy a large station.
Also, when something is pasted, it's quite easy to remove its section info before reconnecting it to existing sections.
When only part of a section is copied and pasted, this approach might seem strange. I agree.
However, making this behavior depend on copy and paste of partial sections seems a bit confusing to me. What do you think?
David.
For me, the name (and color) of a section is owned by a group of railspieces, connected together with isolators on both ends with a certian position in a railsplan. Each single railspiece doesn't own that name (and color). When you copy a part of a section, that part doesn't inherit section proporties.
Compare it with taking some paving-stones from a street and place them in an other street. In that case the streetname is not transferred. The streetname belongs to the position of the street and doesn't relate to the stones, used to make the street.
Sander
Hi All,
I agree that it would be better to have the highlighted track pieces lose the section information when copied, than to retain it. When working on your layout and having to copy many parts of a section and then deleting and creating new sections is time consuming.
It will depend on how easy this is to change in the program code and have other effects.
Yours,
Andrew
It's a tough one 'cause I hear David's point and have actually experienced the need for it to do exactly what it does at the moment. Moving from one version of a layout to the next, and the part I was moving being precisely the track grid for the central station. I've been working on my 13-track big station, and having track lose section information would have been a rather painful exercise had it lost all the information given to it from a copy and paste perspective.
Kimbo, I can agree with you... up to a point. What I mean to say is that the only track that should retain the Section information is an actual Section - i.e. a piece or pieces of track contained by isolators. Any track piece copied out of a section should, since it will have no isolators, take on the attributes of the track piece(s) it's then connected to, just like a piece of track out of a library.
Jeff, a additional remark on your text "an actual Section - i.e. a piece or pieces of track contained by isolators".
As soon as you copy stricktly on the isolators, those isolators will be lost when you paste. I agree with your suggestion, but it only works when you copy the section including one extra piece of rails on both ends.
Sander
Please continue your discussion. It seems that it converges to a perfect functional description!
David.
Santerdam, that's what I thought, too. The fact is that I have copied a section several times and when it connects, the connection has isolator(s), so that the Section is still a Section. Give it a try and you'll see.
Jeff, I tested before I wrote my reaction. I had this testcase :
---|-S-|---
A 3 rails part (not section), next a 3 rails section (S) and an other 3 rails part (not section).
I selected and copied the section (S)
Next I pasted and connected the duplicated section on the right.
On the right side this resulted in a 6 rails section, not 2 parts of 3 rails with an isolator inbetween.
Sander
Some additonal testing shows me :
If you connect a section to a non-section, you don't see an isolator. This makes me think that the isolator is not included in the copy-paste.
If you connect 2 sections, you will see an isolator. This makes me think that the "connection mechanism" automagically adds a new created isolator. This is also true when you manually create 2 sections and connect them - copy-pste not used in this operation.
I assume you have seen this effect in your test.
Sander
Ok, I now understand the difference. I was connecting the copied part to an existing other section, not plain track. If you do that, it will create an isolator to keep the sections apart. If you paste, then connect it to plain track, it will attach the plain track to the section and it will be part of the section you pasted. It took me a few tries to figure out what we were doing differently.
Now, why the two cases have been made different, I'm not sure.
I am sure David is the best person to answer your question. But let me guess : Because you can connect 2 different sections and merging them into 1 single section was not wanted, the AnyRail team decided to create automagically an isolator.
An isolator in AnyRail is a special state of a connection. It is not a physical part and it cannot exist without a connection. You can't go to a shop and buy a box of AR-isolators. As soon as a AR-connection is broken, the isolator is gone in AnyRail.
Sander
Yes, it's obviously a 9th dimensional construct, capable of being there or not, depending on its own rules...
Which are:
1) Connecting non-Section track results in no isolator and the track becomes one section
2) Connecting a Section to a Section creates or calls into existence an Isolator and the two sections remain unique.
Only by invoking The Holy Isolator's 9th dimensionality can you have things both ways at the same time. I look forward to hearing from David on the subject. As you can tell, I don't actually use track as mentioned in Rule #2, since I rarely use sections at all. I'm glad the whole thing is clear, now...
Hmmmmm.........
It does happen. Isolators appear, a reason must be at hand. We will all have fulfillment when the answer is revealed. My son often uses the word "random". There must be a greater logic.
Greg
The current logic when connecting track is as follows:
1. If neither has section info, nothing happens, the track is just connected.
2. If one has section info, and the other hasn't, the track is connected and the section is extended.
3. If both have (different) section info, an isolated connection is inserted.
Copy/paste retains a copy of the section info. However, you probably can't tell the difference between the original and the copy. When connected, their section info is considered different, so rule 3 applies.
My suggestion is as follows:
- Keep copy/paste as it is. However, change the name of the section with an additional counter (e.g. "(2)" ) whenever the section name already exists. This solves both the problem described above, and works as it used to work when copying/pasting between layouts.
- Add a function to remove all section info from the selected track at once.
Would that help?
David.
David, my suggestion to retain the section info only when copying a complete section. A copy of only a part of a section (e.g. single piece of track) shouldn't duplicate the section info.
Most likely I am missing the point of your suggested new function for removing the section info. It looks to me that this function is already available.
Sander
Well, it's not as simple as removing section info from anything being copied to the clipboard, unless it's an entire section (which AR obviously knows). I agree that copying an entire section should result in a difference in section info. IF the section is named, perhaps you could cause AR to pop up a section naming window (with the original name inserted and Selected to facilitate changing it if you want to)? Finally, it would be good to put your 'Rules of Connection' into the manual/Tips forum.
@Sander: 'Remove section' is not available now when multiple sections are selected.
David.
Thanks David, I didn't think of the situation with multiple selection.
Sander
Ditto that. And I agree that it SHOULD be available.
Quote from: santerdam on April 14, 2010, 01:37:04 PM
David, my suggestion to retain the section info only when copying a complete section. A copy of only a part of a section (e.g. single piece of track) shouldn't duplicate the section info.
David, can I have your reaction on this suggestion ?
Sander
Hi Sander, yes that seems reasonable. Still, my main fear is that things get terribly unclear to a user when sometimes it does copy the section info, while at other times it doesn't. Hence the idea to rename the section to make it very clear what happened. Combined with a quick way to remove all section info, it should suit most.
David.