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Version 6.8

Started by David, July 14, 2017, 11:05:59 AM

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David

Hi all!

The July update has quite a few things that might interest you.

* Although we always felt that side rulers would take up too much space, we've now added them, but as an option.
To activate them, go to FILE/Options/General, and check the boxes.

* On the forum, there's been some discussion on the alerts for too tight curves for flex track. There only was one setting, while some people require multiple radii for different kinds of track.
Now, up to three radii can be set, in increasing order. The tightest will be colored red, then orange, then yellow.

* Another forum discussion involved the rulers, that become near invisible when zooming out. Now, the line width can be set, and a color. On top of that, when zooming out, a minimum size for the text, and a minimum width for the lines is maintained.

* When using the 'Show pages' function (from the SHOW tab), it was annoying that the view scale was applied to show how the layout would be printed spanning multiple pages. Now, the print settings are used for that.

* In the 'Layers' pane, now layers can be made (in)visible and locked en block. Just click the lightbulb or the padlock above the columns.

* Lines can now be dashed.

* The N Finetrax library has been updated.


* A few bugs regarding downloading user objects have been solved.

Enjoy!

David.

David Hoogvorst. Founder and Owner of DRail Software. Creator of AnyRail.

Mike from CT

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Bob Bryce

#2
Thank you, thank you, thank you, THANK YOU!  :)

The pages feature is exactly what I needed.  The minimum radius feature is also a great work around for a complicated task.  I just need to remember not to use those colors on a section of track!  ;D

I only tried the layer feature quickly before leaving for work, but I was a little confused with it.  If I have 12 layers for a layout and only have 8 of them turned on and wish to see all the layers to check for problems, selecting the light bulb turns on all 12 layers, which is really nice for quickly seeing all the layers without having to turn each one on.

My confusion is that once you do this, clicking the light bulb at the top again does not restore you back to the 8 layers that were originally turned on, but it turns all the layers off except for the active layer.  It seems you need to go back and manually turn on all the layers you had on before that.  One work around is that instead of clicking on the light bulb to turn the layers off, you can click on the "Back" button to undo the command to turn on all the layers, which works, provided you don't do any other operations before going "Back", or they will be lost when going back to the original layer configuration.

Am I using this correctly? ???

TrainzLuvr

The rulers and multiple flex radii are great improvements.

Thank you !!!
Website: Trains Luvr
YouTube channel: Trainz Luvr

David

Hi Bob,

You are using it correctly. What you can do though is use 'Undo' to set the visible layers back to what they were.
David Hoogvorst. Founder and Owner of DRail Software. Creator of AnyRail.

Bob Bryce

#5
That's sort of what I was doing, and it will work fine for most of the time.  I obviously work with a lot of layers on my plan, probably because of the way I use my CADD program to design buildings. 

My CADD program (VersaCAD) has a similar feature where you can have a number of layers turned on, and by selecting "ALL LAYERS", it turns on all the layers so you can either see the information on all the other layers or you can work on the other layers as well.  This is very helpful if you need to make adjustments on some of the other layers or even if you need to move EVERYTHING on the plan at the same time in one operation.

When you are finished and wish to go back to just seeing the layers that were turned off before, you turn off the ALL LAYERS feature, it turns off all the layers that were not on before, leaving only the layers turned on that were visible before selecting ALL LAYERS.

Selecting UNDO will return you to the same place you were, but also undo's any work you do while all the layers are turned on. 

With the new feature in Anyrail, you would turn on all the layers, write down what I need to fix and identify which layers those problems are located on, do the "UNDO", and go from there.  As they say in Maine, "You can get thar from thar", but it is not quite as easy. 

Looking at Anyrail and VersaCAD, it looks like if there were two columns of light bulbs, the first column for ALL LAYERS and the second column for SELECTED LAYERS, you could turn on the layers you wish to view and work on and if you wish to see all the layers, the entire first column of light bulbs would be turned on, and when you are finished, the entire first column of light bulbs would be turned off, leaving all the layers in the second column still on.  If you saw the first column lit, you would know that all the layers were turned on.  If the first column was not lit, you would know that the second column was in control.

Soooo, if, in the future, you find yourself with a lot of spare time on your hands and no other features to work on, maybe you might see if this can be done. 

But once again, Thank You again for the other improvements, they are great.

Dragonfly

Or rather than having two separate sets, have it be a three-phase button.
- All ON
- All OFF
- As previously set

You see it quite a bit on program installers, where things are in categories. If you've opened the category and selected some of the options, the category's tickbox has a square or dot in it, then if you click it, it goes to all on (ticked), all off (blank) and then back to how it was (square). Just a thought?

Bob Bryce

When would you use the feature "All Off"?  Not sure when I would want to turn all the layers off.

Future-Digital

As a shortcut, on the way to turning only ONE layer on after you click All Off.
"I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book." - Groucho Marx

Bob Bryce

Quote from: Future-Digital on July 25, 2017, 05:23:33 PM
As a shortcut, on the way to turning only ONE layer on after you click All Off.


I agree with you in that situation, but although I think there may be far more users needing to restore multiple layers back into view than just restoring a single layer, I can see where having all three features, "all on",  "all off", and "restore back to what was on before" would be a program asset.  That way you could turn all the layers on, do work on the layout and return to where you were before (as far as layers turned on) without undoing the work you did while they were all turned on.

Bob Bryce

Heck, for me, as I use so many layers, it's a lot to remember just what all layers were turned on before in the first place!   ;D

David

About the layers:
That would mean:
If you click on any of the layers lightbulbs individually, the current set of 'layers on/off' is stored.
If you then click on the top lightbulb, there are three states:
- all off (except the active layer)
- all on
- stored state

This also means, that if you switch all on, and then switch one layer off, the 'stored state' will now be 'all on except one'. The former stored state will be lost.


David Hoogvorst. Founder and Owner of DRail Software. Creator of AnyRail.

Bob Bryce

#12
Is there a way to:

- Show the column of levels like it does now with a light bulb next to each level, where each level turned on shows a lit bulb.
- Have 3 selector boxes at the top, one for "No Levels" (except for the active level), one for "All Levels" and the other for the "List of Selected Levels".
- Only 1 box can be selected at a time.
- If the box for "No Levels" is selected, only the current level is shown, without changing any of the settings in the column of light bulbs.
- If the box for "All Levels" is selected, all the levels are shown, without changing any of the settings in the column of light bulbs.
- If the box for "Selected Levels" is selected, the levels shown are on based on the lit bulbs.

You can tell which method you are using by looking at which box is selected.  I think this would be easy to use and cover all of the issues posted so far.

Would this be able to be done?