YardMaster Bug and Survey Question

[mikephfl]

For those that use YardMaster and have done any Loose Consist editing with it, you might have noticed that it seems to be missing a loose consist from each activity. I just discovered a small bug that causes it to lose the last loose consist when reading the activity files. I'll have a fix for this uploaded by the end of the weekend. It only affects you if you edit loose consists with YardMaster and could not find the loose consist you wanted to edit.

Now on to the survey. Since I don't have a list of YardMaster users I can't send out spam to individual users so I'll have to spam the entire community

I'm considering adding functionality similar to that of Train Store. Now let me be perfectly clear. There is nothing wrong with Train Store. It has served/saved me many times as the number of consists and rolling stock that I have overwhelms MSTS and I have many activities that will not run unless I've used Train Store to move unneeded equipment out of the way.

The reason I'm considering this is that I often find myself having to run 2 utilities when I'm doing any activity creation or editing. Train Store is used to move things around and YardMaster to create my consists. If I could have everything in the same program, things would just be that much easier.

So my question, and you can reply to me privately if you wish, is if you use YardMaster, would you find Train Store type functionality useful and should YardMaster continue to be Train Store aware. Seems to me that if YardMaster moves equipment and activities for me does it also still need to know things could be stored by Train Store?

To Summarize...

1. Do you use Train Store AND YardMaster?
2. If YardMaster was able to store consists and equipment, would this be helpful?
3. If YardMaster was able to store consists and equipment, does it still need to handle items stored by Train Store?

Again, I'm not criticizing Train Store, it's an excellent utility, I'm just trying to reduce the number of utilities I need to create and edit activities. I'm not comparing to Route Riter as it does much more than manage equipment and consists and has many utilities related to routes and files outside of the area of YardMaster.

Thanks for all the input I have received and thanks in advance for helping me decided what to do.

The update to fix the loose consist issue I mentioned above will be uploaded sometime Sunday afternoon.

[OTTODAD]

Hi Mike !

I am not sure why there is a need for more utilities to create and manage consists ?

I have been using the CONBUILDER since it's day-1 and find that it can do all that is required to easily create consists, showing images of individual rolling stock used and it is then up to MSTS simmers to select them for Player, AI services or as Loose consists.

Editing them is just as easy.

O t t o

[apco25]

Otto,

There is a need for another utility that swaps our missing stock globally and faster. I get rather tired double clicking away to modified consists with Condbuilder as much as I really like the program.

Back to the real issue....

As an OpenRails user I have no use for Trainstore. As more of us move to OR the requirements to store anything just goes away. With OR leading the way I wouldn't worry about adding in a trainstore functionality or compatibility at this point.

[jorgenandersen]

Mike,

I like the look of Yardmaster a lot, and as I said in a comment in another thread, if you work with North American rolling stock it's an excellent utility. However, if you work with European stock it's different, since Yardmaster cannot accept NS (for Nederlandse Spoorwegen), DR (for Deutsche Reichsbahn) or DRG (for Deutsche Reichsbahn Gesellschaft) as reporting marks, as they're already taken. Now, if you could get around that issue, I could believe I would be using Yardmaster exclusively.

Jorgen

[mikephfl]

Mike,

I like the look of Yardmaster a lot, and as I said in a comment in another thread, if you work with North American rolling stock it's an excellent utility. However, if you work with European stock it's different, since Yardmaster cannot accept NS (for Nederlandse Spoorwegen), DR (for Deutsche Reichsbahn) or DRG (for Deutsche Reichsbahn Gesellschaft) as reporting marks, as they're already taken. Now, if you could get around that issue, I could believe I would be using Yardmaster exclusively.

Jorgen

You can edit the reporting marks and change them to anything you want, or even delete them. You should be able to use those reporting marks you mentioned without any problems.

[mikephfl]

Hi Mike !

I am not sure why there is a need for more utilities to create and manage consists ?

I have been using the CONBUILDER since it's day-1 and find that it can do all that is required to easily create consists, showing images of individual rolling stock used and it is then up to MSTS simmers to select them for Player, AI services or as Loose consists.

Editing them is just as easy.

O t t o

Try finding a particular piece of rolling stock or a certain engine to put on the front of a consist. Or make a bunch of loose consists when creating a new activity. Conbuilder doesn't make that easy. Yes you can edit the names of the stock in all the wag and eng files so they sort in a realistic manner but that requires you to edit all your files.

YardMaster does show the image of the individual car/engine as well as the entire consist in a seperete scrollable window. The only issue as that engines that are flipped in the consist don't display the image flipped. Someday I'll figure that one out.

[mikephfl]

Otto,

There is a need for another utility that swaps our missing stock globally and faster. I get rather tired double clicking away to modified consists with Condbuilder as much as I really like the program.

Back to the real issue....

As an OpenRails user I have no use for Trainstore. As more of us move to OR the requirements to store anything just goes away. With OR leading the way I wouldn't worry about adding in a trainstore functionality or compatibility at this point.

I agree that OR makes Train Store less of a requirement, but I find editing activities and even working in the Route Editor go much smoother when the extra equipment is out of the way. Seems the AE and RE both want to read everything as MSTS does when running an activity.

If it wasn't for that, then I would need TS or anything else like it.

I'll probably move ahead with this and those that want to use it can use it, those that don't won't need to. It won't be a requirement, just an option.

Someday I hope to do more with activities like work orders, activity creation and so forth. Now that I've started to figure out the format of the activity files I should be able to do more.

I'm not out to compete with other utilities, just creating more options.

[apco25]

Mike,

It's up to you ultimately how you write your software. If you feel the need for trainstore fuction or compatibility, do it. I don't even have trainstore installed anymore.

Here is how I handle route editing. Let me clear, I have two remaining installs of MSTS. One, the six default routes that just sits on my hard drive untouched. Other than the 1.2 update, BIN, xtracks, new roads, scale rail it is a virginal install. I don't use it and it is mainly just there for the possible need to test something in a clean environment.

Second clean install exists, but without the six default routes. This is my editing install. I manually move routes from my OpenRails directories and place them in the routes folder here to run the RE. I get around the rolling stock errors by NOT moving the activities folder.

Other than editing, I do not run any form of train.exe and in fact there is nothing in my OR installs except Routes, Trainset, Global, Sound, and Utils directories.

[mikephfl]

That's an interesting way to have things installed. There are probably many ways to get around the need for something like Train Store.

One of my hobbies, besides route building and running trains in MSTS..oops, I mean Open Rails, is programming. So adding a feature isn't like real work, I see it more as a fun challenge. And most of what I do with YardMaster has options so that users can make it conform to their needs or, as in this case, just ignore it and not even use it.

Thanks for the ideas!

[OTTODAD]

Hi Mike !

Installed it to have a look at it and it sure proves that you are a very experienced and competent programmer !

I have been a professional programmer of my own accounting software for 32-bit Windows and at the age of 84 am no longer actively supporting my clients using it, a few personal friends excepted.

To start with I have JRE7 turned off when my computer is connected to the Internet, JRE7's 100% security still in doubt, re-naming it's BIN folder to BIN-OFF !

Turned it on, the Internet shut down, not required to run MSTS and the Yardmaster !

Ran the Yardmaster and WOW, my hairs stood on end !

When trying to create a new consist I can not find an option to easily show a list of all my rolling stock, engines and wagons, I can select for use in it, showing a picture of whatever at the same time.

There is no HELP option in the program itself and had to send a Shortcut for it's Manual.Pdf to the desktop so that I look for answers !

This is not a program for inexperienced users of computers and MSTS, such a kids and seniors like myself approaching senility, having to learn all it could do all over again, as far as I could see not improving on the usability of the CONBUILDER helped here and there by the ROUTE RITER.

My motto in programming and supporting my clients on how to use the O/S, hardware installed by me and my software was and still is KISS = Keep It Simple Stupid, many programmers have forgotten the meaning of and the efficiency of my software running on computers up to the latest WIN 32-bit O/S still beats anything else there is in the Accounting software market !

http://www.otto-wipfel.co.uk/otto

In any case I most of the time manually edit consists, using UltraEdit32-Pro.

Take care, O t t o.

[cbff33]

I don't know...I like these utilities.....but I think the utility that is needed the most......a new type of demex. And a real terrain editor......we have half a dozen consist editors and one digital elevation program that is about to buy the farm when the geotiff data gets shutdown

[eric]

I like them as well... MSTS has such an easy file structure to manipulate, I'm surprised that more of these didn't show up over the years.

CB, I agree that something for doing terrain with the newer formats would be cool, but frankly, that's a serious math problem waiting to be solved.

[mikephfl]

Hi Mike !

Installed it to have a look at it and it sure proves that you are a very experienced and competent programmer !

I have been a professional programmer of my own accounting software for 32-bit Windows and at the age of 84 am no longer actively supporting my clients using it, a few personal friends excepted.

To start with I have JRE7 turned off when my computer is connected to the Internet, JRE7's 100% security still in doubt, re-naming it's BIN folder to BIN-OFF !

Turned it on, the Internet shut down, not required to run MSTS and the Yardmaster !

Ran the Yardmaster and WOW, my hairs stood on end !

When trying to create a new consist I can not find an option to easily show a list of all my rolling stock, engines and wagons, I can select for use in it, showing a picture of whatever at the same time.

There is no HELP option in the program itself and had to send a Shortcut for it's Manual.Pdf to the desktop so that I look for answers !

This is not a program for inexperienced users of computers and MSTS, such a kids and seniors like myself approaching senility, having to learn all it could do all over again, as far as I could see not improving on the usability of the CONBUILDER helped here and there by the ROUTE RITER.

My motto in programming and supporting my clients on how to use the O/S, hardware installed by me and my software was and still is KISS = Keep It Simple Stupid, many programmers have forgotten the meaning of and the efficiency of my software running on computers up to the latest WIN 32-bit O/S still beats anything else there is in the Accounting software market !

http://www.otto-wipfel.co.uk/otto

In any case I most of the time manually edit consists, using UltraEdit32-Pro.

Take care, O t t o.

Use the Filter to find stock to add to a consist. The manual details things pretty well. Play around with it and if you can't figure out how to do something, drop me a line and I'll help ya out.

[crstagg]

Mike,
Where is ver 2.1? Ver 2.2 says you need 2.1 but the only other YardMaster in the Utilities section is ver 2.0. See belowName: yardmaster2-2update.zip
Size: 1,071,003 Date: 05-25-2013 Downloads: 243


MSTS Utility--YardMaster v2.2. You need to have v2.1 installed before using this update.


Name: yardmaster2.zip
Size: 2,313,983 Date: 05-17-2013 Downloads: 412


MSTS Utility--YardMaster version 2.0. This is a complete upgrade to YardMaster.

[OTTODAD]

Thanks, Mike, I appreciate you trying to help me use your YardMaster program.

But I am an old dog and don't like having to learn new tricks to do what is easy in a more convoluted way !

Like using the CONBUILDER to create new consists, showing all I need on one screen and it does not matter whether they are to be used for player or AI trains or as Loose Consists in yards, which can now be switched to in MSTSBin and driven.

Switching out rolling stock in supplied consists I do not have ?

No way, I just delete activities and their services which supply consists that are not running out of the box !

In any case, I prefer to create my own Freestyle activities which let me do what I want to do, drive to where I want and do switching in yards along the way, like Jim Ward's activities can do.

Take care, O t t o


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