A buttons guide?

[G8B4Life]

I've been thinking about this one for a while now.  Most of the button images are pretty self explanatory but some are not and I've no real idea what they are supposed to represent. I'm sure I'm not the only one in this boat. There is also the issue that some buttons must be used for certain effects and have rules attached to them.

My idea is a buttons reference guide. A very quick mock up is below.



I've no idea what format it would take; html, pdf or something else and it would certainly need to be prettier.

So what do others think? I think it would be good, not only for us experienced users but especially for new users.

Certainly it would be something that help would be need for if I was to go ahead with it (I do have a half baked plan for Ring Engineering
to help but I've no idea if I could pull it off).

- Tim

[William Brillinger]

great idea Tim, Carry on!

I'd say an excel file would make sense and that could be posted in excel and pdf versions without much trouble.

[KPack]

I agree with Bill, an Excel file would be the best.  There may have to be a few revisions of it in order to get all of it correct.

As it stands right now there are a few things you may want to add.  For example a little more detail regarding the diesel engine button would be welcome.  That button has coding behind it that allows the prime mover files to function correctly.  Same goes for the Steam icon.  Both of them must also be set as the correct function on the page where it allows auto-notching/manual notching. 

Also, the ditchlight button should only be used if you are doing flashing ditchlights.  If you use that button to control on/off on ditchlights then the lights will turn off whenever you open the locomotive settings.  None of my locomotives need flashing ditchlights so I have used the headlight icon labeled as ditchlights to turn them on/off.  Something with the coding on the button causes this issue....if it's set up correctly to flash the ditchlights then this problem does not occur.

-Kevin

[nodcc4me]

That's a great idea Tim. I asked Tim Ring for a button description over a year ago, but he is a busy guy. I have no idea what some of those pictures represent.

[glenng6]

Tim,
You certainly have a great idea. The list of products that could use a reference guide is endless. My choice for the format would be pdf. Although Excel is popular, it is not ubiquitous, in the way pdf is.

[G8B4Life]

Ok, I've got enough encouragement to go ahead. I've got all the button pictures so that's half of it   

Now for the hard half... We'll see how it goes.

- Tim