Turnouts

[matt-vdv]

From #11

[FrightRisk]

There are two ways to go in turnouts. The easy way is to just be able to switch between throttle and a turnout list. Or have a different screen for people wanting turnout control where it all fits on one. I was leaning toward a slide in turnout panel that goes over the function buttons and can slide back. However, take a look at this 4 part video for ideas: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48gN-dESh1k

That is Gregg's controller written in the Processing IDE. All the source code is on his github. I often wondered what a good way is for visually "laying track" and when I looked at the code, it was much simpler than I thought. I think just a turnout page with an image of left right on the left (A Y turnout) and a button to the right to toggle. If we are dreaming of the ultimate system, we can then work out people actually being able to draw their layout or a turnout diagram.

[FrightRisk]

We look at JMRI and Engine Driver to get ideas. We need to support the command if we want to store the turnouts in the CS. A table with visuals and a graphic turnout that shows open or closed would be nice. How do people name or number them? Open or closed could be "railyard" and "mainline". If we are ambitious, you could draw the layout diagram. That may be a future project.

[ManiAkasapu]

@FrightRisk I try to list out here please edit and add your list.

1. Equilateral turnout (2 way) - Y shaped, left, right
2. Three-way turnout
3. Cross/Diamond turnout
4. Double crossover

[FrightRisk]

Some models for us to get ideas on about how to enter, store, recall and operate turnouts:

https://enginedriver.mstevetodd.com/turnouts
https://www.jmri.org/help/en/package/jmri/jmrit/beantable/TurnoutTable.shtml

Note that Gregg originally had a controller written in the processing language using Java. That may be easily adapted to what we want to do including graphical turnouts. Have the layout drawn on the screen with red and green dots to show turnout position would be pretty cool, but just a table would probably do the job. We could have a graphic for each turnout too if we wanted. That is easy. A separate image for the kinds of turnouts and we just display the appropriate image. Here is gregg's code:

https://github.com/DccPlusPlus/Controller

and a video that shows how it works with the GUI (4 parts):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48gN-dESh1k