Release Notes for JMRI 2.11.1 release

Date: October 12, 2010

From: Bob Jacobsen

Subject: Test version 2.11.1 of JMRI/DecoderPro is available for download.

Notes:

This is a test release. Please post a note if you encounter any new or old bugs! And please back up your JMRI files before installing this, in case you want to go back to an earlier version.

This is the first in a series of test versions. We expect this series to end in a JMRI 2.12 or 3.0 production release in December 2010.

It contains many new features, including:

• JMRI Simple Server adds multiple computer support to the JMRI toolkit, so multiple machines can share a common set of layout connections. This is still an early implementation, but it should pass turnout, sensor, light and layout power data between multiple computers after an easy setup.
• The new JMRI System Console takes the place of the Windows Console. The Windows Console didn't always auto-minimize properly and would close JMRI without going through the normal shutdown procedures if someone accidentally clicked on the close button. The JMRI System Console is available from the Help menu. As with most of the menu items, you can also setup it up in Preference to autostart with JMRI. It displays the same information as the old Windows Console, is easy to resize and has a button to simplify the task of copying text to the clipboard
• Numerous improvements to the Layout, Panel and Control Panel Editors primarily related to: Making the user interfaces and options available more consistent across the 3 editors, making it easier to copy/cut/paste objects on the panels, and adding ability to set the background color without having to import a background image
• Layout Editor now uses a lot less CPU time when moving the mouse or updating information on the panel, particularly on older hardware
• Numerous improvements to Operations
• Several improvements to Throttles
• Huge update to JMRI translations into other languages

along with other changes. See the complete list below.

Some of the changes involved are quite extensive. They may require a certain amount of experience before they are working well. Therefore, this test version should be considered experimental.

JMRI is now only available under the GNU General Public License. For more information, please see our copyright and licensing page.

New warnings for this version:

While safe to try out (otherwise the developers wouldn't make it public), 2.11.1 will pose a higher risk than normal of creating hick-ups in assorted places. You don't want to install it the day before the big Open House!

Over the past few months the developers have setup a series of automated tools to help test the code on a daily basis. These automated tests found numerous issues that needed attending to, some minor, some more serious. The upshot of all this is, the code is more solid than ever, but has undergone lots of little changes in lots of places. As you well know, sometimes changes in one place can have consequences in other places which are hard to predict in advance. The developers have fixed the issues that popped up during the Release Candidate testing, but there are surely more things that none of us have come across yet

All this to say that it's really important to let the installer make backups of your user files (Windows installer only; it's normally checked by default when going from an older version to a newer version; non-Windows users can just take a copy of their preferences folder), just in case something unexpected happens. This is especially true for folks who are currently doing a lot of editing to their panels, as panels generally aren't backward compatible to older versions of JMRI once they are saved using a newer version

Older warnings

(None for this version)

Known problems with this release

None at the time of this release.

Download links:

Please use these links for downloading:

Changes since production version 2.10

Andrew Crosland improved the speed averaging for the Bachrus speedometer.

Kevin Dickerson updated the auto width justification of a memory label in LayoutEditor, around the x position, ie the text will centre around position X, or be right justified to the value of X. Before the justification only really showed itself with fixed width memory labels.

Kevin Dickerson made multiple improvements to panel editor.

• Multiple items can be selected, by holding down the ctrl key and clicking on them.
• Selected items now have a square box drawn around them.
• Positioning can now be adjusted by using the arrow keys, the arrow keys on their own will move the items by 5 pixels either way, by holding shift and then the arrow key, it will move a pixel at a time.
• Provides a basic copy & paste function within a single panel, allows for single or multiple items to be copied.
• A revised pop-up menu is displayed when multiple items are selected, it only displays the options for Edit Alignment, Remove, Copy.
• Should also remove the issue in ubuntu when dragging items on the panel editor, that the popupbox is displayed when it shouldn't be. Nb this needs to be check on a MAC that it doesn't cause a problem.

Kevin Dickerson improved the preferences: By default 4 sets of jmrixconfigpanes are created at start up. However if there are more than 4 connections, the 5th and above connections do not have a jmrixconfigpane instance created and do not automatically get listed in the preference window.

Kevin Dickerson fixed a problem that could cause multiple LocoNet connections to get the wrong prefix.

Andrew Crosland improved the Bachrus speedometer readout to work more closely with the hardware, and to reject measurements that appear to suffer from jitter.

Pete Cressman added a copy popup to the Control Panel Editor.

Paul Bender is updating the XPressNet adapter code to allow multiple connections.

Kevin Dickerson made it possible to dismiss a print preview dialog.

Kevin Dickerson updated roster printing: Puts the loco icon on the print out, formats the text around the graphic so it looks neater and doesn't run into the loco graphic. Function Labels can now be printed on individual roster items. When printing individual roster items, the user is given the option to select which tabs should be printed.

Kevin Dickerson updated the layout editor: Add the ability to set the background color of the panel via a menu option. Selected items now have a square box drawn around them. Multiple items can be selected, by holding down the ctrl key and clicking on them. Positioning can now be adjusted by using the arrow keys, the arrow keys on their own will move the items by 5 pixels either way, by holding shift and then the arrow key, it will move a pixel at a time.

Kevin Dickerson updated the Panel Editor & Control Editor: Added ability to set the background colour by bring up the popup menu on an empty part of the panel.

Andrew Crosland updated the SPROG support to make repeated ops mode CV writes appear consecutively rather than interleaved. Problem reported on developers list by Galen Seitz 22 July 2010

Andrew Crosland updated the Bachrus speedometer to add dial type speed display, in both metric and English units, and to integrate with DCC system to capture loco speed profile. You can now export a speed curve to a .csv file.

Kevin Dickerson made some improvements to the connection code, including catching an error, removing deprecated code and adding a "disable adapter" option.

Pete Cressman improved how icons are found in the computer's file system.

Kevin Dickerson changed the editors so you don't have to hold the control key down while moving items.

Kevin Dickerson updated memory labels to set the auto width justification of a memory label around the x position, ie the text will centre around position X, or be right justified to the value of X. Before the justification only really showed itself with fixed width memory labels.

Kevin Dickerson placed the select items to print option, prior to selecting the printer.

Kevin Dickerson provided a "Properties" window for text based items, which allows the user to set various text based settings in the popup menu from a single window all at once, (eg Font Size, Color, Background, style, border margins etc) and preview them prior to applying the changes. Also allows for the user to enter in font sizes that are not listed in the popup. For texted based sensors, it is possible to preview and configure the text for the four different states. Initial development of the feature, will need some further refinement, only available with the panel editor, but can be used in the other editors once any issues have been ironed out. Feature request 2958431 relates.

Andrew Crosland added help pages for the Bachrus speedometer.

Simon Ginsburg made a huge update to the JMRI translations into other languages.

Ken Cameron fixed a problem where a variable-intensity Light would not step all the way to the correct final intensity.

Simon Ginsburg added translation tool scripts.

Mike Mosher updated the TCS V51+ decoder definition to add LL8 & EU621 decoders

Andrew Crosland improved the SPROG throttle to better handle fractional speeds.

Pete Cressman fixed a problem selecting groups on panels

Dan Boudreau made many enhancements to operations.

• The operations program now supports car routing. The program will now use up to 5 trains to move a car from one location to another. Routing through staging tracks is disabled by default.
• A new feature, "Return When Empty" is now available. When a car's load changes to empty, the car can optionally return to a location or location/track.
• UK support been improved.
• Improved operations staging warning messages.
• User can now specify a pickup or drop comment for a car based on the car's load.
• Users can now mark a car as misplaced. When a car is marked misplaced, the program will not attempt to move the car. Also a list of misplaced cars is now appended to manifests and switch lists.
• Schedules can now delay a car's pickup from a siding.
• A new feature, car loads can now have a low or high priority. High priority loads are serviced before low priority loads.

Lionel Jeanson made multiple improvements to throttles:

• More French translation
• Improved edit/play mode and transparency, transparency no longer proposed as a preference, in edit mode, internal frames are opaque and are set translucent when going to play mode (click on button with pen in toolbar). Tested on OS-X/Windows/Linux with several L&F, works fine on all.
• Improved "save throttle layout" and "save default throttle layout", now also save throttles themselves, new preference in throttle preference to configure this behavior (activated as default, to be deactivated to go to older mode that would only save the windows layout).

Kevin Dickerson improved the C/MRI sensor add process so that it now displays an error message when an invalid system name is entered. Sensor manager now allows for multiple sensors to be added.

Kevin Dickerson added a double & single slip and a three way turnout to the panel editor.

Matt Harris added 'Copy to clipboard' button in context window.

Graeme Brown provided updates for NCE decoders

Jim LeFevre added support for F5 through F14 on TMCC throttles.

Pete Ulvestaad fixed spelling errors in the QSI definitions, and provided a definition for the Bachmann Soundtraxx decoder

Alain Carasso contributed decoder definitions for Arnold - Rivarossi and Mistral Train GOLD decoders.

david zuhn added support for exporting the entire roster to one file. Menu support (but a null implementation) for importing from an exported roster file.

Nigel Cliffe contributed a decoder definition for the MERG ACC5 decoder and did a major update to the MERG ACC4 decoder definition.

Peter Mansvelder contributed a definition for the Fleischmann function decoder

Dale Tripp provided a decoder definition for the Kato FL12 decoder

Chris Bradshaw provided a decoder definition for the TCS Z2 and DP2x decoders.

Georg Kautzsch provided a decoder definition for the Uhlenbrock 67800 servo decoder.

Matt Harris added a VerticalLabelUI class so to allow JLabels to be displayed vertically.

Matt Harris added the new JMRI System Console which takes the place of the Windows Console. The Windows Console didn't always auto-minimize properly and would close JMRI without going through the normal shutdown procedures if someone accidentally clicked on the close button. The JMRI System Console is available from the Help menu. As with most of the menu items, you can also setup it up in Preference to autostart with JMRI. It displays the same information as the old Windows Console, is easy to resize and has a button to simplify the task of copying text to the clipboard

Pete Cressman added a new editor tool: Item Palette. He also updated the signal head icons to only show icons that are relevant to valid states.

Dick Bronson updated the RR-CirKits Tower Controller 64 decoder definition

David Duchamp made some improvements to running trains with the Dispatcher.

Mike Mosher provided a "RosterMigrate2.py" script to allow users to migrate their "Soundtraxx OEM" decoders to specific models.

Team Digital provided a decoder definition for their Team Digital BlocD8 board.

Matt Harris made several improvements to the Windows installer.

Team Digital updated the SIC_24AD definition to include toggle option to inputs and startup delay

Phil Klein provided "LocoNetSensorInit.py", a script to cause LocoNet sensors to send their state so that JMRI will update.

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