DAS-BAHN-FORUM.de

I'm very much impressed by BAHN 3.84 compared to previous versions of BAHN.

The layers in particular are excellent. However, I feel they could be improved:

1) by having elevated layers as well as underground ones -- this would remove the annoying and aprototypical flicker when following a tram going under a bridge

2) by automatically making the layers above underground construction transparent with glass unless it reaches an obstacle.

I also very much like having the days of the week!

Incidentally, I am encountering a bug when trying to run BAHN 3.84 with WINE in Linux. As soon as there is any clipboard data, doing anything that changes the area displayed (whether pasting or scrolling) will cause a crash. This is probably a bug with WINE rather than one with BAHN, but I'm mentioning it in case anyone knows a simple solution.

Howdie!

ad 1) this was already discussed in the German part of the forum. I'm not up to date if there was a positive or negative feedback but it's highly appreciated from many people to implement this.

ad 2) this is probably much more difficult. Also some people don't like it. At the time when everything was open they invented thousands of tricks to cover track, because when going underground (or following a train underground) you can't see the surface and when going at the surface you cant see trains underground anyways.

Mirko

A thought which had remained private until now was that perhaps the top layer should be transparent by default (for bridges and overpasses), while the other layers below it can default to opaque as they are now (think -3=>+1 rather than -4=>0). Better still would be allowing the layout builder to decide at what point the layers become transparent.

As for running BAHN under WINE, start it from a shell prompt and see what you get when WINE bails on you. If you can, post the precise message (down to casing and spacing - they're important!).

If the error you get is about X11 or pixels, then open winecfg. There should be an option that says something like "allow window manager to control windows" or something like that. Turn it off.

<table width="90%" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="3" border="0" align="center"><tr> <td><span class="genmed">Zitat:</span></td></tr><tr><td class="quote">Better still would be allowing the layout builder to decide at what point the layers become transparent.</tr></td></table>

This is possible. Right click on an empty space, you get a pop up menu. Click on the "Click Symbol" option and another pop up menu appear. There you have the choose to make that space transparent, the layer below this point become visible.

I don't understand why a new idea is not supported. My idea is that layer 0 and -1 forming together the surface level. Both with the same (green) background color. The layers -2 -3 and -4 laying below the surface have the dark below surface color.

If there is in the GS Graphic Editor another (4th) transparent color available, making the layer you work on at that spot transparent, you can also make with User Defined symbols the layer below that spot visible.

My idea is to use layer 0 only to place the scenery symbols on it and layer -1 is in use to place all your tracks that are situated on the surface.

To help the layout builder it would by great that by pressing a toggle button situated in the top window of the Bahn program you can make layer 0 transparent or not. If the option not transparent is 'on' it don't affect the transparent User Defined symbols, the underlaying layer below them remain visible.

Of course you must have the option to make User Defined symbols also partly transparent.

By example you create an typical Dutch or Swiss electricity portal mast (for electric trains) on a further transparent User Defined symbol. My idea is that you can place such partly transparent scenery symbol on surface level 0. It will join the rail track symbol placed below on surface level -1!

This idea fix the problem that it is not possible to create sidewards overlapping User Defined symbols in the GS Graphic Editor.

Le salut, ce programme est fois seulement taille! Pour cela valent la peine entièrement prochain 17 euros. En haut à Jan Bochmann et team
Andre´

<table width="90%" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="3" border="0" align="center"><tr> <td><span class="genmed">Zitat:</span></td></tr><tr><td class="quote">My idea is that layer 0 and -1 forming together the surface level. Both with the same (green) background color. The layers -2 -3 and -4 laying below the surface have the dark below surface color.
[...]
My idea is to use layer 0 only to place the scenery symbols on it and layer -1 is in use to place all your tracks that are situated on the surface.
[...]
This idea fix the problem that it is not possible to create sidewards overlapping User Defined symbols in the GS Graphic Editor.</tr></td></table>
The same effect could be achieved by allowing user-defined track graphics. This has already been discussed several times, although Jan Bochmann doesn´t seem to be too fond of this idea.
Still, a few years ago he also wasn´t fond of the idea of having levels at all, which BAHN now supports, so we can hope and wait what the future will bring [img]icon_wink.gif[/img]

- Christopher

<table width="90%" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="3" border="0" align="center"><tr> <td><span class="genmed">Zitat:</span></td></tr><tr><td class="quote"><table width="90%" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="3" border="0" align="center"><tr> <td><span class="genmed">Zitat:</span></td></tr><tr><td class="quote">Better still would be allowing the layout builder to decide at what point the layers become transparent.</tr></td></table>

This is possible. Right click on an empty space, you get a pop up menu. Click on the "Click Symbol" option and another pop up menu appear. There you have the choose to make that space transparent, the layer below this point become visible.</tr></td></table>

No, that's for individual empty tiles. My original suggestion was akin to the one you later made about where the surface lies. You suggest it should be at what is now -1 (thus 0 and -1 are both "visible"), I suggest leaving that decision to whoever builds the layout - someone building London Underground will undoubtedly need all four extra levels to be sub-surface, but someone building something like the New York Subway may need more than one extra surface level.

If you can't be sure what behaviour the user will expect from a feature, it should probably be left to the user to decide

Hello!
I've previously reported a bug for the Beta version, that seems it has not been corrected so far. That time it seemed to be a bug very unlikely to be seen, but this time I've captured the image.

It seems that a single or double crossing turnout is not always removed from the memory when deleted, hence its number is not allocated again, and the next available number is used. I was able to find this bug by tracking the turnouts' numbers.

Here's my capture of this bug:
http://bahn.bastet-sys.org/bahn_error_w243.gif

This bug is not persistent, that is, it does not show up again after closing Bahn and restarting it, even if the file had been saved with the missing turnout. It seems to be a memory allocation error and fortunately it doesn't propagate to the NT3 file.

Greetings,
Trix

Hello,

<table width="90%" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="3" border="0" align="center"><tr> <td><span class="genmed">Zitat:</span></td></tr><tr><td class="quote">Hello!
I've previously reported a bug for the Beta version, that seems it has not been corrected so far. That time it seemed to be a bug very unlikely to be seen, but this time I've captured the image.

It seems that a single or double crossing turnout is not always removed from the memory when deleted, hence its number is not allocated again, and the next available number is used. I was able to find this bug by tracking the turnouts' numbers.</tr></td></table>

Yes, that can occur. Thank you for information, it will be fixed in future.

As I found, the problem can be found under rare circumstances only:
When you have a combined, single or double crossing turnout, and you build a new simple turnout onto the same position. Then, BAHN looks if there is one part of the old turnout who's direction when arriving facing is the same as for the new turnout.
The others are deleted, and the found part is changed into the new one instead of deleting all and creating a new one. The reason is that this way the data can be used for the new turnout, in difference with normal way (delete all, create new) where the data would get lost.

However, when your new turnout does not have the same direction of one of the old ones (when arriving facing), then always a new turnout is created. In that situation the part "d" is not deleted by error.
The problem should not occur when only "a" and "b" existed or when overwriting a simple turnout.

When deleting the new turnout later, then the additional wrong turnout is not deleted.

Workaround: Always delete a double crossing turnout (English points) by overwriting it with something that is no turnout, e.g. an empty element or a simple track element.

<table width="90%" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="3" border="0" align="center"><tr> <td><span class="genmed">Zitat:</span></td></tr><tr><td class="quote">This bug is not persistent, that is, it does not show up again after closing Bahn and restarting it, even if the file had been saved with the missing turnout. It seems to be a memory allocation error and fortunately it doesn't propagate to the NT3 file</tr></td></table>.

AFAIK, the false additional turnout is stored to the file. But, when loading the data again, BAHN checks for some wrong data and ignores them, and so the data are cleared (e.g. a 2nd turnout at the same co-ordinates or turnout data for positions where something else is found in the layout). I.e. the NT3 file should be corrected automatically by loading and storing again.

Greetings,
Jan B.

...but:

If I want to edit a symbol, the program always steps into text edition if there is a text above it. [img]icon_mad.gif[/img]

Hello,

<table width="90%" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="3" border="0" align="center"><tr> <td><span class="genmed">Zitat:</span></td></tr><tr><td class="quote">...but:

If I want to edit a symbol, the program always steps into text edition if there is a text above it. </tr></td></table>

Which way do you try to "edit a symbol"? I.e.:

-Double click by mouse
-Mouse right button click
-Return key
-Ctrl+Return
-"Menu" key

What means "text above it"? "Above"="Northern" or "one level up"?

Regards
Jan B.

Yes, there exists such a bug... AFAI remember, since 3.75... [img]icon_biggrin.gif[/img] [img]icon_biggrin.gif[/img] [img]icon_biggrin.gif[/img]
If you write a text above an empty symbol (by pressing 'space' key and writing the text), then no matter what way you try to edit the empty symbol (do you press 'enter', or 'ctrl+enter', or dblclick the symbol etc), the text edit window appears (as if you press 'space' key again).

Hello,

<table width="90%" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="3" border="0" align="center"><tr> <td><span class="genmed">Zitat:</span></td></tr><tr><td class="quote">Yes, there exists such a bug... AFAI remember, since 3.75... [img]icon_biggrin.gif[/img] [img]icon_biggrin.gif[/img] [img]icon_biggrin.gif[/img]
If you write a text above an empty symbol (by pressing 'space' key and writing the text), then no matter what way you try to edit the empty symbol (do you press 'enter', or 'ctrl+enter', or dblclick the symbol etc), the text edit window appears (as if you press 'space' key again).</tr></td></table>

That is not a bug. It was added in BAHN 3.59 (about 1998!) to make the text editing compatible with the earlier versions: Until 3.58 inclusive, the texts could be placed on empty elements only. In result, it was not needed to distinct between clicking to the element and clicking the text to edit it. So, the return key often was used to edit text, and I did like to support this way further, ofcourse for empty elements only. It was no problem because there was no need to "edit" an empty element that time.

Ofcourse, a long time has gone since then, and it would be easy to change it to normal behaviour. Since 3.84, there is a need to access empty elements to make them transparent. It would have been a good idea to discuss this while the 3.84 Beta test did run...

However, I am not sure whether this was meant in the original message.

Grtx
Jan B.

<table width="90%" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="3" border="0" align="center"><tr> <td><span class="genmed">Zitat:</span></td></tr><tr><td class="quote">
-Double click by mouse
-Mouse right button click
-Return key
-Ctrl+Return
</tr></td></table>
All these ways.
<table width="90%" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="3" border="0" align="center"><tr> <td><span class="genmed">Zitat:</span></td></tr><tr><td class="quote">
-"Menu" key
</tr></td></table>
Erm... I haven't discover this ability, [img]icon_redface.gif[/img] but I will try it.

<table width="90%" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="3" border="0" align="center"><tr> <td><span class="genmed">Zitat:</span></td></tr><tr><td class="quote">
What means "text above it"? "Above"="Northern" or "one level up"?
</tr></td></table>
Correctly: ON the symbol.