Grade Calculation question and feedback

[alancurtis]

Hi,
I've been using RailModeller Pro for a week or so and have created about 9 layouts. Overall I'm very happy with it and have some questions and some feedback:
How is grade calculated? I have one 9-inch track section with a .96 inch rise and it's telling me I have a 54% grade. Similarly, a 100" multi-track section has an 8" rise and each section of track is reporting a grade of 49-54%. I would expect something less than 10% (rise / run).

When adding a curved section of track, sometimes the curve is oriented incorrectly. If I hit <command>-L a couple of times I can fix the orientation, but I still have to drag it into the existing section of track for it to be connected. It would be nice if you rotate a piece of track from a connected position it would reconnect it automatically after a 180 degree rotation.

When adding a piece of Flex track I can hit <ctrl>-F and then select a couple of points to connect. That works great, but after the two points are selected I then have to click a third time to hit "Apply". This seems to be an unnecessary extra step to confirm adding a piece of track. If you forget to click that button and do something else it cancels the operation. This has happened many more times than I'd like. If I didn't really want to add the section of track (once in a blue moon) it's easy to just delete it, so the confirmation requirement adds more work than it saves.

I have been playing around with the Baseboard feature and have a question. If I add multiple rectangular shapes to the baseboard layer, how do I delete one? I have found that by double clicking on a shape I can add or move corners, but can't figure out how to delete a corner or the shape as a whole. Hitting the delete key doesn't work and there are no menu options active for deletion when in that mode.

I will echo another persons comment that sometimes it is very difficult to use the auto-add feature to add an additional section of track. By hovering over a piece of track a new track shadow appears, but sometimes I have to click ten times before a piece is added. This happens more frequently the more zoomed out I am, so if I zoom in to 38% or more it works okay. When it works this is a great time saving feature, so cleaning this up in a future update would be much appreciated.

One last kudo - I tried out about 5 other track layout software packages for the Mac and this one was the only one that was quick and easy to use with the features I was looking for. Overall you've done a really good job and I'm looking forward to your future updates.

Thanks,
Alan

[RailModeller Support]

Hi Alan,

sorry for the late response!

How is grade calculated? I have one 9-inch track section with a .96 inch rise and it's telling me I have a 54% grade. Similarly, a 100" multi-track section has an 8" rise and each section of track is reporting a grade of 49-54%. I would expect something less than 10% (rise / run).

Grades are currently displayed in per mille. This will be made a configurable option in the coming weeks, though!
(also requested via https://railmodeller.uservoice.com/foru ... ing-grades)

When adding a curved section of track, sometimes the curve is oriented incorrectly. If I hit <command>-L a couple of times I can fix the orientation, but ..

You can also use the space bar to rotate the connected joint to achieve the same more quickly!
(optionally Element > Rotate Connected Joint)

When adding a piece of Flex track I can hit <ctrl>-F and then select a couple of points to connect. That works great, but after the two points are selected I then have to click a third time to hit "Apply".

Have you tried Option-Click to skip the dialog and connect right away?

I have been playing around with the Baseboard feature and have a question. If I add multiple rectangular shapes to the baseboard layer, how do I delete one?

When working in the baseboard layer you can switch to the Delete tool to remove individual baseboards.
All baseboards can be deleted by removing the entire baseboard layer.

I will echo another persons comment that sometimes it is very difficult to use the auto-add feature to add an additional section of track. By hovering over a piece of track a new track shadow appears, but sometimes I have to click ten times before a piece is added

That certainly sounds like a bug -
it would be great if you could send us the layout in question and describe where you had issues with the feature so we can investigate!

There's also another item on our short-term to-do list to disable this feature as some people love it while others find it more annoying than useful so having a dedicated switch in the preferences will allow everybody to adjust this feature to their liking.

Hope this helps,
Jan

[alancurtis]

Hi, thanks for the feedback and tips. Those shortcuts are nice.

As far as the auto-add feature for clicking to add additional pieces of track, this happens pretty much all the time regardless of layout if the piece of track that you just added is still selected. So, drag a piece of track in until it "clicks" into an existing piece in the layout, then hover over the edge of the track (while the first piece is still selected) and you see the shadow of an additional piece show up. Clicking to select the new piece doesn't do anything, you first have to click off the track to deselect it, then hover to see the shadow, then click to accept.

Given the other shortcuts you pointed out, I suspect there's another like those that I'm missing.

[RailModeller Support]

Hi Alan,

Following up with two quick updates as we continually improve and extend the app..

How is grade calculated? I have one 9-inch track section with a .96 inch rise and it's telling me I have a 54% grade. Similarly, a 100" multi-track section has an 8" rise and each section of track is reporting a grade of 49-54%. I would expect something less than 10% (rise / run).

Grades are currently displayed in per mille. This will be made a configurable option in the coming weeks, though!
(also requested via https://railmodeller.uservoice.com/foru ... ing-grades)

The latest update (RailModeller Pro 5.3.7) adds an option to select the way grades are displayed throughout the app in order to cater for regional preferences: Grades can now be shown in per mille, as a percentage, and as a ratio.

The grade display format can be selected in the application's preferences similarly to how the unit system can already be customized to show either metric or imperial units.

I will echo another persons comment that sometimes it is very difficult to use the auto-add feature to add an additional section of track.

A recent update also added the option to turn off the auto-add feature in the app's preferences.
So whether you love the feature or find it is getting in the way this can now be controlled to match your personal working style!

Cheers,
Jan