New Royston signals map using PNG images

I agree, he did a nice job. The signal numbers are easy to read and stand out clearly against the background. They are all consistently organized, in this case alongside the signal rather than above/below, but that doesn't matter.

1) the need to mentally translate colours to their panel equivalents,

2) the sheer difficulty of knowing where to look for any particular signal, given only its number and the last location of the train. For example, under the Saltley PSB are two orange dots. If one didn't know what they were, one would have to look at the real panel or check the classic gif, then realize "Ah! They're really blue. That makes them Via buttons." This is why I would now suggest simply creating a signal map starting with the "classic" view, then changing background from black to white, to avoid this problem.

Any chance of a moderator or administrator locking this thread before someone tells him what they really think he can do with his ideas

Geoff

The options for creating a signal map have been detailed and the feedback has been great, thanks guys.

By the way, I thought I saw a bus disappearing in a cloud of dust. Must have sold the last ticket. Ah, peace and quiet at last.

I've just noticed a small discrepancy that should be cleared up.
When I checked the manual page just now it appears this map was silently updated by Steamer

Anyway, I thought I'd take a look at the image he'd embedded in his PDF file, using a PDF image extractor. To my surprise, it was just a straight screen capture - there were no signal numbers on it. This means he must have converted the screen capture into a PDF, then used a PDF editor to overlay screen numbers. Nothing wrong with that, I guess, as long as you don't mind using a PDF reader, but you would have to use a PDF editor to make changes, and they're usually payware.

1. Take a screenshot (print screen key for paged, save bitmap for scrollys).

3. Use Paint to invert the colours

4. Copy inverted image into Microsoft Office Publisher.
5. Add signal numbers using text boxes.

You must be doing this in Windows XP, since they omitted this useful feature from the Vista/Win7 version!

So it looks like Paint.NET is the way to go about it if you're running Win 7 or Vista.

For small paged sims such as Royston, where the window takes up less space than the full screen so that all you want to do is capture the active window, hit Alt+PrtSc (Alt+PrintScreen) to limit capture to the active window (the sim window), rather than the full screen. I'm sure most of you know this shortcut anyway.

Thanks for recommending Bullzip PDF. I'll look into it.

I tried several ways of printing Scrollys to PDF, but they ended up making the plan unreadable unless zoomed in very close.

Never been a problem for me, since my screen resolution is 1024x768, which means that paged sims fit the screen perfectly.

" said:

Never been a problem for me, since my screen resolution is 1024x768, which means that paged sims fit the screen perfectly.

I must admit, paged sims look a bit odd in 1920x1080 :)

Try 5760 X `080 ;)

Personally, I think that the way headshot did his Saltley signal diagram was superior. It is a brilliant and cheap way of printing out a diagram which I have stuck on my wall.

Quote:

If it aint broke, dont fix it