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| Instructions to Signalmen... 14/03/2014 at 08:45 #56929 | |
ozrail
197 posts |
Having been a Signaller of the last 45 years, and recently retired I always believed that the best way to understand a signalling location was to know where the Signals and points were in real life. (I could tell you a hundred stories about why this is so, But not here.) So every time a new simulation comes out I look through my Cabride DVD collection to see the area controlled. In the case Victoria South Eastern and Central I purchased two DVD's. London Bridge to London Bridge via Sutton and London Bridge to London Victoria via Crystal Palace. I know its a little expensive doing it this way, but its cheaper then going there.
Last edited: 14/03/2014 at 08:46 by ozrail Log in to reply The following user said thank you: DriverCurran |
| Instructions to Signalmen... 14/03/2014 at 09:05 #56930 | |
Noisynoel
989 posts |
" said:The author could supply links to tourist sites which include maps and historical facts.Or of course, you could spend some time finding said links yourself freeing up the author/developer to actually devoting his time to building sims. Noisynoel Log in to reply The following users said thank you: DriverCurran, John |
| Instructions to Signalmen... 14/03/2014 at 11:02 #56939 | |
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maxand
1637 posts |
Quote:Or of course, you could spend some time finding said links yourself freeing up the author/developer to actually devoting his time to building sims.If you bother to check out my edits to the Lancing manual you'll see that I have (Wikipedia links). Last edited: 14/03/2014 at 11:03 by maxand Log in to reply |
| Instructions to Signalmen... 14/03/2014 at 12:39 #56943 | |
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Noisynoel
989 posts |
" said:Quote:To be truthful I can't be 'bothered' to check out your edits to the Lancing manual as I've already read it and understood it first time. I was however referring to your post on here, which obviously is different to what has actually occurred, ie, you say in your post that the autor should provide links, but you have in this case done it yourself. Off course this begs a further question as the Wiki is able to be edited by all so who is the 'author'?Or of course, you could spend some time finding said links yourself freeing up the author/developer to actually devoting his time to building sims.If you bother to check out my edits to the Lancing manual you'll see that I have (Wikipedia links). Noisynoel Log in to reply The following users said thank you: andyb0607, JamesN, DriverCurran |
| Instructions to Signalmen... 14/03/2014 at 14:15 #56948 | |
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maxand
1637 posts |
It depends on the situation. Usually the author is the first (and generally the only) person to create the manual. Just think of me as Santa's little helper. So when next you would like some proofreading done, send me a little PM, I'll do it for the sake of the forum and you can take the credit. 
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| Instructions to Signalmen... 14/03/2014 at 14:16 #56949 | |
northroad
872 posts |
Personally speaking I read the wiki manually the first time I use the sim and then prefer to dive in and get my feet wet. What seems to be a good manual and fit for purpose manual can very often become too long and boring with too many changes. As long as I know which version is the latest version for the sim and the timetable then that will do me.......it would appear from the numerous posts on the forum that a lot of users prefer to use that option rather than scroll through the wiki anyway......and why waste time reading something that has become too big and cumbersome. Geoff Log in to reply |
| Instructions to Signalmen... 14/03/2014 at 19:53 #56978 | |
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Pinza
106 posts |
I must admit I tend to read the wiki manual in advance to see whether it 'sells itself' as a Sim worth downloading and/or paying for. Then make the 'faux pas' of asking for help in the forum for things that have been covered in the manual. :dry: Really must take the effort to print off the full manual for each Sim I have (once I get round to buying new printer cartridge and paper...) A few thoughts: 1) Navigation of the wiki manual is much easier to navigate when there are Prev/Contents/Next buttons (as per newish Motherwell) but missing from very new New Street 2) Would be nice to have an option to download a full copy of the manual in (say) a PDF - would make it easier to print whole thing off - rather than page at a time. 3) New Street wiki looks comprehensive enough to tempt me to buy it soon and get stuck in! Just one slight typo in the latter: In the 'Non-Track Circuited Loops' entry under 'unusual signalling features' page, first paragraph includes the word 'tain' rather than 'train'. Please don't accuse me of being petty - excellent manual (Just that I used to be a proofreader). So looking forward to 'playing' this after next payday! Log in to reply |
| Instructions to Signalmen... 14/03/2014 at 20:37 #56983 | |
GeoffM
6376 posts 
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" said:1) Navigation of the wiki manual is much easier to navigate when there are Prev/Contents/Next buttons (as per newish Motherwell) but missing from very new New StreetThe problem with that approach is defining exactly what is previous/next as a Wiki is not linear in format. Each page has numerous links which might link to any other page in the set (or namespace, as DokuWiki calls it), so trying to make pages sequential is a bit like herding cats. At the top of any DokuWiki page are two sets of links, "you are here" and "Trace". The former shows the hierarchy so to get to a contents page of a manual you just need to go up one level - for example, on the New Street introduction page it says "You are here: start » usertrack » sims » new_street » introduction", so to go to the Contents page, click on "new_street". Similarly, to go to the previous page, use the "trace" links. SimSig Boss Log in to reply |
| Instructions to Signalmen... 14/03/2014 at 23:22 #56992 | |
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maxand
1637 posts |
Quote:I must admit I tend to read the wiki manual in advance to see whether it 'sells itself' as a Sim worth downloading and/or paying for. Now that many sims are payware, it's more important than ever to promote each one's salient features without assuming too much prior knowledge on the part of the reader. Quote: What seems to be a good manual and fit for purpose manual can very often become too long and boring with too many changes. I find this too, but maybe it's because I'm also trying to discern what changes have been made to the old version I remember. When this occurs I try to slow down and read the manual carefully from beginning to end, rather than skim through it. It's amazing what one picks up that one didn't know. I'd rather see a list of bugs and issues kept up to date in the manual than hunt for them in the forum. Quote: Really must take the effort to print off the full manual for each Sim I have I bring up the sim manual in a browser window and keep that running behind SimSig, or if you're lucky enough to have several monitors (screens) available you could run it in a separate screen. That not only ensures you are reading the latest version but also takes care of the non-linear aspect. Another thing I do is copy and paste slabs of info from the manual into a text or doc file that I keep running behind or below the sim and can drag up if I need it. Or maybe an image viwer or PDF reader set to the signal map. Last edited: 14/03/2014 at 23:23 by maxand Log in to reply |
| Instructions to Signalmen... 16/03/2014 at 20:10 #57157 | |
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Noisynoel
989 posts |
" said:So when next you would like some proofreading done, send me a little PM, I'll do it for the sake of the forum and you can take the credit. :laugh:If your trying to offend then you are succeeding! At NO stage have I ever taken credit for any one else's work, not in SimSig or any other part of life! May I respectfully suggest that you stop now before this turns into yet another slagging match! Oh and well done for putting me off working on more timetable's for everyones benefit! Noisynoel Last edited: 16/03/2014 at 20:11 by Noisynoel Log in to reply The following user said thank you: maxand |
| Instructions to Signalmen... 17/03/2014 at 01:29 #57185 | |
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maxand
1637 posts |
Noisynoel, I think you misunderstood me. I don't mind proofreading someone else's work before it is published in the Wiki, for example. I'd much rather do that than come in afterwards and edit what's printed simply to make it more readable. And I don't particularly wish to display my authorship or take credit for alterations when doing so, although after editing a Wiki page it's easy to backtrack and see who made the last edit. I prefer the "let's see if we can improve on this before final publication" approach. Perhaps I didn't phrase this as well as I might have. This offer is open to anyone who feels nervous about writing things up. Last edited: 17/03/2014 at 01:30 by maxand Log in to reply |
| Instructions to Signalmen... 17/03/2014 at 10:52 #57201 | |
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ralphjwchadkirk
275 posts |
I and a couple of others have been working on and off for a few years now trying to come up with a new wiki structure and rewriting sections. Progress is slow, but there. There are loads of issues that make it incredibly difficult to improve. One of these is the decidedly odd wiki software which seems to *actually* have a rather restrictive file and folder system, from which you can't deviate. If it were my choice and I was to build a completely new Wiki, then I'd choose different software - perhaps MediaWiki for example. Secondly, there's a lack of a style manual. I believe Maxand has tried to create one and I've added to it, but nobody really follows it. This leads to massive consistency issues where (in the case of simulation manuals for example), some developers choose to host their own, some do it all on one big page, some split it into many pages but don't name these pages aside from "1, 2 3" etc, and some split it into pages and name them. I'm happy (and eager) to work as part of a small team on managing the Wiki, but I think we've reached a decision point where we either keep trying to improve the current one or start again completely with a new (planned!) structure, agreed style manual and a team of editors and only then do we start writing articles. Log in to reply The following user said thank you: maxand |
| Instructions to Signalmen... 17/03/2014 at 12:08 #57208 | |
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maxand
1637 posts |
Thanks Ralph. I don't recall actually creating a Wiki manual style page although I have added some minor features to the Syntax page. I agree the DokuWiki software leaves a bit to be desired but haven't had much to do with other Wiki formats, so am happy to leave the choice of Wiki to others. Agree that a small Wiki team would get things done faster but agreement on final format needs GeoffM's involvement. After this is decided I'm sure Geoff would be happy to leave the bulk of the work to the team as no doubt he has enough to do already. I'm also willing to be part of such a team, time and other activities permitting, improving the Wiki for all. As you all know, screenshots can greatly simplify explanations, so the mechanism for including them, deleting them, and incorporating them into tables has to be simple to use. I just wonder if straightforward HTML pages with a bit of CSS and maybe Javascript are the way to go. There are plenty of web sites showing how to create Web pages, and HTML5 offers so much more than its predecessors. This is not a panacea, however, we still need properly maintained sorted indexing and cross-referencing. However, CSS style sheets have a huge advantage over the present heading system in that all that one needs to do is specify the style and link the page to the appropriate CSS sheet. Last edited: 17/03/2014 at 12:09 by maxand Log in to reply |
| Instructions to Signalmen... 17/03/2014 at 12:40 #57209 | |
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LucasLCC
94 posts |
" said:Thanks Ralph. I don't recall actually creating a Wiki manual style page although I have added some minor features to the Syntax page.Personally I've always been a fan of MediaWiki, or more specifically BlueSpice for MediaWiki. It's nice and clean for a start, and it has a decent level of functionality. It's also PHP based, which is a big plus for me. It's also free and there is a decent level of documentation for those that have little experience. The WYSIWYG editor will mean the vast majority of people can edit it (like the current Wiki). " said: Agree that a small Wiki team would get things done faster but agreement on final format needs GeoffM's involvement. After this is decided I'm sure Geoff would be happy to leave the bulk of the work to the team as no doubt he has enough to do already.Having a team to ensure consistency is always a good thing, and most Wikis do incorporate such a team. Wikipedia for example has many such teams to do this. Screenshots can be handy at times, but they're not necessarily always a good thing. Overuse of screenshots will lead to several things: 1. Makes the man body of text harder to read, and does not improve flow. 2. Means printing a manual off becomes harder, and more resource heavy. 3. Those that are visually impaired will have issues with screenshots, as screen readers do have issues with them. Using lots of screenshots also risk the site not meeting WCAG 2.0 standards that sites should try and adhere to. " said: I just wonder if straightforward HTML pages with a bit of CSS and maybe Javascript are the way to go. There are plenty of web sites showing how to create Web pages, and HTML5 offers so much more than its predecessors. This is not a panacea, however, we still need properly maintained sorted indexing and cross-referencing. However, CSS style sheets have a huge advantage over the present heading system in that all that one needs to do is specify the style and link the page to the appropriate CSS sheet.HTML, whilst obviously fairly underpinning for web-sites, is not the way to go. Indexing a HTML site is far, far more complicated than with any other site. You're also relying on a more technical knowledge that I imagine many SimSig users won't have. Javascript is also not a particularly clean language, and it also can have compatibility issues with certain PC's etc. Lucas Log in to reply |