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+--- Thread: Custom Engine Driver Function Buttons (/showthread.php?tid=32)
Custom Engine Driver Function Buttons - Chuck Fink - 09-21-2018
Function buttons on my Engine Driver throttles are labeled to match their actions on the engine that I happen to be running at the time. When I have shown the Engine Driver function buttons on my Android phone to some club members, the response was "How did you do that?". It's not very difficult but it couldn't be described while we were both trying to run trains.
If you'd like to know more, check the attached "Custom Engine Driver Function Labels" paper. That paper includes examples of throttle screens, the files that define those screens for Engine Driver, directions and some important tips.
If there are any questions or suggestions, you can post them here, of course, or you can call me at 469.667.9214.
RE: Custom Engine Driver Function Buttons - Oliver Bowe - 10-30-2018
Chuck,
Thanks for taking time to post the Custom Engine Driver Function Button information.
Oliver
RE: Custom Engine Driver Function Buttons - Chuck Fink - 10-30-2018
Funny you should mention this today, Oliver. Until last Saturday, Custom Engine Driver Function Buttons had really only been "unit" tested. That's a term we used in IT back in the day to mean that various functions (programs, sub-programs, manual procedures) had been tested separately but not together. On Saturday, I finally had both of my steam engines available for duty and gave Custom Buttons a "system" test. Happy to report that everything went very smoothly.
Custom Buttons had been tested pretty well with my one Diesel but since it has no sound and only the simplest lighting, it wasn't really much of a test.
RE: Custom Engine Driver Function Buttons - Chuck Fink - 11-01-2018
When I returned home last night after a "final" (and very successful) test of Custom Engine Driver Function Buttons, I found a new version (v2.22.69) of Engine Driver waiting to be installed. The only changes I found that impact customizing of function buttons are:
- The error that caused only one character of a function label to be shown when accessing the Function Defaults screen has been fixed and all 7 characters are now shown. This made one sentence in my original description of customizing obsolete; the corrected version of that paper is attached to this post.
- A new 'Big Button' throttle screen option is now available. When this option is turned on, the Select button (or the selected engine or engines), the throttle setting, and Forward and Reverse buttons take the entire width of the screen. Below this on the left are buttons nearly as wide as the screen to increase speed (labeled ++), decrease speed (labeled -), and STOP. To the right is a column of function buttons (6+ on my cell phone) that are larger than the buttons in the previous format.
I think I like the 'Big Button' screen but there is a slight problem with it. If you have also selected the option to lock the screen by swiping up, trying to scroll to access function buttons that are off the bottom of your screen will frequently lock the screen. Swiping up again won't always unlock the screen; sometimes I have had to restart Engine Driver to unlock the screen.
- The new "Colourful/Colorful" theme option forced my attention to the "Theme/Style" option on the Preferences screen. I tried the new "Colorful Theme" and don't think much of it. The "High Contrast Outline Theme", on the other hand, makes function buttons with emoji labels really stand out.
The rest of the Engine Driver changes had no impact on customized function buttons (or I didn't understand the descriptions). The changes discussed above were again tested this afternoon and all went well.