I had been playing and finding things. Sadly, you really have to search around and do a lot of reading. The authors blog, the JMRI page and elsewhere. I wish I can remember all my steps, but I think I started with PanelPro and the debut menu and VSD Manager and creating a decoder. Then I created a train. Then I found a note about the roster. Here are some of my other steps:
1. Go to settings -> Create Roster Group and create one called VSD
2. Then go into the loco I created, right click and select "labels and media" and the "roster media" tab and manually change RosterGroup:VSD to "yes".
3. Go to preferences and set auto launch throttle. Don't remember where
4. Got to edit -> preferences and click the Add button and add "Start Virtual Sound Decoder Manager"
VSD manager now launched automaticall but it is empty. I have to keep manually adding the same decoder over and over. Also, the throttle does not auto load as I asked it to. And the sound still doesn't work for the function keys. You mentioned selecting the NMRA decoder. I had selected SDN136PS. I tried to find a way to change the decoder for the loco I already created, but can't find it. Can I change it to NMRA??
FlightRisk