I don't have any real ideas about how to better identify decoders. I agree it's a mess, and will be happy to implement whatever you guys think is best.
Mark Gurries made a suggestion a while back that I think would help with the user interface. He suggested that, instead of a single long list of decoders that's ordered by manufacturer, that we split it into three selection boxes:
(Mfg) (Family) (Model)
When you pick a particular item in the "Manufacturer" box on the left, that will restrict the other two to just that manufacturers families and models. If we auto-identify the manufacturer, that also does the restriction, so people just see the ones from that manufacturer.
The "Family" one would then be things like "LC Steam" for Soundtraxx, or "FX Decoders" for Digitrax. The idea is to have them be "so close together that they basically all program the same". Even if you're not sure of the particular model, and the program can't figure it out, you'll probably not get in trouble.
And then the "Model" box would get down to the specifics, including the number of output wires on a specific model, etc.
So if somebody knew that they had a "PQ197PJ", they could look for that in the "Model" column. If they don't see it, perhaps because nobodies ever made a file for it, but know that it's from "Wizzo Co", they could select that under manufacturer (or maybe decoder ID would do that), and look at the families. They they might realize that it's a "CoolChip" decoder, select that family, and be close enough to function.
Does this sound like it could help?
Bob
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Bob Jacobsen (Bob_Jacobsen@..., 510-486-7355, fax 510-495-2957)
Bob Jacobsen