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Before I get too far into this drawing I thought I'd ask about viewability. We have an accurate drawing of our club layout which I placed as a background to trace in Layout Editor, I'll remove it when I'm finished.? However as I was drawing I got to wondering if I'm going to wind up not liking the spacing of the mainlines? I have the space in the aisle way to move the mainlines around and spread them apart. Looking at the image the upper left I drew the mainline separation accurate to the drawing. The middle/right I drew based on the default spacing that a crossover sets out as.?

The club is converting to DCC soon and this is my first attempt with JMRI. Those with more experience than me, are we going dislike having the mainlines that close??

Many people do not try to make the LE view match the physical view of the
layout. Instead it is a clean 'logical' relationship of everything flatten
to be more like many 'dispatcher' view of a layout. So we skip things like
curves etc... We want to make sure the relations of all the parts are right
and that the signals and other uses of the data is right.

Then we may go on an make other views to depict the layout as needed. So
might be logical, might be physical, who knows.

-Ken Cameron, Member JMRI Dev Team
www.jmri.org
www.fingerlakeslivesteamers.org
www.cnymod.com
www.syracusemodelrr.org

Ok. I was under the impression CPE would be where I'd want to build the schematic view.?

Is there a component of JMRI where what I'm trying to accomplish would work better??

A lot how you want to use a panel determines which editor is the better fit.
Having more than one pane, using different editors, isn't unusual. Some use
drawings or even photos as background and then just place a few things, like
signals, over them. The key thing about Layout Editor is that it builds a
database of what connects to what or what is placed next to what. Other
tools then use that information. Example: if you use signal masts, there is
a signal mast logic builder that will use that information for creating
logic to drive them.

-Ken Cameron, Member JMRI Dev Team
www.jmri.org
www.fingerlakeslivesteamers.org
www.cnymod.com
www.syracusemodelrr.org

Don,

Layout Editor supports levels so you can place your sensor icons on top of the track.

The old method of using multiple track segments with the same block assignment and one segment hidden still works but is no longer necessary.

Dave Sand

Wayne,
I have my layout in both LE and CPE. It took me a while to fully understand the differences. It took a lot of help and patience from people on this forum answering my questions to figure it out. (Thanks to Ken, Dave and others). I finally got it cleared up in my mind when I thought of LE as a wiring diagram for a circuit where all the pieces must link to each other for it to work. Cannot drop a turnout into LE without it physically connecting (on the panel) to the rest of the track. Connecting it makes it part of the "circuit".? With everything connected, you now have a circuit that allows all the pieces (turnouts, signals, etc) to work together. ? Meanwhile, in PE/CPE, nothing needs to be physically connected on the panel unless you want it to look that way for your viewing. Each individual piece operates according to the parameters you assign to that piece. You can drop a turnout anywhere then click on it and watch it change without it being directly connected to anything on the panel. However, you can connect all the pieces together behind the scenes with scripts and Logix to make a change to one item impact another. Example...WHEN turnout #20 changes from closed to thrown, THEN light #88 changes color to green or red or whatever per the rules you set up in Logix. In effect, PE/CPE is also a circuit but it relies on the rules, scripts and Logix behind the scenes...not on the face of the panel.
I built my layout in LE first but I don't care for the way it looks since I don't have physical control panels on my layout and I rely on JMRI panels (on an iPad) to operate everything. Instead, I built my panels in CPE and I like them much better for control panel viewing on an iPad. If you get real creative, you can build your CPE panel in all sorts of colors. On mine, when I change a turnout, the track color for the useable route changes to blue while the unusable route turns to red. This allows me to look at my iPad panel and quickly see what route is open depending on existing turnout settings. Not very prototypical but it fill my needs as a single operator.? I will keep my LE panel up to date but I do not plan to jump into more advanced JMRI features such as blocks and signals where the LE panel is needed.

Only slightly off topic but the story of the development of the map for the London underground transit system which culminated in 1933 with a layout diagram style that is now used by virtually all public transit systems in the world is worth a read. See wikipedia or?https://londonist.com/2016/05/the-history-of-the-tube-map . It covers all the issues being discussed here of being understandable (seeing what relates to what and how), readable (having room for indicator lights and labels) and scaling (fitting geography and varying densities into a finite panel size).

Jan

Paul - Thank you! That makes it make SO much more sense. Is it better to learn one and then move to the other? I've seen it mentioned that their both pretty interchangeable, wasn't sure if learning one had any advantage or made the other component easier.?

Paul D,

Relating Layout Editor to a Schematic is a nice analogy.

-Ken Cameron, Member JMRI Dev Team
www.jmri.org
www.fingerlakeslivesteamers.org
www.cnymod.com
www.syracusemodelrr.org