Comments on: Layout Planning with BlueBrick http://www.carolinatrainbuilders.com/index.php/2010/01/layout-planning-with-bluebrick/ Thoughts and musings on all things LEGO® Mon, 19 Jul 2010 02:00:52 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: Alex http://www.carolinatrainbuilders.com/index.php/2010/01/layout-planning-with-bluebrick/comment-page-1/#comment-1167 Alex Fri, 09 Apr 2010 14:38:12 +0000 http://www.carolinatrainbuilders.com/?p=453#comment-1167 Hi Mike, if your mouse wheel is the third button (like it is on mine as well), then yes it should work. It should work in MLCad too. If not, there might be something wrong with the button itself, or the software that controls the mouse (either windows generic, or from the manufacturer), is set up so that the third button is not activated. Could you please email me the make and model of the mouse you are using, and whether you have any additional software installed in order to use it? Like I mentioned in a previous post, unfortunately I can not install TrackDraw on Windows 7 and I couldn't find a parts list at sourceforge... could you send me a link? As Alban Nanty is still using XP I will ask him to have a look which parts were already included in the program. We will try to get all TrackDraw parts included in the 1.6 BlueBrick release. Here are the additional TrackDraw baseplates that will be included in V 1.6 http://www.freelug.org/article.php3?id_article=227. If you do end up making more base plates it would be great if you could post them here, and please let us know if we can include them in future releases. http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=31141 The football pitch is also a main attraction in my layout. You might like my football stadium GIFs which you can find here... http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=31141&st=225 Thanks! Alex Hi Mike, if your mouse wheel is the third button (like it is on mine as well), then yes it should work. It should work in MLCad too. If not, there might be something wrong with the button itself, or the software that controls the mouse (either windows generic, or from the manufacturer), is set up so that the third button is not activated. Could you please email me the make and model of the mouse you are using, and whether you have any additional software installed in order to use it?
Like I mentioned in a previous post, unfortunately I can not install TrackDraw on Windows 7 and I couldn’t find a parts list at sourceforge… could you send me a link? As Alban Nanty is still using XP I will ask him to have a look which parts were already included in the program. We will try to get all TrackDraw parts included in the 1.6 BlueBrick release. Here are the additional TrackDraw baseplates that will be included in V 1.6 http://www.freelug.org/article.php3?id_article=227. If you do end up making more base plates it would be great if you could post them here, and please let us know if we can include them in future releases. http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=31141
The football pitch is also a main attraction in my layout. You might like my football stadium GIFs which you can find here… http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=31141&st=225
Thanks! Alex

]]> By: Mike Walsh http://www.carolinatrainbuilders.com/index.php/2010/01/layout-planning-with-bluebrick/comment-page-1/#comment-1166 Mike Walsh Thu, 08 Apr 2010 20:32:22 +0000 http://www.carolinatrainbuilders.com/?p=453#comment-1166 Ok, no problem. There are a lot of parts that were done for TrackDraw, particularly the baseplates. They are very simple to model too so creating a lot of them very quickly was pretty straight forward. Try downloading TrackDraw from the <a href="http://indylug.org/files/folders/misc/entry1114.aspx" rel="nofollow">IndyLUG web site</a>. I tried building TrackDraw from the source a while back and couldn't get it to work either. Someone else did some work on it and seems to have been left in a partially done state. All of the library parts that Cary and I did are all in the SourceForge repository. Ok, no problem. There are a lot of parts that were done for TrackDraw, particularly the baseplates. They are very simple to model too so creating a lot of them very quickly was pretty straight forward. Try downloading TrackDraw from the IndyLUG web site. I tried building TrackDraw from the source a while back and couldn’t get it to work either. Someone else did some work on it and seems to have been left in a partially done state. All of the library parts that Cary and I did are all in the SourceForge repository.

]]> By: Mike Walsh http://www.carolinatrainbuilders.com/index.php/2010/01/layout-planning-with-bluebrick/comment-page-1/#comment-1165 Mike Walsh Thu, 08 Apr 2010 20:28:30 +0000 http://www.carolinatrainbuilders.com/?p=453#comment-1165 That is good news on the soccer field as it is something I almost always incorporate into my layouts. That is too bad about scroll bars, I would think they would be part of the Canvas that BlueBrick is built on. When I use ML-Cad, the first thing I do is turn them on. A better solution for panning might be what we employ at Mentor Graphics where I work - in many of our CAD applications if you drag the mouse toward the edge of a screen it will pan in that direction if you pause the mouse briefly. The multiple key combination to pan isn't very user friendly at all. I don't have a 3 button mouse - I have a two button mouse with a wheel and in most applications holding the wheel down causes the same action as the middle mouse button on a three button mouse but I couldn't get it to work with any of the mice I use. Should it? I'll try setting the speed on the wheel, I must have missed that when looking for it. Thanks, Mike That is good news on the soccer field as it is something I almost always incorporate into my layouts.

That is too bad about scroll bars, I would think they would be part of the Canvas that BlueBrick is built on. When I use ML-Cad, the first thing I do is turn them on. A better solution for panning might be what we employ at Mentor Graphics where I work – in many of our CAD applications if you drag the mouse toward the edge of a screen it will pan in that direction if you pause the mouse briefly. The multiple key combination to pan isn’t very user friendly at all.

I don’t have a 3 button mouse – I have a two button mouse with a wheel and in most applications holding the wheel down causes the same action as the middle mouse button on a three button mouse but I couldn’t get it to work with any of the mice I use. Should it?

I’ll try setting the speed on the wheel, I must have missed that when looking for it.

Thanks,

Mike

]]> By: missouri_bb63 http://www.carolinatrainbuilders.com/index.php/2010/01/layout-planning-with-bluebrick/comment-page-1/#comment-1160 missouri_bb63 Fri, 26 Mar 2010 23:10:17 +0000 http://www.carolinatrainbuilders.com/?p=453#comment-1160 Oops, sorry wasn't paying attention there and I thought you were referring to Track Designer. We have finished the compatibility for that. I hope the new parts and base plates that we have included also include those in Track Draw. I just downloaded it but I can't get it to run on my Win7 x64. I will ask Alban to see if we missed out any other parts. Oops, sorry wasn’t paying attention there and I thought you were referring to Track Designer. We have finished the compatibility for that. I hope the new parts and base plates that we have included also include those in Track Draw. I just downloaded it but I can’t get it to run on my Win7 x64. I will ask Alban to see if we missed out any other parts.

]]> By: missouri_bb63 http://www.carolinatrainbuilders.com/index.php/2010/01/layout-planning-with-bluebrick/comment-page-1/#comment-1159 missouri_bb63 Fri, 26 Mar 2010 23:01:23 +0000 http://www.carolinatrainbuilders.com/?p=453#comment-1159 Hi Mike. Thanks for the feedback. You will be pleased to know that one of the main aims for the 1.6 BlueBrick release is a 100% compatibility with the standard and extended TrackDraw libraries. The soccer field base plate is ready and I think we have finished all the others too. The release might take a while though as Alban (the software's creator), is currently working on a load of other new features which he wants to finish up first. Generally panning is easiest with a three button mouse where you just need to hold down the scroll wheel, and move the mouse in the desired direction. I hadn’t actually used the left ALT+ left Shift+ left mouse button on the touch pad of my laptop before, but I just tried it and it worked fine. Did this combination actually "not work" for you or was it simply not user friendly. It is based on the MLCad pan method which also doesn't use scroll bars. It is something I discussed with Alban a while back and he said he wouldn't be including them in the near future as it seems to require relatively complex programming and there wasn't much demand with most users using the 3 button mouse option. If you continue to have problems with the short cut keys please let me know. The adjustment for the zoom is called “wheel zoom speed” which you can find it in the global options, at the top right corner of the “general” tab. I use a setting of .0020. Lower values make the zoom rate slower. Giving it a value of 0 actually switches off the zoom completely. Like I mentioned before, please feel free to write your queries into the Eurobricks forum as we check that regularly and I am sure there are other people out there who would be interested in reading your comments too. I hope this helps! Hi Mike.

Thanks for the feedback. You will be pleased to know that one of the main aims for the 1.6 BlueBrick release is a 100% compatibility with the standard and extended TrackDraw libraries. The soccer field base plate is ready and I think we have finished all the others too. The release might take a while though as Alban (the software’s creator), is currently working on a load of other new features which he wants to finish up first.

Generally panning is easiest with a three button mouse where you just need to hold down the scroll wheel, and move the mouse in the desired direction. I hadn’t actually used the left ALT+ left Shift+ left mouse button on the touch pad of my laptop before, but I just tried it and it worked fine. Did this combination actually “not work” for you or was it simply not user friendly. It is based on the MLCad pan method which also doesn’t use scroll bars.
It is something I discussed with Alban a while back and he said he wouldn’t be including them in the near future as it seems to require relatively complex programming and there wasn’t much demand with most users using the 3 button mouse option. If you continue to have problems with the short cut keys please let me know.

The adjustment for the zoom is called “wheel zoom speed” which you can find it in the global options, at the top right corner of the “general” tab. I use a setting of .0020. Lower values make the zoom rate slower. Giving it a value of 0 actually switches off the zoom completely.
Like I mentioned before, please feel free to write your queries into the Eurobricks forum as we check that regularly and I am sure there are other people out there who would be interested in reading your comments too.

I hope this helps!

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