JMRI: Panel Editor Help

The Panel Editor

A panel is a set of icons representing various components of a layout. Some of the icons available in JMRI include turnouts, signals, and sensors. You can also include a background icon for your panel.

Creating a panel

These are made with the Panel Editor, which allows you to place images to represent turnouts, signals, sensors, trackwork, etc.

If you'd like to see animated clinics that show how each of these things are actually done on the computer screen, please see Dick Bronson's clinics page.

Contents of the Panel Editor

Starting from the top:

Two text fields specifying where (in pixels) new components will be inserted on the panel. You can generally ignore these, as once the components has been inserted you can drag it around by holding the meta (Apple, command; Linux & Windows, right button) key down.
A button to pick a background image. The editor's drawing capability is rudimentary and likely to stay that way for a long time. To create CTC panels, complex track diagrams, etc, it may be easier to draw them in some other program and insert them as the background image for a JMRI control panel. (see below for more information)
A button to add a text label. Put the desired text in the field and click the button. You can slide the label around after inserting it, but you currently can't edit the text later.
A button to add an icon as a label. This is a way to add track symbols, etc. To change the icon, click the "Change icon" button to activate the Change Icon panel. The current icon is shown at the top. To change it, use the tree in the the window to find a new one. The new icon will be shown at the bottom of the window. To use the new icon, click on the icon at the top of the Change Icon panel to load the selected icon. This is a general mechanism: Any icon in an Change Icon window can be replaced by selecting the desired new one and clicking on the icon to be replaced.
Two sections for adding left- and right-bound turnouts. These actually work the same way, only with different icons to represent the states of the turnouts. Enter the turnout number (e.g. 23) and click "Add turnout:". If you'd prefer a different graphic for the closed and thrown states, you can change their icons as described above.
A section for adding a sensor. Type the sensor number (e.g. 74) in the field and click "Add sensor:".
A section for adding a signal head. You should define your signal heads by using the signal head table before attempting to add them to your panel. Then type in the signal head number in the field and click "Add signal head:".

Control Checkboxes

Panel items popup menu active. When checked a small popup menu will appear when you right click an icon. Most icons allow you to rotate and remove the icon. There are other options depending on the type of icon, for example, you can disable a turnout so it doesn't actually control anything.

The popup menu may also change if the configuration of an item is changed. For example, if you add feedback to a turnout, the popup menu includes a new item choice called "Tristate". Tristate allows you to use the inconsistent icon, which is one of the four possible icons available for a turnout. Normally when you first click on a turnout icon it commands the layout to change the state of the turnout. If you use feedback for a particular turnout, the icon display will wait to hear from the layout before modifying the turnout icon to the closed or thrown icon. By using Tristate, the icon will change immediately to the inconsistent icon when the turnout is clicked. Inconsistent in this case means that I've commanded the turnout to change and now we're waiting to hear if it actually happened. If and when the layout returns the actual or "known state" of the turnout, the icon will change to that state. If you don't use Tristate, when you click on the icon, it may take some time (milliseconds to seconds depending on the system) before the icon responds with the known state of the turnout.
All panel items can be repositioned. When checked you can move items in your panel by selecting and dragging them with the meta key. Linux and Windows users can hold the right click down and drag. By default new items can be repositoned even if this box isn't checked.
Show item's coordinates in popup menu. When checked, the item's popup menu will include the item's X and Y coordinates. This can help you better position your icons in the panel.
Panel items control layout. Normally you want to control your layout, so leave this box checked. Otherwise, uncheck the box if you don't want your panel to send commands to your layout.
Panel has menu. Once you don't need to change or edit your layout, you can disable the ability to use the panel editor. The only way to re-enable the editor is to edit the panel file. Using a simple editor (Notepad for Window users will work) or XML editor, open your panel and find panelmenu="no" and change "no" to "yes" and save the file. The panel will now show the menu the next time you load the panel in PanelPro.

After getting the panel the way you want, you need to use the "Store panels..." entry in the "Panels" menu to write it to an XML file.

Available Icons

The JMRI library contains lots of contributed icons for representing CTC panels, LEDs, etc. You can browse through them using the file tree in the Change Icon frame.

You can also create your own icons. Create a new folder named "resources" in your JMRI Preferences directory. Add your new icons to that folder. This will prevent any possible conflicts or loss of data during an upgrade. These new items will automatically appear under "files" in the icon selections.

Other types of panels

Because this is icon-based, you can create panels that look any way you want. For example, instead of using track-schematic icons for turnouts, you could use small images of the levers and plates on CTC machine. This would give you "mechanical" levers you can flip back and forth with a click.

It's also possible to create a panel where the "track" lines change color to indicate whether the track is occupied. The procedure for doing that is described on a separate page.

Manipulating Icons

To move an icon around on the panel, you "meta-drag" it. On a Mac, that's "hold the cmd key and drag with the cursor"; on Linux or Windows, "hold the right mouse click and drag with the cursor".

There's also a pop-up menu (ctrl-click on a Mac; right-click on Linux or Windows) that will provide various ways to manipulate the icon. It will let you rotate the icon so that it points in whatever direction you want. Text labels can have their font, size and color changed. You can also remove icons from the panel with the popup menu.

Multi Slice Backgrounds

For users that need to build a classic US&S panel there are several options. The first is to simply select the 15 position panel background from icons/USS/background/uss-15.gif. Another option is to use a pixel based image editor to create your own background image. Save the image as a .gif or similar file. (see info above on where to store new images) Yet another option is to create the background image from multiple slices of the whole panel. JMRI supports using multiple background images so, by simply positioning each image properly, a complete panel of any reasonable size may be created.

Currently there are two sets of image 'slices' available. One set is 718 pixels high, and the second set is 900 pixles high. Choose the set that best fits your display. These 'slices' are located at icons/USS/background/. The 900 pixel high images include a "-9" in their names. The left and right edge images are each 12 pixels wide. The main panel 'slices' are 65 pixels wide. This allows you to precisely position each slice simply by changing the x: and y: coordinates in the Panel Editor. The advantages of building backgrounds with slices are that you can make virtually any length of panel that is required, and the plates will be precisely located automatically.

First set the coordinates to x:0, y:0 and select icons/USS/background/Panel-left.gif. (or icons/USS/background/Panel-left-9.gif) This gives you the left edge of the panel. Change the coordinates to x:12 y:0 and choose the next slice. It may be blank, include a switch plate, include a signal plate, or include both plates. Only the "x:" coordinate needs to be changed as you continue to add additional panel sections. The 'slices' are each 65 pixles wide, so simply add 65 to the x: value for each additional slice. For example; to build up a 15 position panel from slices, use x:0 for the left side, then x:12, x:77, x:142, x:207, x:272, x:337, x:402, x:467, x:532, x:597, x:662, x:727, x:792, x:857, and x:922 for the individual slices. Finally set x:987 and complete the panel with icons/USS/background/Panel-right.gif.

To change the style of any individual slice (e.g. to add a new plate to your panel) first check the "Show item's coordinates in popup menu" check box in the editor window. Next, right click in a blank area of the old slice to raise the pop up information including the coordinates of that slice. Put those numbers in the editor's coordinates, then remove the slice. Finally, choose a new slice and it will appear where the old one was.

Communicating with Multiple Systems

PanelPro can communicate with more than one layout control system. For example, the Cornwall Railroad uses C/MRI hardware for sensing the status of blocks and turnouts on the layout, but drives turnout positions through a Digitrax DCC system.

To configure the program to talk to multiple systems, select them in the preferences panel. (Edit->Preferences) Check the "Show Advanced Preferences" and under "Aux layout connection:" enter the system information for your second connection.

If you add a turnout, sensor or signal to a panel using just a number, e.g. "23", it will be assigned to the first system on the preference panel. To access the second system, you have to use JMRI system names. For example, if the second attachment is to a LocoNet system, you'd refer to a LocoNet Turnout as LT13; a LocoNet sensor as LS21, etc.