Release Notes for JMRI 3.5.3 release

Date: September 15, 2013

From: Bob Jacobsen

Subject: Test version 3.5.3 of JMRI/DecoderPro is available for download.

Notes:

This is a test release. Please post a note if you encounter any new or old bugs! And please back up your JMRI files before installing this, in case you want to go back to an earlier version.

This is the next in a series of test versions. We expect this series to end in a JMRI 3.6 production release around the end of the year.

Some of the changes involved are quite extensive. They may require a certain amount of experience before they are working well. Therefore, this test version should be considered experimental.

JMRI is now only available under the GNU General Public License. For more information, please see our copyright and licensing page.

New warnings for this version:

Older warnings

This release and all future releases will not support the NCE serial interface running at 19,200 baud.

This release, and all other releases in this cycle, require Java 1.6 or newer.

Known problems with this release

Download links:

Please use these links for downloading:

Changes since test release 3.5.2:

Robin Becker updated the Tam Valley Quad Ln11 decoder definition

Dave Heap updated help files

Walter Thompson fixed links in the help files

Dan Boudreau made the following changes to operations:

• Improved the page layout (line wrap) for manifests and switch lists when using variable width fonts like sansSerif.
• New feature, you can now control the order passenger cars are shown on your manifests and switch lists. In the edit car window, a new field called "Passenger Car Blocking Order" will appear when you select the "Passenger" check box in the "Type" field. The text box allows you to enter numbers between 0 and 100. Lower numbers will place the car near the front of the train, and higher numbers towards the rear. Recommend that you start off using numbers divisible by 10. For example, you might what to place an observation car at the end of the train, a value of "90" would be appropriate. If you wanted a baggage car to be the first car in the passenger train, a value of "10" would be a good value, cars in the middle of the train could use "50".

Dave Heap improved DecoderPro slider support:

• The "hslider" format displayed a plain slider for decVal and indexedPairVal variable types but a percentage slider for indexedVal type. The percentage display was currently only used in QSI definitions.
• Restored consistency so "hslider" displays a plain slider for all three variable types.
• Created a new "hslider-percent" format (using existing code) for all three variable types.
• Updated QSI pane definitions where necessary to restore pre-patch behavior.
• Note that the existing code for "hslider-percent" is a bit kludgy and customized specifically to accommodate some QSI features. Future development would be to replace with a new "hslider-custom" format giving better control of labels, if a way could be devised of specifying a hashtable-type custom label list in programmer pane definitions.

Michael Mosher updated the TCS WOW decoder support.

Dave Heap added ESU V4/Select fixes, additions, new panes.

Jeff Schmaltz added a decoder definition for the Massoth pulsed smoke unit.