TSCM - Anybody interested?

[qzdcg8]

People might have noticed a couple of screenshots in the MSTS Trams / New This Week posting of my TSCM tool. This has been bubbling along quite nicely over the summer and I'm getting to the point where I might let it loose on you lot for trials. It doesn't have all the bells and whistles of ConBuilder but I think the User Interface is much nicer and has decapod's amazing Shape Viewer built right in.


Click the image to zoom in

Click the image to zoom in


Here's a shot with all of Chris Lindop's Blackpool Trams loaded...


Anybody interested - if so, I'll upload the current version, warts 'n' all for testing purposes. You will need to download and install Shape Viewer 1.3 first - I have not included any of decapods components in my installer.

[jbilton]

Yep........I'm interested Steve.

[qzdcg8]

Yep........I'm interested Steve.

Tried to upload it tonight but the upload failed - I'll do it tomorrow

[mikesimpson]

Hi Steve,

I was wondering what you were up to with the Shape Viewer - Please upload it, it is looking good so far.

[qzdcg8]

Uploaded this morning - let me know what you think.

[johndibben]

Very nice models as well

[saddletank]

Steve, have you spoken to the writer of Conbuilder (whose name I forget, apologies to him). Integrating this utility into Conbuilder would be excellent I think so that you have all the bells and whistles of that util plus your superb GUI with nice full colour stock graphics.

[decapod]

Finally someone uses the activeX control as it was intended
Well done Steve.

Only one small comment - why do you need Shape Viewer installed?

I think I supplied the DEP file for the trainlib.OCX (it may have been out of date, but it should be accurate) - the only other DLL's needed in the setup kit are the zlib.dll and picformat32.dll - all can be installed in the windows system folder.

I really should do a few more programs that make use of it.

[qzdcg8]

Finally someone uses the activeX control as it was intended
Well done Steve.

Only one small comment - why do you need Shape Viewer installed?

I think I supplied the DEP file for the trainlib.OCX (it may have been out of date, but it should be accurate) - the only other DLL's needed in the setup kit are the zlib.dll and picformat32.dll - all can be installed in the windows system folder.

I really should do a few more programs that make use of it.

Paul - you did indeed provide all the bits, but I didn't feel comfortable shipping your stuff at this point in time. Plus I had some varying results installing on operating systems other than WinXP (W2000 mainly) so to be safe I stuck with your kitted bits. Maybe I'll kit them in the next version.

On the techie side (for those that are interested) TSCM comes with a redistributable ActiveX DLL TSFileUtils.dll which can be used outside of TSCM also - it contains two classes TSFile and TSFileItem which can happily read and write virtually every 'uncompressed' MSTS File Type and present them to the utility writer as an object model. (there is an unshipped TSViewUtils.dll which smoothes the interface to the ShapeViewer OCX as well but for some reason it wouldn't work in TSCM without generating weird ActiveX errors)

[qzdcg8]

Steve, have you spoken to the writer of Conbuilder (whose name I forget, apologies to him). Integrating this utility into Conbuilder would be excellent I think so that you have all the bells and whistles of that util plus your superb GUI with nice full colour stock graphics.

Not spoken to him yet, but it depends what ConBuilder is written in. Just a thought - what is the most number of consists open in one go, people have managed before errors - I think I tested to 6

[mikesimpson]

Hi Steve,

Conbuilder is built in VB6, so should be fine with your code.

Just been testing your utility, Shapes view fine from menu and from clicking the Consist and selecting the ViewShape button on the resultant form.

However although Consists view fine from the menu, when I click the View Consist button I get a blank black screen with the consist name in the screen title line.

If I click on the black screen I get
Runtime error 91
Object variable or With block variable not set.

Regards - Mike.

[phill70]

If I click on the black screen I get
Runtime error 91
Object variable or With block variable not set.

Regards - Mike.

Hi steve, i get the same as mike.

[qzdcg8]

If I click on the black screen I get
Runtime error 91
Object variable or With block variable not set.

Regards - Mike.

Hi steve, i get the same as mike.

Doh so do I now - how did that happen?

Anyway, as usual it was a one line fix will be ok in the next version. I take it the guys who've responded are interested in beta testing the next version before I update UKTS? May I email you the latest 236K exe to try?

[phill70]

If I click on the black screen I get
Runtime error 91
Object variable or With block variable not set.

Regards - Mike.

Hi steve, i get the same as mike.

Doh so do I now - how did that happen?

Anyway, as usual it was a one line fix will be ok in the next version. I take it the guys who've responded are interested in beta testing the next version before I update UKTS? May I email you the latest 236K exe to try?

no problem, i could test it for you.

[qzdcg8]

If I click on the black screen I get
Runtime error 91
Object variable or With block variable not set.

Regards - Mike.

Hi steve, i get the same as mike.

Doh so do I now - how did that happen?

Anyway, as usual it was a one line fix will be ok in the next version. I take it the guys who've responded are interested in beta testing the next version before I update UKTS? May I email you the latest 236K exe to try?

no problem, i could test it for you.

A zip file is on its way to you...