Trainz Plus - Surveyor 2.0 Beta Release

[Tony_Hilliam]

In preparation for the upcoming Surveyor 2.0 Beta for our Trainz Plus (and Gold Class) members, the online guide is now ready for some heavy duty reading and feedback.

I know it's mean to give you the manual before you get your hands on the tools, but hey, this way more people will read the *** manual won't they.

FEEDBACK: For each page you read, please click the "Was this article helpful?" thumbs up or down rating.
This brings up a feedback section where you can add notes that will help us understand if a page requires more information or updating.

You can also provide additional general feedback here in this thread.

IMPORTANT: This thread is ONLY to give feedback on the online guide.

Please start another thread for discussions about the tools themselves or anything not related to the online guide.

LINK: Surveyor 2.0 Online Guide

 

[hiawathamr]

but hey, this way more people will read the *** manual won't they.

I can tell you, no they won't:hehe:

Cheers

 

[cabnz1]

What's a 'Manual'? :hehe:

 

[butler57]

Ahh! The Christmas wrapping paper has arrived without the Gift!
A quick look through the Manual and I gave up after being unable to decipher the Palettes detail with all the Black background and blurry Text which was a bit of a strain on my old eyes.
Looking forward to playing with the real (Gift) when it is released.

 

[G.M.]

Seems a well written manual, good job !

 

[brucem56]

I read it and can only say this - Bring on S20.

The improvements certainly sound good.

Palettes - thumbs up

Anchors - bigger thumbs up

I think building routes will become much more time consuming if you start getting into a lot of the fine tuning that will now be available, but the original surveyor will still be there, and you don't have to use all the new tools anyway.

Some great additions imho.

 

[RoysTrainz]

RTFM I always do after using the product extensively first.

Enjoying the TRS22 "patch" 115373 coming from TRS19 I must confess here my lifetime experience with manuals in general.
1 writing a good sw program is one thing
2 writing a useful manual that "most" international and local readers understand and makes the product usage better if possible.
3 Writing in multiple languages is for most companies out of their league for obvious reasons.

I tend to always look once in a while at a manual to see how they tried to describe what I gather through intuitive usage and learning by doing. (hit that darn button if it goes wrong you learn more than buttons used and work but not knowing why)

If a program is written well you will pick up pretty fast as long as you keep in mind most times it is written by programmers with no or little experience in the field the product is meant for.

I will go diagonal through it to see the main highlights and pick some grains left and right to get the taste.

IT dinosaurs are still running around like me.:hehe:

 

[RoysTrainz]

7 minutes into diagonal reading I must say very nice good looking manual.
Well organised but I need the hands on 2.0 to see what is really going on.

I looked into layers and hoped to find a quick reference to besides from clicking layers to hide/unhide not to disturb the for me real active layer.
Until now each time you click or point at a given layer that one becomes the active layer which for me is dead wrong.

The other one is the so dreadful advanced menu in F3 and F4 i could not see on the go where that has been solved but assume the contextual menu/palette and sorts would "solve" that.

As Brucem56 said well done but now there is a lot more delay on route building because of the wealth of options available.
Time will tell and make us proficiant to use the best way possible.

Thanks for making the docs available.

Tony, feedback only make sense once we fiddle with 2.0 and see how meaningful/helpful the manual is. It looks very well detailed and structured so a big thumbs up so far!!

Looking forward to 2.0

 

[springtransit]

What I would like to see is, say you have a route where the height values are around 2-5, and you merge with a more prototypical route whose terrain is all 16000+. You want to lower the heights but you don't want to disturb the hills and gradients, so I'd like to see the ability to select an area and subtract 1000 from all the height values. Get the idea?

 

[1611mac]

Tony's words follow (from initial post):

IMPORTANT: This thread is ONLY to give feedback on the online guide.

 

[JCitron]

I'm reading through and providing some feedback.

This looks promising and I can't wait until I can get my hands on S20 and try it myself.

 

[Paul_Bert]

On the first reading I thought the manual was well done. It will be most useful once the real thing is available so you can actually fiddle around with the various functions.

I will be interested in seeing how the effect layers work (the old topology tab and then the advanced setting selection).

My sense is there will be a lot of additional tools/options available but it might take more time to build a route until one really gets familiar with the new layout and terms.

It's hard to give feedback on the manual until you can actually the product to try. This is when it will be easier to tell if the manual is clear and list any additional points that need to be highlighted.

 

[pware]

I'm reading through and providing some feedback.

This looks promising and I can't wait until I can get my hands on S20 and try it myself.

Ditto for me as well.

The term "Palette" will cause some confusion - most people will associate it with a range of different colours. Perhaps "Tool Box", or "Tool Board", or perhaps just leave it as it is and challenge the habits of those users?

 

[cabnz1]

The manual is definitely looking good and I can't wait to try out these new options.

 

[JCitron]

Ditto for me as well.

The term "Palette" will cause some confusion - most people will associate it with a range of different colours. Perhaps "Tool Box", or "Tool Board", or perhaps just leave it as it is and challenge the habits of those users?

Yeah, I've just arrived at that part and have come to the same conclusion. The terminology does fit, but I agree toolbox might be a bit better term for this. Challenging the habits of those users, unfortunately will mean more work for those of us who provide support when it comes time to explain things because most people don't read.

 

[Tony_Hilliam]

It's one we've discussed. How about Palette > Panel?

 

[pware]

I looked into layers and hoped to find a quick reference to besides from clicking layers to hide/unhide not to disturb the for me real active layer.
Until now each time you click or point at a given layer that one becomes the active layer which for me is dead wrong.

Perhaps I have misread the above but the manual does state "You do not need to select a row in order to change its [hide/show, locked/unlocked] status - which is certainly the case with Surveyor 1.0.

Looking forward to 2.0

As am I. I might even ditch the "take it slowly" approach and jump straight into 2.0 without ever bothering to switch back and forth between 1.0 and 2.0 until I get my bearings. This old dinosaur is ready to learn some new tricks :clap:

 

[pware]

It's one we've discussed. How about Palette > Panel?

Do you mean replace "Palette" with "Panel"? I think that it does need some indication in its name that its purpose is to provide tools. "Panel" does not, to me at least, convey that clear meaning. My thoughts.

 

[hert]

Do you mean replace "Palette" with "Panel"? I think that it does need some indication in its name that its purpose is to provide tools. "Panel" does not, to me at least, convey that clear meaning. My thoughts.

Maybe toolbar would be a better term. Really excited for the release of the new surveyor.

 

[big_b]

If I'm looking at a palette I'm looking for colors or to paint
I'd prefer tools , tool box or Surveyor Tools

Google palette and you get
A palette, in the original sense of the word, is a rigid, flat surface on which a painter arranges and mixes paints.