"UNDO" and certain assets

[jytte]

I'm calling upon the more experienced once again.

I read time and again in various threads, to NOT use the "undo" button in surveyor, as it could cause bugs in a layout.

I HAVE used the "undo", although I try to stay away from it when possible. I haven't had any problems with my layout in either Surveyor or Driver, so can I safely assume that my layout is "bug-free"?

See, the thing is that certain assets (and I don't know which ones they are till I've planted them on my layout), seem to "float" on the board (they're usually something animated), and once I've placed them I can't move, height-adjust, or delete them. Well a few times I get lucky, after God knows how long trying, to hit the "magic spot", but most times I'm left with the "undo" button.

Short of Saving every 5 seconds after putting an object in, and before adding another - so that I can excape without saving if there's one of those un-delete-able assets again - I don't have much of a choice.

Is it really as "dangerous" as all that?

(And if it is, why on earth don't they fix it, grrrr. Sorry.)

This leads me to think that I should probably begin a new "habit", like saving my layout as v1, then after some more work v2, and so on, so I have an option to go back to an earlier version and not have to start ALL over, should there ever be a problem.

 

[gfisher]

I use it all the time and rarely have a problem with the redo button. Once in a while it will cause the game not to allow you to "save" the route, so you have to use the "save as" function and overwrite the previous version by using the same name, but that is no big deal.

One trick for dealing with an object you want to delete but cant find the right spot to click on is to is to use the copy tool on a bit of blank baseboard and then copy it to the general area of the thing you are trying to delete. That usually does the job.

It is always a good idea to save back-up versions of your route.

 

[jytte]

Good tip, thank you very much George.

I backup every night, but between starting out in the morning and ending at night, there's a loooooot of work being done, so I'm starting to just do a "save to cdp as...." when I've made a huge chunk of work that I don't fancy loosing.

 

[themnax]

i've control-z'd to undo, not realizing there was an undo button there also, and it all depends, appearantly on how big a layout file is, and how much assets/stuff is in it. and i have no idea what the size breakover point is either, but when i use undo, and it takes 'for ever' (several seconds to maybe even close to a minuete or more) for control of the computer to come back to me, it isn't at first obvious what's been messed up, though obviously the little gremlins have been doing something. then i'll be going along and stumble accross a track or other spline object that wasn't there before, i mean it was 'there' in the sense of being IN there, but I hadn't put it where i next stumbled accross it, with appearantly a vertix/spline point added in the middle of a previously perfectly reasonable and well behaived object, but located way the hellingone from anyplace i had previously put it.

total wierdness. so then i have to delete the errent spline sections and rejoin the now broken pieces from where they where, should have been, and should have remained.

this gets to be a major pain after a while once a layout starts getting 'really big'. (how big? this i've yet to determine)

(oh yah, i'm still using 2006 and havent yet gotten roundtuiting sp-1)

(when the whole layout is just a few baseboards and maybe a few buildings and ground textures, this problem never occurs, it's only after its gotten big, with lots of spline objects and multiple kinds of driving ways present that this happens, (some sort of wierdness in the undo code(?))

=^^=
.../\...

 

[jytte]

Sounds nasty. And the advice about staying away from "undo" is well worth taking.
I sure hope they fix this for 2009!

 

[Pencil42]

From what I can tell, this is version dependant. Older versions have more problems - I've had more problems with this in '04, less in '06, and none in TC3 (didn't use surveyor much in TC1&2).

 

[jytte]

Let's all keep our fingers crossed then!

 

[Ron_Smith]

I have found 2006 to be less of a problem (although I do not use the undo button now) I had some horrendous things happen in 2004 after using the undo button and have not used it for ages - some splines went completely berserk and took ages to sort out - I found strange things for days after the last "undo". This has been discussed in previous posts and seems to be more prevalent in "Big routes" although I don't think anyone really knows the exact cause.
If it gets fixed in the next version of Trainz we will only know in due course !!
From my own experience I would advise very cautious use of this method of deleting - better to delete using the menu button.

 

[jytte]

With the tip from George, I don't have to use it at all, and I won't.

As my route gets bigger, I also find myself saving more and more often. That way I can just escape without saving, if I get in some sort of trouble. Better to have to do a few things over than having a big mess on my hand.