Source Code

[Dylan Myers]

So, I've been watching Mog's videos for awhile now, and I want to do a couple of things:

1. Give SwitchList a spin. I have a Macbook Pro fully up to date, with SwitchList downloaded via the App Store and working.

Check.

2. Check out the source code, and possibly do a full rewrite in either Java or C++/Qt so that I can use it on my preferred OS: Linux.

Failed. Source link on website goes to a very outdated version on the Google Code Archive.

So, this leads me to posting here:
Is the source still available? If so, from whence? If not, why?

Thanks!

[Robert Bowdidge]

Hi, Dylan,

The source code moved to Github when they shut down Google Code.

https://github.com/bowdidge/switchlist

Have fun!

If I was doing it again (and didn't complete the iPad version that's kicking around), I'd consider doing an online version. Although form input would be fiddly through a web browser, generating the paperwork with HTML worked very, very well for me; it was also really neat to let people create their own custom switchlist formats in HTML, and I'd strongly suggest allowing such customizations.

Most of the source code in SwitchList is pretty straightforward; the routing and car assignment is the most fiddly. My choices for routing and car assignment may not match what you need; I'd suggest starting out by thinking about what you want on your layout and what kinds of tasks you want to automate. All my layouts were small without yards, so I didn't think much about how to interchange cars between trains in a yard (and how to print up switchlists when I wasn't sure when cars would arrive.)

The final area I'd suggest is thinking about how to tie online and offline industries. I've got the idea of "divisions" (which started out as the idea of "which cars can serve this industry", and turned into "where do these cars from this road enter and exit the layout".) There might be a simpler idea on how to route cars from staging onto the layout and back to staging.

It would be great if we had a common API for describing switchlist styles; I'd love it if folks could write some HTML to match a Santa Fe switchlist and be able to use that with other programs. That's only complicated because different switchlists want to organize data differently: by car, or by place, or by order of pick up and drop off.

I've also had multiple folks ask if SwitchList could be used for FreeMo layouts - if it could handle reconfiguration for a particular venue, or not barf if we had to remove a particular town or set of industries.

Robert

> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "SwitchList" group.
> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to switchlist+...@googlegroups.com.
> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

[Dylan Myers]

Perfect, I've forked the repo and am actually looking at just straight up compiling it with GNUStep for cross platform capability. At least for now.

As for a web version, I'm less keen on that since I may not always have internet where I'm using the program at. Of course, with the career I'm in, I possess the knowledge to run even a web app locally.

I've thought long about the same problems you're describing, and I'll continue to think on them.

I agree that having an API would be worthwhile. But, maybe having the output in HTML is great, I think having the templating language be in YAML or something would be a better choice.

User Mog actually has recently used SwitchList for his Freemo group in the UK. He has a pair of videos up on his YouTube channel about it.

[antea...@gmail.com]

My 2 cents. I appreciate all the hard programming work you guys do on this program, as it’s beyond me. If I had a wish list, it would be an iPad version.  At $329 for a new iPad, it’s a much cheaper way to get into Switchlist than buying a MacBook. Plus it would be much easier to carry around the layout and adjust things during an op session. 

Sent from my iPad

--