The Item Palette

The Item Palette is used to place icons and text onto Control Panel Editor panels. The palette is a tabbed window with tabs for each item type. The common method all items use to add an item to a panel is "Drag and Drop". Each tab has a bordered panel labeled Drag to Panel. Drag the item inside this border over to your Panel. In the cases where the icon represents a layout device (e.g. a turnout, a sensor, etc.), you must select a row from a table to associate that particular device with the icon - and then drag the icon to the Panel.

Iconic Items

For those items using icons, multiple sets of icons are offered by the Item Palette. In each of these cases several different icon sets are provided by default. Radio buttons are used to select an icon set.For example, under the sensor tab you may have sets of large jewels, small jewels, each size with several sets with different colors for active and inactive - e.g. red-green, yellow-dark, etc.
The individual icons are displayed in the preview on the background of the last editor to open the Item Palette. since 4.9.7 Choosing a different background in the "View On:" combo box, may help in determining what parts of the icon are opaque and what parts are transparent.

The Show Icons button displays all the icons in the selected set.

Editing and Creating New Icon Sets

The Edit Icons button opens a dialog where the icons may be changed by dragging new icons from the icon catalog.

Additional icon sets may be added with New Icon Set button. After giving a name to the new icon set, the edit dialog is displayed. Replace the red X icons with icons you drag from the catalogs. There is no limit on the number of additional icon sets that can be added to an item tab.

The Delete Icon Set button deletes the selected icon set.

When the Item Palette is customized with other icon sets, closing the Palette with the close button in the title bar will open a dialog box asking whether you want to save your changes. When changes are saved the Item Palette is stored in the CatalogTrees.xml file in the preferences directory.

The Edit Icons dialog is used to delete an icon set or to add an additional icon set. The Delete Icon Set button deletes the selected icon set. When the Add New Icon Set button is pressed, the currently selected icon set is saved and an icon set with "unknown" icons is displayed (Dark X's). Change these icons to those you want by dragging icons from the icon catalog. The new icon set must be named in the text field at the top of the dialog. Finally, press the Create Icon Set button and the dialog is closed with the new icon set added to radio button list.

Table Items

The items associated with a table (eg. Turnouts, Sensors, Lights, Signal Heads) have an Add New Table Item button. This button opens a dialog where a new device item can be added to its table. Include the System Connection prefix and item type in the entry, eg. "IL2".
Tabs with tables require a device to be selected (a row in the table) before the an icon can be dragged to a control panel to represent it.

Item Palette Tabs

• Turnout Both left and right turnout icon sets are contained in this tab. Select a turnout from the table and an icon set for either Right, Left, R/L Crossover, then drag to the panel.
• Sensor Select a sensor from the table and an icon set, then drag to the panel.
• SignalHead When a signal head is selected in the table, the [Show Icons] button will only display the icons for the valid appearances of the signal. When no row is selected all possible appearance icons are shown. When adding a new icon set, all possible appearance icons are shown.
• SignalMast A signal mast must be selected from the table to drag icons for it to the panel and to display the icons it uses for its aspects.
• Memory Select a memory location from the table. The three memory types each have a "Drag to Panel" area. Drag the item within the bordered "Drag to Panel" to the panel. Note that Input and Spinner types can only be dragged from the edges of their text boxes.
• Reporter Select a reporter from the table and drag the item within the bordered "Drag to Panel" to the panel.
• Light Select a light from the table and an icon set for either Crossed symbol, Right or Left and drag to the panel.
• Multisensor The table displays the Sensor Table and the default icon set has three lever positions. For the default case, three rows must be selected in order from the table to place the multisensor icon in a panel. The table selections are labeled "first", "second", etc. and these labels correspond to the labels shown when the full icon set is displayed. When editing or creating a Multisensor icon set, lever positions can be added and deleted. That is, you may make a two sensor multisensor or a four or five sensor icon set. Use the Add Icon or Delete Icon button to add or delete lever positions.
• Icon The bordered icons displayed (labeled with their names) can be dragged directly to a panel. Icons can also be dragged directly from the Icon Catalog.
• Background Background icons are placed in a panel just as regular icons are. However, they are assigned the lowest display level and cannot be selected with a simple mouse click. Use "Control Click" to select a background icon. Rather than an icon, a custom background color can be chosen with the Background Color button. This button displays a color chooser with tabs for different ways to set a color.
• Text The Text tab displays a text field to enter the text and the attribute options that renders the text. Font sizes styles, justification and border attributes can be chosen. A color chooser provides custom colors for fonts, background and borders.
  Note The "Enter" key must be pressed to display the text with its attributes in the Preview Panel.
  Drag the item in the Preview Panel to the panel.
• RPSReporter Drag the "Drag to Panel" icon to the panel and setup the RPSReporter from its pop up menu.
• FastClock Drag the clock to the panel.
• Indicator Track since 2.12 These are intended for use when track circuits are configured with OBlocks. Most of the items in this tab pertain to their use as presentations of OBlocks and their use with warrants. However, if OBlocks are not defined, but occupancy sensors are installed on the layout as track circuits, the Occupancy Circuit field will accept a sensor name. When this is the case only the "Occupied" and "Clear" colors can be displayed.
• Indicator Turnout The above comment also applies to Indicator Turnouts.
• Portal Portal icons are used in Circuit Builder to define Portals and Paths. On the Control Panel they also will display direction arrows along a route when Warrants are allocated.

More about Indicator Track

Indicator track (i.e. both track segments and turnouts) have colors to display status of the track circuit they represent. When the track circuit is configured by an OBlock, and the Portals and Paths it contains, the following status states are be displayed by color:

• Clear Indicates ready for use. More precisely, the circuit is in a known state and none of other status apply.
• Occupied (Yellow) The track is occupied by an unknown train or car.
• Allocated (Green) The track is reserved for use by a warrant.
• Train Position (Blue) The track is occupied by a train under warrant and this is its current position.
• Not In Use (Gray) The state of the track is not known or it has been set to be out of service. This state is also used when local control of blocks is granted from a panel.
• Power Error (Red) This is the state of another sensor - not the occupancy sensor. If used, most likely it would be wired to indicate a short or power failure.

Note: Configuring Indicator Track icons can be done in groups automatically - including automatic conversion of regular track icons with Circuit Builder. The only feature where you may want to edit an Indicator Track icon individually is picking the icon that will show the train name marker when the block it represents is occupied under a warrant. (Frequently, several icons display an OBlock and you only want one of them to show the marker.)

Indicator Track Tab

Enter the name of the track circuit (OBlock) this track icon represents into the Occupancy Circuit field. The Open Detector Picklist button opens a picklist showing the defined OBlock track circuits. Drag or copy the name to the Occupancy Circuit field. Do Not use the "Sensor Table" tab of the picklist unless there are no OBlocks configured and you only want to use the "Occupied/Unoccupied" status.

When a valid OBlock name is entered in the Occupancy Circuit field, a CircuitPath panel is added to the tab showing all the paths that have been defined for the OBlock. Check the paths of the track circuit that pass over this icon. When these paths are part of an allocated route or are occupied by a warranted train, they show that status by color.

If the paths were created or edited by Circuit Builder, the above function is done automatically. In the future the above "sub"panel will be made read only.

Below the Occupancy Circuit field is a checkbox labeled Display Train Name when occupied. When a warranted train occupies the track circuit, circuit icons having this box checked, show a marker with the occupying train's id. Most likely, you will only want one of the icons in the track circuit to display the train id.

The Icon Sets radio buttons, the Drag to Panel area the Show Icons, Edit Icons New Icon Set, Delete Icon Set buttons function as described before.

Indicator Turnout Tab

This tab has the same functions as the Indicator Track tab with the addition of a turnout table. A turnout must be selected from the Turnout Table to be able to drag an icon to a control panel.

A slight variation is that there is no [Edit Icons] button. The Add New Icon Set and Delete Icon Set buttons function as described before.

The [Show Icons] button displays the icon set in a matrix where the rows show the status icons for each state of the turnout - Closed, Thrown, Inconsistent, and Unknown. To the right of each row in the matrix is a Edit Icons button. button. These buttons open an Edit Icons dialog for each row of the matrix. The Hide Icons button closes the icon matrix and returns the tab to its original view.

When an Edit Icons button is pressed on a row of the icon display, an edit dialog for the row is opened. The icons can be changed by dragging icons from the Icon Catalog. Also the entire status row can be removed by the Delete Status button - or restored by the Add Missing Status button.

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