Displaying route pictures in TS2015?

[Ericmopar]

Thanks for the replies, folks, but in a way this all reminds me of a line from an old Harry Belafonte song: "It was clear as mud, but it cover de' ground, and de' confusion made my head go round". Perhaps the most cogent reply so far is Eric's, "Edit".

However, I can now rephrase my original dilemma. In the first place, as I think I mentioned, a route picture does already exist for the VNHRR and, knowing where to look for it now, I've discovered that it does indeed reside in a folder named "RouteInformation". As also stated, I can make that picture appear by searching for the route's name--actually, the two letters "VN" do the trick. But the route and its picture do not show up, for example, when I open "Drive", select the "Routes" tab, and click on the route picture (in my case, "Castle Rock") that appears by default. Interestingly enough, the route's name and picture do appear as my "favorite" route, and in several other places such as the "Quick Drive" tab of the "Drive" menu.

So what I'm actually looking for is a way to have VNHRR appear everywhere it should throughout the menu system.

Which brings to mind the final line from the wonderful film Four Friends: "Why does everything have to take so long?"

What Tom said...
I've got the route pic appearing in some areas, but not all. It would be nice if it showed up in the route selection menu for instance.
It would be nice if the third party and cloned routes showed up in the route selection menu at all...

I've noticed that none of my cloned or third party routes show up in the route selection menu, only DTG's routes show up there. What I want to know, is how to get the picture and route into the route selection menu. The pic in the RouteInformation folder shows up when I select a scenario from one of my cloned routes and also the RW&A but not in the route selection.

[peterhayes]

I'm with Eric
How do we get 3rd party add on routes to show in the route selection pages, ie those pages that display an icon (or blank as the case may be) of the route.
How can we add a route to those selection pages, so we can select a route without having to scroll down the entries on the right hand side)?
I have some 3rd party addon (payware and workshop) routes that do show in the route selection - but others that do not.
So what is different between those that show and those that do not.
Someone on the steam forum got a route to show by adding a prefix to the route name in routeproperties.xml file? But he could only get it to work for one route at a time (different prefix maybe for each change?)
In my case I have the JT-SECML route showing in these route selection pages plus icon but other routes from JT do not show up, so there has to be a subtle difference in the code that allows one route to be displayed and another not to be.
In another case I have a 3rd party route that shows up in QD but not in any other menu, Career, Standard, etc (although their are scenarios for the roué in those categories) and another route (QD enabled) that shows up in Standard ONLY.
It would be great to solve this as it would allow easier scenario selection

Regards
pH

[Ericmopar]

I've spent a lot of time looking around, comparing the old 2014 to 2015 files and I suspect it might indeed be something with the RouteProperties.xml
There is a lot of text to dig through in one of those.
It's either that, or it's actually something tucked away in the Railworks folder. IE something like the dev, data, Utilities.exe etc.
Another candidate might be the screens folder.

I just remembered something. When I first lost most of my route icons etc, was after trying to copy and paste my backup content folder in after the update to TS2015.
Which would suggest at least one thing needed to make the route show in the route selection menu is in the content folder somewhere.
It could be more than one folder has the needed info...

I need an aspirin.

[DapperDan]

Eric,

How about a seizure (DOH,,,I mean Caesar). As in Bloody.

I'm having one as I type this.

[Ericmopar]

Eric,

How about a seizure (DOH,,,I mean Caesar). As in Bloody.

I'm having one as I type this.

[xcrosswitch]

I have painstakingly gone through my Routes folders under Contents and made sure there is a RouteInformation folder with a 256x128 72dpi image of the route in every route folder, including cloned routes. I named some of them untitled.png and they didn't show up. I did a search and bought up all the 'untitled' files and renamed to 'image.png' and now I have pictures of the routes in 'DRIVE' and in 'EDIT'. The only one missing is Mojave Trona, but I'll get round to that soon. While I was digging around I found heaps of scenario folders that were empty, so I deleted them. I have a question though. The top folder in my CONTENT/ROUTES directory with all zero's in the folder name is full of scenario folders with zero bytes. Can I delete the folder contents safely?
Cheers,
Rob

[ChrisOnline]

Well I thought I gave a pretty comprehensive answer to some of the questions below, in my post earlier today. I repeat part of what I said:

2. The new TS2015 menu switched to using an image.png file within a RouteInformation folder which sits within the Content\Route\[specific route] folder. This is now very similar in concept to the image.png file in the LocoInformation folder for locos. (This is why initially a lot of route thumbnails were missing even for common RSC/DTG routes, because they didn't update all the thumbnails upon launch of TS2015.

and

5. Despite the above, the new TS2015 menu does not display many routes correctly once you have selected something on the left side in particular. It is a built-in problem (maybe a bug, maybe DTG thought it was a good idea) with the TS2015 menu, and nothing to do with the thumbnail change. There have been a lot of threads about this, especially on UKTS, and it is this bad functionality that pushed me to the hybrid menu, and I haven't looked back. The one downside is the more fiddly method for the thumbnails on new routes.

The bottom line is this:

re (2) above: do you have a correctly structured RouteInformation folder with a correctly formatted image.png file in it, for each and every route? Until you can say YES to this, it is pointless considering other solutions

If the answer really is YES (as per xcrosswitch in the last post), then re (5) above: there are flaws in the new menu system which no one on UKTS has managed to resolve, despite numerous threads on the subject since TS2015 was launched.

Trust me, it's nothing to do with the contents of other editable .bin or .xml files, it's the hard coding of the actual TS2015 menu system.

[OldProf]

Chris,

You stated, "do you have a correctly structured RouteInformation folder with a correctly formatted image.png file in it, for each and every route? Until you can say YES to this, it is pointless considering other solutions". In my case, the VNHRR does include an image.png file, but others may not: I haven't checked. Why do you feel that "each and every" route must have such an image? It seems to me that the pictures of routes that include such a file in the proper place should show up in all menus, while those of routes that do not should not (does that make sense?). Perhaps attempting to apply logic or common sense to TS2015 is a fundamental error?

Let me repeat something I mentioned earlier: after I had first installed VNHRR 2, its route picture appeared in all appropriate places as soon as I typed "vnh" into a menu's search box; after several such searches, the route picture started appearing as soon as I had typed "vn". In my (sometimes) logical mind, this means that the route picture is correctly placed in the correct format and whatever doodle-headed part of the code is supposed to find it knows that and does find it, but only in response to an offer of biscuits: at first three, now two, which seems to be the smallest number of biscuits the extortionist searcher will accept before displaying the picture. It should be possible to just get the picture into all menus without biscuits, but perhaps this is a British issue.

[ChrisOnline]

But Tom, that is exactly my point - the TS2015 menu is flawed! I've said that right from the start, not trying to make excuses for it. Nor trying to fix it, because from all I have seen and heard (mainly on UKTS), it can't be fixed unless DTG make some changes! That is why I reverted to the hybrid menu structure.

BTW, I think you have misinterpreted my words (your first line). I am not saying every route HAS to have a picture, I am saying "don't start looking elsewhere UNTIL every one of your routes has a correct picture" - that is the starting point before you start worrying about contents of ScenarioProperties.xml files, etc.

My original post was not to elaborate on fixing TS2015, but to try to clarify the confusion from various posters (prior to my original post) about where the thumbnails should be - by explaining how the TS2014 menu structure completely changed with TS2015. It shouldn't be taken out of context!

Chris

[arizonachris]

*snip* Perhaps attempting to apply logic or common sense to TS2015 is a fundamental error?

You should already know the answer to that, Tom. (it's YES)

Let me repeat something I mentioned earlier: after I had first installed VNHRR 2, its route picture appeared in all appropriate places as soon as I typed "vnh" into a menu's search box; after several such searches, the route picture started appearing as soon as I had typed "vn".

That would be because of whatever search engine DTG is using to find whatever it is you are looking for; they "learn" so you type less for repeated searched items.

I have been reading this Thread because I also have been wondering about how to fix this, as DTG may or may not have something being worked on. Maybe with one of the several "Not-Mega-But-Still-Gonna-Be-BIG" patches we all are waiting on. And reading the community fixes being offered up, which are really quite brilliant BTW, if some kind of patch isn't released, my menu pictures will stay broken. I should not have to do such hacking and editing to get this sim to work right, something I said a while back in another Post (IIRC I was agreeing with Tom). I guess I'll just put up with the "ghost" images.

But one last note: if I'm viewing the routes or engines I own in one of the TS2015 menu screens, click on a "ghost" image, then go "Back" one screen, an image does sometimes appear. Might take two times of doing that: click, back, click; to get the image but it does sometimes make all the images on one screen display.

OK gonna run VNHRR v2 for a while.

[Ericmopar]

I think we all agree on where the image is supposed to be and what format.
The problem now is what bit of code goes where, to call up the non DTG routes into the menu system with the included image.png file in the route information folder.

Never mind...

I have a migraine setting in.

[Ericmopar]

Later that evening...
Eric discovers his Donner Pass Southern Pacific Redo route under "Other" in the route menu's filters... However once I found it, I could try all I wanted to get back to "None" and it would only show the last selected route.
The other routes DO show up in the menu system, but the route menu system is so bugged, that trying to get back to different routes if you are brave enough to use the filter system is rather difficult...

All this... to find the menu is major bugged and other than DTG routes do show up.

[ChrisOnline]

Well . . I don't like to say that I told you so . . .

Have you considered and/or tried the "hybrid menu"? Trust me, it does away with all this grief, as long as you can live with creating TgPcDx files for missing route pictures (which, admittedly, isn't everyone's cup of tea, but RW_Tools will help).

Chris

[jackal40]

I was trying to fix my missing route image when I noted a naming inconsistency.

Renaming my route image to image.png has fixed it not showing up.

I was also confused by the TS2013, TS2014, and now TS2015 changes - my last work was done in 2013, I believe that is the format I used. Are there by chance new reference documents to help one with these changes, or am I better off looking through the tutorials?

[OldProf]

I was trying to fix my missing route image when I noted a naming inconsistency.

Renaming my route image to image.png has fixed it not showing up.

I was also confused by the TS2013, TS2014, and now TS2015 changes - my last work was done in 2013, I believe that is the format I used. Are there by chance new reference documents to help one with these changes, or am I better off looking through the tutorials?

As I already noted in my OP, the VNHRR's route picture is already named image.png and although it does appear on the QuickDrive menu tab, it remains absent elsewhere until searched for.

New "reference document"?

Ahem. Whew! Sorry about that brief spell of uncontrolled hilarity (or perhaps hysteria?). RSC, DTG, or whatever else they like to call themselves these days, have never provided, to the best of my knowledge, any information, help, or advice in matters such as this. They cannot even make the pictures pertaining to their own DLC routes appear in the TS2015 "menu" system, much less facilitate the appearance of anyone else's pictures.