Changing CVs to be consistent?

TazzyTazzy

Right now, all the CV article pages are named for their use-case. For example, CV2 is titled Vstart. What do you all think if we renamed them CV1, CV2, CV3? We can keep redirects pointed to the correct way.

Then, must like decoders/boosters/etc, we can create a page for each CV using a form/template to collect various bits of data. Then, then big table on Configuration Variable can be dynamically created.

Thoughts? Not worth it?

I got the idea from: https://docs.tcsdcc.com/wiki/NMRA_Standard_CV%27s

Of course, these values are from TCS perspective. We would only have CVs defined by NMRA.

-Mitch

Terminator

Would it be possible to create a custom CV list for a specified decoder by pulling in data from JMRI? That would create a listing specific to that decoder, as some have a lot of CVs, others omit a number of them, and there are differences between OEM and retail versions too.

Then you get something like ESU decoders that have thousands of possible CVs… and sometimes one references another.

As to naming conventions, using their name for the page and a redirect for CV x. After all, the name is more descriptive than a number.

TazzyTazzy

@Terminator This is a very rough draft: https://dccwiki.com/JMRI:DG583

Creating content for JMRI is out of scope due to XML complexities. This would include new CVs, outputs, and variables. You’ll only be able to edit existing content to add comments, translations, and such. Creating XML content is getting too complex.

I’ve still a lot of coding to do to get it complete and I’m still figuring out how to store the data in the wiki. I might install the cargo extension as it might be better at handling this volume of data than SMW extensions.

For the CV naming conventions, we can stick to names and can create CV #'s as aliases that redirect to the correct name. This will handle both use cases: have names that make sense, yet some can type in CV8 into the search bar.

Terminator

Looking at DG583, that is pretty cool. It presents a lot of data, much more than the typical user would want.

There would also need to be a table explaining what some of the variables mean and which are not important for the average user. I’d imagine that unless shown otherwise the values are decimal.

Great work. Can’t imagine just how much effort goes into parsing the data. Are the headers for each CV table pulled from JMRI? Would explain some of the unusual names, such as CV19 being consist direction instead of consist address (one bit is set to determine direction) and how CV18 is missing, which forms the second byte of the extended address.

TazzyTazzy

Terminator
The data is pulled from the XML files. I’m stuck halfway through the next version. Been traveling every weekend this year and that doesn’t allow for much programming time. It’s also approaching tax season and that is a huge time sync for me.

I have some ideas on how to preset the data better and how to make the data editable, but I’m still tinkering with that.

As far as what is important vs what isn’t: Any ideas on how to display that? Here’s some ideas, just tossing this out there:
1) Use different colors for different meanings. Like orange for important/common, and green for less common. Or vise versa, or even different colors altogether.
2) Have 2 sections, listing important CV’s first, and then remainder of CVs afterwards. Could also color/theme these per above.

Then, what CVs should be marked as important?

As far as a table explaining the CV meaning, I can link to a CV definition page.

Terminator

Tax time… I do need to get some things together for the account.

Colour coding makes sense, as it would allow the important CVs to stand out.

Maybe use the basic NMRA required CVs as the “important ones”, then the optional and recommended ones. All the others that the manufacturer’s use could be another colour to indicate they are different and specific to the decoder. Bolding some like CV29 could be used too.

Something to think about. Also need to create an explanation for some terms, like the “mask.” I have an idea what it means, but how to explain it… (Been a long time since I messed with hardware at that low a level.)