Decoder Lists

Terminator

Four lists would be needed:
Multifunction
Function
Accessory
Sound Only

All of them should have some form of “Firmware upgradeable” and “Loadable Sound Files” as needed, just to cover those items.

Multifunction decoders, Silent or Sound, because sound only is pretty rare. Just a “Sound Equipped, y/n” or something like that would suffice. Some people call the silent decoders “motor only” but that is a misnomer because they have both motor and function outputs. They can also have upgradeable firmware and user loaded sound files as well.

Function decoders, used for additional functions or animations in rolling stock

Accessory decoders, used to control accessories such as signal heads, crossing gates, and turnouts. Some are geared toward turnouts only.

A fourth option would be for sound only decoders such as SoundTraxx’s Soundcar, which is used for ambient noises such as refrigeration equipment, cattle, etc. Digitrax makes them for adding sound to a locomotive, but that is aimed more at the “budget” modeller. The current crop of MF decoders are so sophisticated that these things just don’t make much sense. They would need entries for addressing, function outputs, user loadable sounds, etc.

TazzyTazzy

For now, lets stick with just one list. There’s properties for “number of sounds” and “max current”. If max current is 0, then it cannot provide motor control. THis allows a since form/template to collect MF / Function / Sound decoders. Assuming that I can get some sort of filtering in place, I think a single list will work. People can select decoders with sound, with motor control, and with functions - or a combination of whatever to generate a list they want.

Stationary decoders just replace motor control for turnout control, but are otherwise identical to MF mobile decoders because stationary can have sound, animation control, and switch control. Once we get MF decoders hammer out better, I’ll copy/paste that and tweak for turnout control.

Terminator

TazzyTazzy

That might be even better, just have a category of “Type” and the user can filter accordingly.

MF/Acc/Func/Other

TazzyTazzy

Created: Has Decoder Feature

The allowed values for this property are:

[[Allows value::Functions]]
[[Allows value::Lights]]
[[Allows value::Motive]]
[[Allows value::Sound]]

I think i’m still going to split up the stationary decoders due to the “max current” for MF, and “number of turnout controls” for stationary. This might be confusing to see all these terms on the same form.