Booster List

Terminator

The booster list looks good.

I would suggest the following format on the main page:
Manufacturer, Model, Nominal Current, Auto Reverse (y/n), Throttle Bus, OptoIsolated.

Nominal current, because they often advertise one value, but that actual output is less, like 5A but in reality, it can only deliver 4.5A.

On the sub page, I would suggest Man., Model (combining both PN and Common name), UPC number, URLs for the manufacturer’s product page and manuals, combine SW and FW into Firmware Upgradeable.
Release date, EOL date, predecessor and successor are fine.
For details, Nominal Current, A/Reverse, throttle bus, Optoisolated, then supply voltage, waveform (AC, DC, AC/DC) followed by Track Voltage.

Not sure if track voltage could be just a Yes/No answer to “Selectable Track Voltage”, or if it could be something like the NMRA S-9.1 which suggests N/Z, HO/S/O, and Large Scale, selected from a drop-down list.
Maybe add a RailCom y/n to both lists, as some boosters have the cutout built in.
Is it possible to format the pages in that manner?

Terminator

TazzyTazzy

haha. Yup. My previous company spent hundreds of thousands on a product annually for some software that refused to ever update their database, regardless of packing on feature after feature. Their database was a huge mess to dig through to look for errors. They would just recycle tables for different purposes and one of the fields was turned into a sort of “this field does this”, which means that you might be making multiple calls to the same table to get all the data you need. Instead of creating a new table for the new feature with the correct fields. Was horrible!

Terminator Not sure if track voltage could be just a Yes/No answer to “Selectable Track Voltage”, or if it could be something like the NMRA S-9.1 w

Some boosters, like the NCE one I’m using, use a blue potentiometer and allows the user to select the voltage that way. However, the digitrax command station/booster has a switch to select.

Perhaps “Adjustable track voltage” property with checkboxes for:
“User setable”, “Selectable N/Z”, “Preset HO/S”, “Preset O”, “Preset O/G”, “Preset G”, “None”, “Other”

TazzyTazzy

I’ve updated the list view a bit. You’re welcome to play around with it a bit. Just tweak the #ask section. To get a list of properties, just view any booster, click the gear icon, and select “Browse Properties”. This is all the properties collected by the form and stored by the template. You can place these property names inside the #ask section of the list view. The properties shown are listed like this:

|?PropertyNameHere

In regards to what is shown on the individual pages, that’s controlled by the template. For example, the booster display information is controlled by https://dccwiki.com/Template:Booster This can be edited/tweaked. I’ll play around with this tomorrow and see what I can come up with. I think combining some of the fields sounds like a great idea and re-organizing them is even better. Fine-tuning the display comes with time and experience. :-)

The form is what controls what information is collected when users edit a page using the form interface. If you edit this page: https://dccwiki.com/Form:Booster, you’ll see what is collected.

Terminator

Databases are fun…. You think you need 8 fields, so you set it for 10, then discover later that 12 would have been a better idea…
If you really want to go insane, SAP is the way to go…

Terminator

Maybe “User Adjustable” is a little more descriptive.

Some of the lack any adjustment, such as the Digitrax Zephyr, which relies on the power supply voltage, (which they supply). The real low end stuff, they save by eliminating almost everything, so a 25¢ switch won’t be considered….