| 3.7.9 beta |
06/15/2008 |
 | The "misdirected mouse clicks and keystrokes" issue that may occur when
the dispatcher display is onscreen but not in "Always on Top" mode has been fixed. |
| Various Error message dialogs will now appear on top of other forms. |
| The Replay Capture File dialog will now initially display files by
date, latest first. |
| Adjusted server keepalive generation frequency to approximately once per minute. |
| NOR ("_")is now a supported active text operator. |
| Layouts may now contain 567 text entries, previously 367. |
| Out-of-service mnemonics may now be defined via scripting. |
| A main menu Action | Restart Dispatcher Display (no refresh) option
has been added, which will not refresh the display with the current
controls and indications. |
| The rules logfilename dialog now includes the .exe extension. |
| The timestamp color for Other (non-control, non-indication) packets
in the Active MCP Window is now configurable in the Configure |
Options | Windows dialog. |
| A bug causing a crash when the Configure |
Options | Data Source | Set Defaults button was selected has been
fixed. |
| When monitoring an audio data source, the valid packet yield per
minute is now appended to the status bar counts panel when the
"Valid" count option is selected. |
| When viewing the dispatcher display, the Home and End keys will now
scroll the display to the top and bottom respectively. |
|
| 3.7.5 |
01/01/2008 |
| The Splash screen will now appear at program launch for a minimum of 2
seconds unless the escape key is struck. A main menu View | Splash
Screen option is now available for those needing additional time;-) |
| When a client receives a message from a server operator, the server
address will now appear in the title of the message box displayed
on the client. |
| The Configure MCP Information dialog position is now saved in the
profile. |
| A Start Minimized General option has been added. |
| Clients will now ignore UDP originating from unknown host addresses. |
| The replay delay is now adjustable from the replay status dialog. |
| When the "Ignore consecutive datagrams with duplicate UserData
within MCP" protocol option is selected, ignored traffic will now
be sent to the dispatcher display in order to prevent timeouts. |
| When enabled in the Configure | Options | Display dialog, a signal cleared by a control will now blink until:
 | a subsequent control takes it down |
| a clear or out-of-sequence ATCS or ARES indication arrives |
| any Genisys or SCS-128 indication arrives |
| an inactivity timeout occurs |
This functionality requires the PC's display
color depth be set to at least 24-bits (typically called "True
Color"), therefore, a warning message will be issued when the
dispatcher display is started if the current value is less. |
| ATCSMon behavior when a Station Name on a dispatcher display is found to be non-unique
in ATCSdb is documented below:
| When the dispatcher display is started, a list of MCP addresses is
created for each such Station. |
| The effective Station address will be dynamically updated from traffic
matching any of the addresses in the list once monitoring has been
started. |
| The mnemonic maintenance and plotting dialogs for a given Station
will not be available from the dispatcher display until an address
is assigned, and then, they will reflect only values
specific to the currently-assigned address. |
| If identically-named Stations actually exist in the monitored area
and traffic may be seen from both, it will be necessary to specify
the address as the Station name for at least one of the Stations.
ATCSMon will retrieve the actual Station name from ATCSdb when the
dispatcher display is started. These addresses are excluded from the
list of addresses mentioned above. |
|
| BCP (office) addresses may now be specified in rules by prefacing
the address with "BCP=". |
| The connections window may now be launched from the system tray icon
right-click menu. |
| MSCOMCTL.OCX version 6.1.97.86 is now included in the distribution,
therefore, it will not be necessary for users to manually apply the
updates documented in the Microsoft support knowledge base article
896559. |
| A Select Layout MCP's button
has been added to the Configure MCP Information dialog which selects
the addresses of all MCP's matching station names on the current
layout. |
| The placement and appearance of the dispatcher display capture
timestamp will now be established in the layout via a text entry
containing the value "TimeStamp". If no such entry is found,
no timestamp will appear. If multiple TimeStamp entries are found,
only the first entry encountered in the layout file is honored. |
| When manually restarting the dispatcher display, the most recent
controls and indications from active MCP's are accumulated, ordered by
timestamp, and resent to refresh the display. |
| Genisys and SCS-128 "G" and "S" traffic received
via DDE will now be translated into their new "g" and
"s" equivalents upon receipt. |
|
| 3.6.1 |
06/04/2007 |
| Genisys and SCS-128 protocol processing has been updated to be more
consistent with the ATCS/ARES implementation model:
| Servers now include the currently-defined AAR Railroad Number
and BCP Zip Code values in the data packet. If the
option to "Ignore Genisys / SCS-128 traffic from MCP
addresses not in database" is selected, only packets with MCP
addresses found in the server database are sent to clients. Server
operators are encouraged to select this option to prevent
replication of invalid addresses which would otherwise occur,
particularly under SCS-128. |
| Packet protocol ID values are now "g" and
"s" respectively, replacing "G" and
"S". Packets received from pre-3.5.5 servers will
be transparently converted to the new format via insertion of the
current client AAR Railroad Number and BCP Zip Code values.
Packets from pre-3.5.5 logfiles receive similar treatment. Packets
received from post-3.5.4 servers by pre-3.5.5 clients will be
rejected with an "Invalid Protocol ID" message. |
| The file naming convention for Genisys / SCS-128 logfiles is now
identical to other protocols, (i.e the AAR Railroad Number and BCP
Zip Code are no longer appended to logfile names). |
|
| When replaying files, logfile autorotation is now disabled, as is
the dispatcher display inactivity timer. |
| A Configure | Options | Display option has been added to show a
warning message at display load time if Station names / addresses on dispatcher displays
are not found in the ATCSdb database. |
| The .dat extension has been replaced with .log in the Rules | Log
file name dialog. |
| Windows Vista is now a supported operating system. |
| When displaying multi-part messages, the Packet window will now show "Part n of x" beneath the message number line. |
| Leading and trailing spaces are now trimmed from IP addresses in the
Data Sources dialog. |
| The Configure MCP Information dialog now contains latitude, longitude,
and milepost columns, and dialog height, width, and column widths are
now saved in the profile. Additionally, a Select Active MCP's button
has been added, which will select all MCP's currently appearing in the
main form MCP pane. |
| ARES 215.2 Time Update message timestamps are now properly decoded. |
| DDE Errors are now displayed on the Main Status Bar, in order to
alert those who have unintentionally enabled one or more of the DDE
outputs. |
| A splash screen has been added, and the main form is now displayed
prior to any diagnostic dialogs. |
| Fixed a bug in 3.6.0 which caused corruption of the Configure MCP
Information dialog. |
|
| 3.5.4 |
12/10/2006 |
| EOT protocol has been added. Message type is 0.0.0, which will be
automatically added to the messages dataset in ATCSdb. Addresses are
9000XXXXX
where X is an EOT device ID digit. An EOT Details option has been added to the Main View
menu, a default EOT FIR filter is available in the supplied
atcsmon.ini, and a new rule condition has been added which triggers when a
stationary EOT begins moving or a new moving EOT is seen. |
| APIgid32.dll and JetComp.exe are no longer required files, and msjro.dll
(installed as a part of MDAC) and BCH6345.dll (EOT checksum
calculation) are now required. |
| ATCS-Genisys MCP's are now reliably identified, and existing
incorrectly-identified MCP's will be automatically fixed when encountered in the data stream. |
| A "Night Mode" View option has been added which will dim
the entire screen (by altering the Gamma correction used by the video
chip),
and swap the foreground and background colors of the Packet, Messages,
MCP, Plot, and Mnemonics windows. If the Night Mode menu item is greyed out,
the video hardware does not support the required functionality. |
| Errors 5 and 401 occurring during profile loading have been resolved. |
| The Dispatcher Display now supports Track Builder 3 bitmaps, but in background mode only. |
| Dispatcher display blocks with misconfigured right/left linkage
values are now detected. |
| Track Builder 3 bitmap resizing is now supported. |
| 7/4 beta error 35601 which occurred during loading of the
Dispatcher Display layout has been fixed. |
| The Dispatcher Display station name indication color timeout
value will now be used for the "Other" color. |
| Totally-empty control or indicaton mnemonics values no longer
overwrite existing database mnemonics during MCP imports. |
| The Jet version included in the Windows 2000 SP4 Rollup is now
correctly identified in the About dialog. |
| GPS COM port selection now lists only configured ports. |
| MCP import and export file open dialogs now display files in detail
mode. |
| The last used replay, MCP import and export directory names are now
saved to the profile. |
| "OK" logical OR approach indication logic is now
supported. Name the block(s) ":xO" in "TB Block Properties
- General". The "From Station" and "To
Station" supply the two station call-up letters. Specify
xOK in Mnemonic Maintenance for each of the MCP's. OK blocks
will appear as "FromStation-ToStation:xO" on the dispatcher
display mouseover. Unfortunately, it will
be necessary to rename any existing mnemonics using the operator
"O" (i.e. POK - Power Off indication). |
| Hypertext links are now supported in dispatcher
displays. Text beginning with "http" will appear as a clickable, underlined link,
while text with "http" elsewhere will be displayed as a clickable, underlined link to the http target.
For example, the text value "http://www.atcsmon.com" will appear as
http://www.atcsmon.com;
the text value "Click here for the group site.http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ATCS_Monitor"
will appear as Click here for the group site. The
mouse pointer will turn red when over the link hotspot. |
| A bug preventing the proper decoding of SCS-128 Recall, Execute,
Disconnect, and Test messages has been fixed. |
| Runtime error 126 messages that sometimes occurred on Windows 98 SE if the
"server sends current controls and indications..." option
was selected have been eliminated. |
| A bug introduced in 3.5.2 causing ARES indications to be identified
as controls has been fixed. Existing MCPs will be automatically updated to
the ARES control and indication message type defaults of 199.2/9
and 199.13_ values when data is received. |
| ATCSMon will once again properly terminate upon windows shutdown. |
| A main menu View | Layout Information option which displays the TB
"About Territory" data has been added. |
| The main Options window will now appear in the Taskbar. |
| References in layout blocks to non-existent blocks greater than
the maximum valid block number will now be detected as an error when
the layout is loaded. |
| Long signal names may now span both the Signal Name and
Control/Monitor Name fields. Terminate the value in either field
with a "+", and the other field will be concatenated to it
when the layout is loaded. |
| Out-of-service track block controls and indications are now
supported for traditional (non-BK, non-OK) approach blocks. When
identifying these bits, use the same name as the approach block, but
replace the "A" with "X", i.e the out-of-service
indication bit for approach block 1WAK is named 1WXK, and the control bit is
named 1WXZ. Out-of-service approach blocks always appear in blue
on the dispatcher display, regardless of the condition of the approach
bit. |
| A quick search feature has been added to the Configure MCP dialog,
active for address and name searches when either column is the
selected sort item. The column names are now appended with an
ascending "^" or descending "v" indicator when
selected for sorting. |
| Dispatcher display inactivity timeouts are now disabled during
replays. |
| Dispatcher display MCP addresses are now prepopulated
from the database upon layout load, so right- and left-clicks on
the station names display the mnemonics dialogs without first
having to receive data. This required the addition of an MCPName index
to the MCP dataset, which is done automatically on a one-time basis
and requires exclusive access to the database. If a station name is
not unique in ATCSdb, use the MCP Address as the TB station name, and
the station name will be retrieved from ATCSdb at display load time. |
| Packet counts have been added to the "Servers Connected" dialog. |
| Client version numbers in the "Clients Connected" dialog
now survive display refreshes. |
| Dispatcher display stations with blank station names are now detected as errors. |
| Adjustments to initial UDP timing on both client and server instances
should minimize server UDP wait state time. Clients connecting
to servers configured to send current controls and indications should
receive that data upon connection (i.e. prior to receipt of any
real-time data). |
| 100.0._ is now a supported MCP Control Information Message
Number for IDOT indications. |
| In client mode, per-server packet statistics are now available in
the Servers Connected dialog. |
| In server mode, packet yield / minute is now available in the status
bar packet count tooltip, as well as in the system tray icon mouseover
display, when minimized. |
| Message boxes displayed if a plot is requested for which there is
insufficient data now auto-close. |
| Lower-case Station call-up letters are now supported. ATCSMon
will now automatically update Track Builder from 3.1G to an ATCS
Monitor-specific version 3.1H which also supports lower-case station
call-up letters when Track Builder is run from the toolbar icon. |
| Rules may now be sorted by name. |
| Main window MCP and Messages column order is now saved in the
profile. |
| User-defined dispatcher display mnemonics with
state values established via VBScript may now be created.
| A TB text value of
C:3EG=If (1RW AND 1EG) OR (2RW AND 2EG) then
3EG=True else 3EG=False will define mnemonic C:3EG whose
state is determined by evaluation of the VBScript expression following the
leftmost equal sign. |
| The Station Name of the call-up letter in the defined mnemonic
must be unique in ATCSdb. If not unique, use the MCP Address as the TB Station name value, and the actual station name will be
retrieved from ATCSdb at display load time. |
| The defined mnemonic call-up letter must be unique (i.e., not
shared) within the layout. |
| If the defined mnemonic contains a trailing
"K" or "Z", the script will be evaluated only
upon receipt of indications or controls respectively, otherwise it is
evaluated upon receipt of traffic of either type. In any case,
script variables not found in undefined
references are evaluated as False. |
| The defined mnemonic must not exist in the control
and/or indication mnemonics for the control point. |
| The defined mnemonic is established within the script engine as a persistent global variable with an initial value of
False. The actual variable names are "v" followed by the
defined mnemonic without the colon (i.e. vC3EG in this case), which
may be referenced in scripts for other control points. |
| If the "clear indications" inactivity timeout option
is selected and a timeout occurs, the defined mnemonic is reset to
a False state. |
| The script expression must contain only valid VBScript, and multi-line statements
are acceptable. A help file describing VBScript syntax is available here. |
| These special text entries are displayed only
on the TB dialog and never appear on the dispatcher display. |
| To aid in script debugging, if the CTRL key is held down while
restarting a dispatcher display, all detected scripts will be
displayed in message boxes during dispatcher display load, as will the
evaluation of the scripts during execution. Additionally,
all text entries will be displayed in the raw text window. |
| The Microsoft Script Control MSScript.ocx, available here,
is now a required file. |
| Up to 30 server addresses may now be specified in the Configure |
Options | Data Source | Network Settings dialog. |
| ATCSMon will now terminate properly during system shutdowns.
Additionally, if the main window is manually closed or the main menu
Exit option is selected and the save settings dialog is displayed,
operation will continue normally if the Cancel option is selected. |
| The zoom button is now enabled when new plots acquire more than 2
data points. |
| Plots launched from the dispatcher display will no longer
occasionally initially display in a zoomed mode. |
| Logical active text, broken in the 6/19 beta, is once again
functional. |
| Any mnemonic defined for an MCP may now be used in Active text
entries. Previously, standalone active text mnemonics had to be
user-defined, requiring specification of a logical value if a defined
mnemonic needed to be used. For example,
A:1RG&1RG=text-to-display may now be specified as
A:1RG=text-to-display if 1RG is defined for the MCP in Mnemonic
Maintenance. If 1RG is not defined for the MCP, text-to-display will
of course be evaluated as VBScript. |
| Active text now operates reliably when shared
station call-up letters are specified. |
| An option to log but ignore decoding errors has been added to the
General Options dialog. |
| mms:// and rtsp:// may now be specified in dispatcher display
hyperlinks. |
| The dispatcher display may now be scrolled with the keyboard arrow
keys. |
| Error 13: Type Mismatch errors that occurred when no text entries
were specified on a dispatcher display have been eliminated. |
| The messages window will now display text userdata for ATCS 60.2.11
messages when text is present. |
| The main menu Help FAQ item has been replaced
with a link to the new Wiki Documentation Project. |
| ATCSdata.dll has been updated to version
3.5.4, eliminating divide-by-zero errors that occurred in very rare
cases when packet header checksums failed to detect errors. |
| Dispatcher display switch
out-of-correspondence (switch-in-motion) indications now operate
properly for switches defined in TB with lock mnemonic overrides
(i.e., "A:1NW,A:3LZ"). |
| Hostnames may now be specified in the Server
Mode IP address fields, facilitating denial of server access by
software router applications. |
| ATCSMon will now terminate gracefully at
startup if MDAC or Jet are missing or misconfigured. |
| Numeric columns in the Active MCP Window are
now sorted correctly when clicked. |
| The Progress Bar displayed when replaying text
logfiles is now a Slider, which permits movement to any location in
the logfile being replayed, and packet timestamps are now displayed at
the top of the dialog. |
| Windows Installer has been replaced by
InnoSetup, therefore it is recommended to back up all user data
(profiles, layouts, ATCSdb, etc.), perform an uninstall of any
previous version and remove the installation directory before
installing this version. After installation, restore user data from
the backup. Issues with Windows Installer
attempting to perform reinstallation under certain circumstances are
of course eliminated when this procedure is followed. From this
release forward, only a single installation file will be provided
which can be used for both new installs and updates. When
updating an existing installation, all user data is preserved. |
|
|
| 3.5.2 |
06/12/2005 |
| Fixed a plot bug that occurred when the 2.3.1/3 control message type was specified. |
| Added a General option to enable addition of Locomotive MCP
addresses to the database. MCP name will default to AAR Railroad
Abbreviation (reporting marks) and unit number, and names for existing
addresses will be updated only if blank. Both 10- and 14-digit
addresses are supported. |
| The Genisys / SCS-128 BCP Zip Code protocol option has been
split into the actual Zip code and suffix. |
| The default file naming convention for Genisys / SCS-128 logfiles is
now yyyymmddhhMM_RR_ZIP.log, where RR is the 3-digit AAR Railroad
number, and ZIP is the BCP Zip Code and suffix. Upon replay, the
current AAR Railroad number and BCP Zip values are derived from the
filename. |
| XOR ("^")is now a supported active text operator. |
| A port count value has been added to the server base port parameter
for UDP communications in the Network Settings | Server Mode Listener Notes field.
Specify "Base=26000,100" to limit the assigned ports to
26000 through 26099. Minimum count value is 3, maximum is 100,
and a default of
20 is used if a valid value is not supplied. Minimum port value
is 1024, maximum is 65000. When present, base values now appear in the Clients
Connected window caption. Set this option only if your firewall requires manually-established
rules for inbound UDP, or if you wish to limit the number of
concurrent client connections, since connection attempts exceeding
the limit will be rejected. |
| The Packet window horizontal scrollbar will be located leftmost
after retrieving stored traffic. |
| Frequency and Protocol columns have been added to the Configure MCP Information window,
and it's caption will now display the
current ATCSdb path. |
| Database compression now functions properly on Win9x platforms. |
| 199.2/9 and 199.13_ (signifying 199.131 and 199.136) are now supported
ARES MCP Control and Indication Message values, and will be supplied as defaults for new
MCP's. |
| Message snapshots are once again replayable (broken in 3.5.0). |
| The "Open new capture file at 12:01" option now applies to
rule-based logfiles as well. |
| Navigation buttons have been added to the plot window. To zoom
to a selected area, use buttons or click and drag the mouse across the desired
points. When zoomed, plot updating will be suspended although no
data will be lost. Updating will resume when plot is zoomed
fully out. Keyboard arrow keys, PageUP, PageDown, Home, and End
keys are mapped to button functions. |
| Graphlite.ocx is no longer required and has been removed from the
distribution. |
| A Protocol option to ignore locomotive packets has been added. |
| Blocks named StationCallupLetter:Dead will appear in gray on the dispatcher
display, and may be toggled between dark red and gray when clicked. |
| Run-time error 9's that occurred when clicking another application
while a dispatcher display was active have been eliminated. |
| Track elements obliterated by Active text are now restored when the
text becomes inactive. |
| ATCS Inbound ACK's are now properly identified. |
| For those of us who enjoy fishing through packet contents with a hex
viewer, snapshot capture files created with a ".raw"
extension now contain non-replayable binary data. |
| Packet window maximum message count is now user-configurable,
defaulting to the previously-hardcoded value of 30. Use of large
count values may result in sluggish operation during monitoring
unless the "Hold Packet Display" toolbar button and/or new
"Save decoded data" option is selected.
Monitor CPU usage to determine an appropriate value for your machine. |
| An option to Save decoded data has also been added which saves the
formatted packet window text for each packet to the traffic array,
resulting in much quicker refreshing of the packet window (read:
faster MCP window navigation when running with large message count
values) at the expense of substantial memory usage. |
| The setting of the Hold Packet Display toolbar button is now saved
in the profile, useful for server configurations. |
| When selecting MCP's in the Active MCP window, the mouse icon now
changes to an hourglass while the packet window contents are
refreshed. Richtx32.ocx is now a required file. |
| Keepalive error messages are now suppressed when the socket is in
the connecting state. |
| Minimized plots may now be successfully closed from the taskbar
right-click menu. |
| Those who update using upgrade components rather than re-install may
need to overwrite riched32.dll in their ATCSMon installation directory
with the supplied version if the packet window hex dump displays incorrectly. |
| The "Always on Top" dispatcher display and plot window
title bar right-click menu options no longer disappear after the
windows are restored from a minimized state. The redundant
Configure | Options | Display | "Dispatcher display is always on
top of other forms" option has been removed. Plot and
dispatcher display window "on top" option reliability is
improved. |
| Separate Dispatcher display inactivity timeout values for controls
and indications are now available, useful for assigning a longer
timeout when only controls are received for some MCP's. |
| Mnemonic maintenance no longer accepts standalone "K" or
"Z" values. |
| The "Clear messages and replay MCP data" Active MCP window
right-click menu option has been moved to the bottom of the menu. |
| BCP ID is now appended to the MCP Address value for CSX 107.4.3
messages. |
|
| 3.5.0 |
11/01/2004 |
| X-axis labels on MCP data plots no longer overlay during resizing. |
| General options have been added to limit the number of plot points and enable/disable automatic plot height updating. |
| Plot and Mnemonics window location coordinates are now saved in the profile. |
| Minimized plots now remain minimized. |
| In mnemonic maintenance, bits which have seen a non-zero value
during monitoring (or replay) are now shown
in red if unnamed and blue if named. The bit history values for controls and indications are
stored in new ATCSdb MCPActivityC and
MCPActivityI fields. Bit history values are cleared when the
"Clear bit history" options are selected, or when protocol, indication bits, or control bits
values are changed.
| A new rule condition allowing selection of control and indication
messages with active but unnamed bits has been added. |
| FTP transfer routine for transmission of dispatcher display image capture files now recovers from dropped connections
more reliably. |
| Dispatcher display station activity timestamps now appear in the station name control/indication colors. |
| Added Select All Messages and Copy from Message Window (to
clipboard in tab-delimited text format) to main form Edit menu. |
| AAR_P1_Functions entries in profile (.ini) files will be
transparently copied to a new P1Functions ATCSdb table. The entries
and section header are deleted from any profile when saved. |
| When MCP updates are imported in the Configure MCP Maintenance
dialog, the original MCP record is now stored in a new MCPRollback table. Use the new Rollback/Undo
button in the Mnemonic Maintenance dialog to restore the mnemonic
values from the MCPRollback table. |
| Servers will now send the most recently received control and
indication for each MCP to clients at connect time if the new General option for this
feature is selected. |
| MCP information will be added to the ATCS database for all
packet types (with non-loco addresses). Previously, only addresses appearing in datagram
packets were saved. |
| Client ATCSMon version number now appears in the server's
"Clients Connected" dialog and server logs for 3.4.9 and
greater clients. |
| Toolbar shortcuts have been added for Configure MCP Information and
Start/Stop Capture to FIle. |
| Sound Card Device Name is now saved in the profile when data source
is Sound Card, and ATCSMon will now first attempt to open devices by
name, then by number. |
| The middle mouse button will now launch plots from the Dispatcher
Display. |
| The default DDE relay and DDE data source server and topic values of
'DDEServer' and 'DDETopic' may now be overridden with a new General
option. When selected, the values will be set to 'Srvxxxx' and 'xxxx', where 'xxxx'
is the Server Mode Listener port value,
allowing server operators to establish the level of
upstream-to-downstream consolidation. So, if you've got four
instances upstream that you want to consolidate to two
publicly-available downstream ports, configure upstream instance 1 and
2 for 4800, 3 and 4 for 4801, downstream instance 1 at 4800, and 2 at
4801. To have all 4 upstream instances available on a single
downstream feed, then configure all instances with the same
listener value or simply deselect the option. If you are using
one of Larry's external decoders and require this option, contact
Larry for an updated version. |
| FSK (Genisys and SCS-128) demodulation is now performed within
VB. Expect significant improvements in packet yield for 1200
baud 202T, minor improvement in yield for 300 baud 202T, and equal
yield in RFL. Optimize yield by enabling or disabling FIR
filtering. Distribution ATCSMon.ini contains new default FIR
filters. Machines with very slow CPU's may exhibit buffer
overflow messages. |
| Since Genisys and SCS-128 protocols use unverified (no CRC)
single-byte station addresses in some message types, invalid addresses
(values with good parity and framing but invalid for a given BCP) are
often seen and automatically added to ATCSdb. A Protocol option
has been added to ignore any Genisys/SCS-128 traffic for addresses
which do not exist in ATCSdb, preventing addition of invalid
values. Leave the option disabled when initially monitoring
until the valid addresses can be determined, then delete any invalid
addresses in MCP Maintenance, and select the option for subsequent
monitoring. |
| Microsoft Jet Engine version now appears in the About dialog. |
| Dispatcher Display resizing now works with very large
displays. |
| DIspatcher Display station names are now assigned independent
activity timers, improving display accuracy. |
| The error dialog option to supress display of further errors has
been removed. Select Cancel on the dialog to terminate ATCSMon,
or OK to ignore the error and continue execution. |
| ATCSMon will now terminate if ATCSdb cannot be found in the
specified database path or in the installation directory. |
| Files scrwin.ocx, mmtty.exe, mmtty.ini, and UserPara.ini are no longer required and
have been removed from
the distribution. |
| Added a Dispatcher Display option to allow non-control/indication
traffic to change the station name color to a user-specified
value. The change will occur only if the current station name
color is the default value (i.e., not currently shown in the control
or indication colors). |
| Added message-specific decoding for message type 100.0.2 IDOT
Indications. |
| 2.3.1/3 is now a supported 5-series MCP Control Information Message
Number. |
| Version information in the About dialog may now be copied with
Control-C. |
| In MCP Maintenance, control and indication bit counts now update
properly when the protocol value is changed from ATCS to
ATCS-Genisys. |
| Fixed overflow error when using Capture interval greater than 30 seconds. |
| Intervals in excess of one minute during which no packets have been
received will now appear in server logfiles with a status of
"Stall". |
| Note: All required structural changes to the ATCSdb database
are performed automatically, therefore no new database is necessary
for this release. Updated databases are not compatible with
pre-3.4.9 versions, however, MCP exports from post-3.4.8 versions in
either .mdb or .mcp format may be imported into earlier versions.
In order to eliminate any pre-existing ATCSdb corruption that may
prevent these updates from correctly executing, ATCSMon will now
automatically run Microsoft's JetComp
compress/repair utility if it opens a pre-3.4.9 database. The
utility is now included in both (full and upgrade) distributions, must be present in the ATCSMon installation
directory, and must have exclusive access to the database. A new
"Compress ATCS Database" option has been added to the
Actions menu to facilitate manual database compression. During
the compression process, the original source database is retained as
ATCSdbyyyymmddhhmmss.mdb in the current ATCSdb path. |
|
|
| 3.4.8 |
04/11/2004 |
| A dispatcher display option has been added to clear all non-switch
indications at an MCP when resetting the Station Name color due to
inactivity. |
| Signals may now be selected for clearing based upon a logical AND of
specified switch setting values, i.e., if signal A:4LG is to be
selected only when switch values 1NW, 2RW, and 3RW are active, specify
"A:4LG/1N&2R&3R". (The trailing "W"
is dropped due to TB signal name size constraints.) The earlier
method of signal selection via prioritization (see 3.0.5 release
notes) remains supported. |
| A "Copy" button has been added to the "Configure MCP
Information" dialog. |
| Rules may now be triggered by a logical AND of mnemonics in the
"Mnemonic Matches" field, i.e., specify
"1RAK&1TK" to trigger a rule when both 1RAK and 1TK
become concurrently active. |
| If the Rules | Log Messages to File filename is an executable file
(.exe extension), that program file will be executed with a
command-line argument equal to the Rule Name whenever the rule fires. |
| Replay filename will now appear in the replay Status dialog caption,
and the last filename replayed will now be visible in the toolbar
replay button tooltip text. |
| When opening a profile containing no ATCSdb location, the
database in the installation directory will be used. Previously,
any currently-opened database was used in error. |
| Replay file open dialog will now display in "Details" mode
rather than filename mode. |
| An Apply button has been added to the Mnemonic Maintenance dialog. |
| Mnemonic changes are now propagated to active plots. |
| The "P" key will now launch a plot for the selected MCP in
the Active MCP Window. |
| Server logfiles now contain additional state information to assist
in diagnosing connectivity problems. |
|
| 3.4.6 |
01/12/2004 |
| Switch Indications with identical NW and RW bit values (i.e. NW:0 and RW:0, or NW:1 and
RW:1) now cause the switch to be outlined on the dispatcher
display in the color
selected in the new "Switch in Motion color" option.
Active switch locks take precedence over switches-in-motion. |
| Dispatcher display switch position is now updated only when the
NW and RW bits are unequal. Therefore, switches are no longer set
to RW if the Test button is clicked when no switch bits have been set. |
| Inverted mnemonics now default to the selected state (yellow) in Mnemonic
Maintenance. |
| TB station names and MCP
names must now be identical (except for case). |
| ARES source and destination addresses with zeros encoded as
"A" are now decoded correctly. |
| An "Enable Relay Output" DDE option has been added.
Active only when the data source is Network, this produces a raw
data output compatible with the DDE data source option. |
| Dispatcher display conditional "active text" mnemonics
now operate
correctly at stations using shared station call-up letters. |
| Error dialog captions are now set to the main form caption for
easier identification of the instance in error. |
| Packets causing display of an error dialog are now logged to the
logs directory as yyyymmddHHMMSS.err |
| Server logfiles now carry an .slg extension rather than .log. |
| GPS settings have been moved to the renamed "DSP/GPS" tab. |
| File directories such as MCPs, Logs, etc. may now reside either in
the installation directory or ATCSdb Path, selectable via new option
buttons in the Configure | General dialog. |
| A General option to create new auto-capture log files each
midnight has been added. When selected, log file names include
profile filename and date in yyyymmdd format, i.e.
"currentprofile20031225.log". |
| Overflow errors occurring on dispatcher displays containing many
active text fields have been fixed. |
|
| 3.4.4 |
10/22/2003 |
| Data Source Sound Card and COM Port options
dialogs have been combined to provide more real estate for Network Settings. |
| Messages and Active MCP window fonts are now selectable. |
| The plot "Always on Top" setting may now be
changed from the display's title bar right-click menu. |
| An option has been added to the "Station Names retain last
color" feature that causes station names to revert back to their
original color after a specified period of inactivity. A zero
value deactivates this option. |
| Version information in the About dialog is now copyable. |
| Dispatcher display mouseovers now appear in a fixed location for
each Station, and the Ctrl key now displays all mouseovers
simultaneously. |
| Added message-specific decoding for ATCS type 107.4.3 CC_ID_MSG. |
| Dispatcher display title bar caption will now contain only the
TB Territory Name when nonblank. |
| The Escape key will now close the currently-active child window. |
| Added Builder Toolbar option to edit current dispatcher display
layout. |
|
| 3.4.3 |
10/05/2003 |
| The Packet Window will now display all saved traffic for the
selected MCP without truncation. |
| Packets which are neither controls nor indications have been eliminated from plots
created from data in the Active MCP and Messages windows. |
| Genisys and ATCS-Genisys plot points for partial indication packets
have been corrected on plots invoked from the Active MCP
window |
| The Plot display may now be dragged by clicking on any area outside
of the plot itself, not just the title bar. |
| Broadcast Type 01 messages are now decoded as 2.3.4 Indication ACKs. |
| In client mode, server connections are now handled
independently. If a server cannot be initially reached or an
operating feed fails, all other feeds continue to operate
normally. If auto-reconnect is specified, only failed feeds are
restarted. |
| Server IP address and port number have been added to the
"Network Error" dialog. |
| Servers will now terminate client connection attempts if the
connection sequence is not completed within 20 seconds. |
| An option to view the server connections log has been added to the
main menu "View" option. |
| Session termination status information has been added to the server
log. |
| Connection counts have been added to the system tray mouseover
display. |
| Non-essential files in the ATCS Monitor distribution are now tagged
as optional in the .msi file, so that their removal will not trigger
automatic re-installation by Windows Installer. |
| Railroad abbreviation lookup now uses the AAR railroad number from
the MCP address only. |
| System responsiveness is much improved during replays with nonzero
replay delays, and when replays are paused. |
| Added Finite Impulse Response (FIR) filtering option for both sound
card input and wave file replays for ATCS, ARES, and 202T
modulation. Select the DSP (Digital Signal Processing) tab on
the Configure | Options dialog to enable filtering and configure
filter tap coefficient values. Filters should have odd tap counts, and
must have from 11 to 299 taps to be considered valid. Filters may be
imported from the distribution atcsmon.ini, or use a freeware
tool to design your own and use the Edit button to import the
values via cut-and-paste. The Edit dialog will accept values in the
format "tapname=value" or simply
"value". A downloadable FIR filter designer may
be found at dazyweblabs.com, or search the web for "fir filter
design" and use one of the many many free Java applets
available. WARNING: Substantial improvements
in ARES and 202T packet yield have been seen during testing,
however, poor filter design can certainly degrade yields. Using a
filter with ATCS modulation is not recommended at this time. To
evaluate the effectiveness of a filter, record a .wav file of
representative audio and replay it with the filter enabled and
disabled and compare the results. New DLL nbfir.dll is
REQUIRED for this release. |
| The dispatcher display "Always on Top" setting may now be
changed from the display's title bar right-click menu. |
| MCP names for auto-added 7-series ATCS MCP addresses ending in "01xx"
will now be automatically created from the "0202" or
"0102" address
name suffixed with "c/c". |
| Active text mnemonics are now sorted by state (off first, on
second) prior to processing by the dispatcher display, which is
consistent with other mnemonic types. |
| Profile files greater than 32K but less than 64K are now supported
on NT or later windows versons. If a profile greater than the
supported length for the version in use is opened, a warning message
is issued. |
| Profile progress status display now appears whenever profile data is
saved. |
| Dispatcher display visibility status is now saved in the profile. |
|
| 3.4.1 |
07/28/2003 |
| Messages window configuration dialog value "Number of messages to display..." is now saved in the profile. |
| A bug introduced in 3.4.0 causing runtime error 380 on TB2 layout files has been fixed. |
|
| 3.4.0 |
07/27/2003 |
| Corruption of the Network Settings dialog that occurred after an address
was added as been fixed. |
| Corruption of dispatcher display crossover colors has been fixed. |
| Corruption of the main display that occurred when the
application was restored from the system tray has been fixed. |
| TB Station Name and Text colors with corresponding RGB values
greater than 65535 now display correctly. |
| At least one Hostname / IP address must be enabled in the Network Setting
dialog in order for monitoring to be started if the selected data source is
Network. |
| The annoying beep that occurred when sending messages from the
messages window to the dispatcher display via the "s"
keystroke has been eliminated. |
| The Mnemonic Maintenance tab order is now from right to left, mnemonic text is automatically highlighted
(selected), and the "OK" button is now
the default action when the Enter key is pressed. |
| User-defined mnemonics (without the leading "$", but ending with "K" or "Z")
may now be entered in Mnemonic Maintenance. These may be used to
control dispatcher display text by setting the text value in TB to StationCallupLetter:UserDefinedMnemonic=DisplayedText, remembering
that TB Mnemonics do not carry the trailing "K" or "Z". |
| It is also possible to
specify two mnemonics separated by "|" (logical OR) or "&" (logical AND) in
TB
in order to facilitate logic-driven text messages. For example, to
create a text message for a location
that uses opposing cleared signals to indicate plant-in-time, specify a TB text value of "StationCallupLetter:1LG&1RG=Plant in Time" to
display "Plant in Time" on the dispatcher display whenever both 1LG
and 1RG (in either controls or indications) are active at the MCP. Support for the "PL"
base mnemonic (which caused the Station Name to be displayed in yellow
when active) has been withdrawn. |
| Switch lock ("LZ" and "UL" base mnemonics) status is now shown on
the dispatcher display as a color outline surrounding the switch when
active. Specify xLZK or xULK in Mnemonic Maintenance, which will
automatically associate with the TB switch named X:xNW; if it is
necessary to override this default behavior, name
the switch "X:yNW,X:xLZ" or "X:yNW,X:xUL" in TB, where "X" is the
StationCallupLetter. Outline color is selectable in the Options |
Display dialog. |
| "BK" approach indication logic is now
supported. Name the block(s) ":xB" in "TB Block Properties
- General". The "From Station" and "To
Station" supply the two station call-up letters. Specify
xBK in Mnemonic Maintenance for each of the MCP's. BK blocks
| |