Powered Up Programming

[Claudius]

Am I missing something, or is there very little support for those wanting to use the programming section of the Powered Up App to control trains?

I came across the code block guide at https://racingbrick.com/powered-up-code-block-guide-full/, which has helped me create my own control screen for my 60197 Passenger Train, add lights, and implement Automatic Train Operation using the Colour and Distance Sensor.

Was happy to start documenting my learnings, but don't want to duplicate work that may have been done elsewhere.

[Toastie]

29 minutes ago, Claudius said:

Am I missing something, or is there very little support for those wanting to use the programming section of the Powered Up App to control trains?

There is NTN (next-to-nothing) support from TLG - in an overall assessment make that zero.

There are so many smart people out here and elsewhere - it is really hard to follow up. And stay informed. TLG left us with smart BLE devices, a protocol and is throwing apps at us. It seems they are also spreading the word to some which are meant to drive that into the public domain. We then have to figure out how the apps work and what they (can) do. TLGs programmable environment may be nice - but I'll never go there. C(++)? Yes. Python? Yes. 10 REM BASIC? FOR SURE: 20 GOTO 10.

But once again: There are so many very nice approaches to achieve what you want, from volunteers. The public domain they are very smart in TLG marketing.

Best
Thorsten 

[brickostan]

I've never seen any official TLG (The Lego Group) documentation of the Powered Up App functionality.

The best documentation I've seen is the one from RacingBrick.

But with some basic programming experience in nearly any language, I think that the information provided by RacingBrick is enough to get started.

But of course if one doesn't have any coding experience at all it could be a steep learning curve. In such case I would think that a general Scratch tutorial would do it (this is just a guess - the only Scratch-like language I've "written" in is the Powered Up App (and with "written" I mean drag-n-dropped!)).

I've tried myself to make a guide describing how I've programmed my automatic train control with the 88007 colour sensor:

 

[Lok24]

12 hours ago, Claudius said:

Am I missing something, or is there very little support for those wanting to use the programming section of the Powered Up App to control trains?

 

As you wrote, there are lots of videos and web sites with explanations and examples.
But there is no support by LEGO.

For an introduction to the programming tools with LEGO Apps you could use the Boost Set 17101.
As there is no need to use a smart device with the LEGO apps, there are other Apps to use Powered up, or use other devices like micro controllers or similar.