cluening

Good news! I just added a button to delete parts to the toolbar, and I fixed the keyboard input not working until you click on the layout. Those should both work a lot better now. Thanks for the feedback! I had started to add some logic for selecting pieces early on with the intention of being able to drag them around, but I haven't finished that yet and it's currently disabled. Once it's in there for real, I'll also make it so that you can delete a piece that way.

Ha! I've always used the Track Designer keyboard shortcuts, so I just used backspace/delete to delete elements. I suppose I should add an actual button to the toolbar too. I'm not planning to replicate all of the Track Designer functionality -- for example, I don't really care about elevation changes in something simple like this -- but expanding the part library is something that I plan on doing over time.

I did get BlueBrick running on an Intel Mac once using some combination of .Net frameworks, but it really wasn't pleasant to do and didn't run very well. I've never tried on my current system that has an Arm processor because that just seemed like an exercise in frustration. But, as I noted, this was more about building something simple and cross-platform that I could pull out at a moment's notice and play with than trying to replace something like BlueBrick. If you want to do something complex, I'm sure BlueBrick is still the way to go.

I've been a looooong time lurker here on Eurobricks, but I finally have something to post. I don't have a permanent Lego train layout; instead, I pull track out when I'm inspired, leave a layout up for a few days, and then put it all away and put the trains back on display until next time. I've been using Matthew Bates' Track Designer since the mid 2000s to design my layouts, but it hasn't been updated since the late 1990s and is slowly getting harder to run on modern computers. There are obviously newer and more feature-packed tools available today, but I've always loved the simple aesthetic of Track Designer and its graphics, and I really don't need anything more complex than a simple layout tool. Plus, all of the modern tools that I've tried are a pain to use on my Mac and Linux systems. I've had some free time lately and I know enough Javascript to be dangerous, so I decided it was time to create something that replicates the base functionality of Track Designer and runs in a web browser. I present the result of that work: Tracks! It's super-simple, both in code and functionality, but it fits my needs for something I can quickly pull up and try out some ideas with. I wouldn't recommend designing your next LUG layout with it, but I figured others might get the same simple enjoyment of of it that I have. The whole thing is client-side javascript, and the source is available on Github: https://github.com/cluening/tracks. This project has been heavily inspired by Matthew Bates' original Track Designer and makes use of his Train Depot Track Kit bitmaps, which are used in accordance with their terms and conditions. Thanks for that work, Matthew!