1.7.3 release notes

From Jmri

The 'official' release notes are on the Sourceforge pages somewhere, but I can't find 'em! - If you do, please update to a link here - Thanks.

Recent experience suggests that you need to be aware of a few gotcha's if you're installing for the first time. Specifically:

Windows XP with Locobuffer USB

An important note about this configuration.

MacOS X with Locobuffer USB

For reasons that need not concern us here, this configuration needs a little fancy footwork in order to work correctly. Thanks, as always, to Bob and in this particular case, Kevin Avery for the workround:

1. Sign into the administrator account on the computer. If there's only one user account, you're already all set. If not, you may need to logout and login under a different name; the administrator account is the one normally used to do software updates.
2. Copy Kevin's Info.plist file from hereto the account's Documents folder. (This is because we need to be able to find it from the Terminal, and that's a well-known location always present)
3. Open the Terminal application from either the Applications or Applications/Utilities folders, depending on your MacOS X version.
4. Run the FTDI installer. When it asks you to restart, don't click yet. If it doesn't ask to restart, that's OK too.
5. In the Terminal window that opened in (2), type the following two commands. Each one is followed by hitting the return key. You might get prompted for your password; if so, type the password for the account you're currently using. (each command on one line, not wrapped)

     sudo cp ~/Documents/Info.plist /System/Library/Extensions/
          FTDIUSBSerialDriver.kext/Contents/

     sudo touch /System/Library/Extensions

Last, we need to restart the computer. If the FTDI installer is waiting for you to click on its restart button, that will do the restart. Otherwise, select Restart... under the Apple menu.

Digitrax Command Station Editor

This is a new feature in this release. Opened from the 'tools' menu it allows to program (mess up?) your command station from within JMRI. Unfortunately, Digitrax' naming convention and defaults for these options remains about as clear as mud, so use at your ownn risk, probably only after saving the current configuration.

Also note, it reads and writes these values very quickly, so it's probably working even if you think it isn't! (Don't ask) - When you write anything back to a Zephyr command station you should see (something like) --CS-- flash very briefly in the command station display.