Do any of the track layout software support "personal track inventory"?

Sounds like a great idea. But I don't think I would want to count all my track I have in O gauge. Also how would you program it to accept say a 37" piece of gargraves that maybe you would need to cut a piece 21" long to make a layout. It would reject the layout because you needed a piece 21" long not 37". That would take some real programing I think to overcome that. 

Still I like your idea a lot. 

RS,

   I have not seen a personal inventory set up in any other the Track engineering planning packages, it's a great idea however!

PCRR/Dave

RR-Track has one, but the prices are outdated. However, they can be updated as you enter your track pieces or later on when you find current prices. If you have the correct pricing and your track inventory entered, it will tell you how much track you will still need and what the cost will be. It also has accessory packages available at extra cost that have the same capability of being inventoried and priced. They are the most complete accessory libraries I have seen, but I am not sure what all is still missing. Not sure if you can add your own or not? 

I don't know if SCARM does this or not, I am not that familiar with it? I also have an older copy of ANyrail, but have not used it in sometime and don't remember if it had the inventory or not? I am thinking it did not, but I'm really not sure. I believe they each have a trial version you can use to try out their software.

I don't know, but you could always use an Excel sheet. Would only take 5 minutes to set one up to keep track of what you have, what you need etc.

RTR12, SCARM does not let you enter prices. However, it is easy to copy/paste the inventory into Excel (or other spreadsheet) and add a column for prices there. IMHO, this is much easier than the edit process in RR-Track and easier to set up columns for different suppliers to compare. You can copy/paste from RR-Track too, but it uses one field for the data for each track whereas SCARM uses individual fields. The advantage to RR-Track is that if you substitute one track for another, like #4 switches for O72, those changes automatically update the total price without you having to copy/paste a new list into Excel and add the prices.

Thanks Dave. That part of RR-Track is one of the easy parts for me!  I suppose you probably would be better off in Excel for manipulation of prices & data though. You could do more fiddling with it all anyway.

I tried to look at SCARM, which I have on my PC, but it said it had expired or something like that and wouldn't open. It took me to their website, but I didn't pursue it any further. I'm sure you know all about that already, but I hadn't been into it for quite sometime. Oh, well so much for that. 

RTR12, you have to install the latest version of SCARM, previous versions no longer work since SCARM is now a commercial product. There is a free version available, but, like AnyRail's trial version, its too limited to be of much value other that deciding if you want to purchase the full version. In your case it's probably not worth it since, like me, you already have RR-Track and know how to use it.

Also, I didn't mean to imply that RR-Track is hard. It's just that for what I use the inventory for, it's tedious when I want to compare prices from different sources. What I do is update the RR-Track data with MSRP prices to give me a ballpark cost projection. I then pull the data into Excel, but it takes quite a bit of editing to separate the data into their individual fields for use with formulas. SCARM lets me pull the data directly into their individual fields. To be fair, this is not something I do often, so it's just an observation. It's certainly not a reason to pick one program over the other.

I should also say that if the OP is looking for a program that will let him enter his inventory of existing track without creating a layout design, then RR-Track's inventory manager will let him do that whereas SCARM won't. However, like TRAINGUYMCGEE said, that would be easier and cheaper done using Excel or any number of free spreadsheet programs. Heck, even a text inventory using Notepad or Wordpad would be cheaper than paying for RR-Track just for that purpose.

DoubleDAZ posted:

In your case it's probably not worth it since, like me, you already have RR-Track and know how to use it.

 

I would rephrase that to 'I already have RR-Track and can stumble through a few operations with it'. (And do the inventory thing!) But you and the others around here are the ones that really know how to use it. 

I wasn't sure if SCARM still had a trial version? It is nice to know it does. I'll try to remember that.

I still agree with the Excel for data manipulation and maybe even keeping your inventory if you already have another track program and Excel. Would be a lot cheaper. Also the RR-Track export doesn't sound too good either with everything in one field. I think there is a file in RR-Track that contains the track info and I believe it's a text file you can edit. I have been into it before, but I forget what I ended up doing. I will try to take another look at it and see if I can remember. Seems like maybe the updates wrote over it wiping out my editing or something like that.

Added: I looked, it's an .ini file and it is just the track part numbers and prices. Then some more info used by the track program. That's the other thing with RR-Track, it's a bit antiquated and I don't remember if they ever fixed the crashing problems? Guess I will go look for any new updates to see if I am current.

You are too funny, but point taken regarding your knowledge of RR-Track.

FWIW, I forgot that RR-Track has a .csv export function in the Component View that can be imported directly into Excel with all the data fields separated, so I retract what I said. I'm still not a fan of the edit function in the Inventory Manager though because it takes too many clicks to change the price. I should be able to click on the price field in the list and edit that field vs having to select the track, then select the price field, then delete what's there before I can finally enter the latest price.

They have not fixed the crashing problem AFAIK. And that's another pet peeve of mine. When I select Check For RR-Track Updates, it takes me to the v4 updates page instead of the v5 updates page. When I get to that page, I have to refer to the version number in the Help menu to see if I have the latest version. I shouldn't have to go though all that in a program that costs over $100. It should tell me if I have the latest version or if a newer version is available. In fact, it should work like all other programs i use and automatically check for updates when I open it. As a former programmer, I see no reason for this poor design.