Are you having trouble with a particular task, or just don't know where to begin?
Hovering the mouse pointer over a tool on te toolbar causes a box to open that tells what the tool is. To begin, select (from the white band across the top) a track shape that you want to place, then use the "place element" tool (looks like an arrow pointing down). Move to the drawing area an click it. Tools selection automatically changes to "add track and connect" tool. Move the mouse pointer around near the track you just laid and it will change shape to look like the currently selected tool when it is within range. Then click it and it will lay a track connected to the other.
Now select the "place element" tool again and go to a different place on the drawing area and place another piece of track. Now you have to sections of track not connected in any way. Pick the "place flextrack" tool and click on the end of one of the sections. You should see a black arrow appear on that end. Then go to the other section of track and do the same. You should see a flextrack laid between the two sections. Migh look good, might look weird, and might not be a practical place to put flextrack, but it's OK for practice.
Next select the shape flex track tool and click the new flex track. All I can say here is play around. The use of this tool is very important to master in order to have any flexibility in the use of the software. Unforutnately, it's proper use is indescribable by me. Just play with it till it works and it will be well worth the effort.
Select the line tool and lets draw some borders. Right click where you want to start drawing the line, move to the first corner and righ click, move to the next corner and right click, etc., etc., until you fell happy, then left click where you want the end to be.
You can pick different types of track and some buildings if you do elements|load library on the menu's. Default is HO code 100. Look around the menus, there is a lot to do. Check out the "special" menu.
Rotation tool, another required skill: This tool is "greyed out" unless you have something selected or tagged (explained below). Lay a single section of straight track somewhere off to the side. Select the arrow tool (the one that looks like a regular mouse pointer) and click the track you laid to select it. It should get a grey rectangle around it. If you have it laid within another element, like the lines we drew, you might see that selected instead. If this happens, just click it again, and again if need be, until our track has the rectangle around it. Then it is "selected" or "tagged". The click the "rotate tagged element" tool and a window opens that allows you to rotate it. Slide the slider back and forth or just pick one of the buttons off to the left. You can do this with anything onthe drawing, not just a single peice of track. Click OK when you are happy.
Then pick the "parallel tracks" tool off the special menu. This is also "greyed out" unless something is selected. Tell it how many tracks you want, how far apart, and where you want them, then OK, and you have parallel tracks, evenly spaced. You can play around with the other special tools and learn what the do.
Just play around and practice for an hour or two before you try a real layout, then come back with questions or go to the help files. I hope this is de-geeked tot he point of being understandable
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