Route Name 16 Character Limit

[unmerged(265228)]

just got CiM2 for my girlfriend tonight, and after she had the basics down, she was very excited to name her routes based off of bird names (awesome idea! never would've thought of it myself:wub. i suggested using bird names for major routes, and then numbered or street named routes for routes that support or feed into the major ones, so that we could get interesting names like "55 Downtown to Finch Route SE", etc.

however, when we both booted up the game my heart sunk. i remembered the tiny character limit imposed on route names (and names for anything else actually)...so, while we can still name major routes after birds and such, doing anything more complicated than that is completely out the window. while it's mostly an aesthetic flair i described above, the potential to actually give routes meaningful and informative names for easy notice later is really not feasible, unless you don't mind creating a ton of numbered acronyms or something.

everytime i remember the character limit on names of things i admit it really annoys me. can anyone explain to us the reason names for ANYTHING in the game have a 16 character limit?

better yet, does anyone know of a way we can increase it?

 

[unmerged(676128)]

It would be nice if CO did increase the character limit, as some lines (shuttle for example [Downtown - North Shuttle]) won't fit in the size. (Bird names are a cool naming idea by the way )

 

[jasiekzar]

Another useful thing CO could do with (I presume) little effort is to allow to add letters to routes' numbers, such as M1 or S1. CO, if it's not a problem please let us, and if it's a problem at least tell us why! Thanks!

 

[gsandi]

I have bigger problems with route names than a limit of 16 characters. My number one issue is that if I want to create a route number of, say, 220, then 219 little windows will open up before I can even get to specify the characteristics of route 220. All those windows will have to be closed! Another problem is that when I rename a route, the route identifier hovering above a vehicle that plies that route remains the original name, not the renamed one.

As for the ability to name routes A1, 12B or Central Line, it should go without saying that such names should be possible. CiM is about modeling the real urban transportation world, isn't it?

 

[jasiekzar]

I have bigger problems with route names than a limit of 16 characters. My number one issue is that if I want to create a route number of, say, 220, then 219 little windows will open up before I can even get to specify the characteristics of route 220. All those windows will have to be closed! Another problem is that when I rename a route, the route identifier hovering above a vehicle that plies that route remains the original name, not the renamed one.

I don't have any of these problems, especially why do you have 219 windows opened? i just create a line and change its number, the identifier changes then too... There are no windows... It's probably a bug you should report it in bug area.

You know that you can change both: route number AND route name and there two different areas for that?

 

[gsandi]

Well, jasiekzar, I didn't know that, and thank you for this addition to my understanding of the game. I had thought that the number I gave a route was immutable and that the only thing I could change was its "name", whatever that was useful for. But I have now changed a route number, and it worked just as you say. I am not sure what I gain by having a name going along with the number, since it doesn't appear along with the vehicle on the screen.

Route numbers including letters would still be welcome though.

 

[Cartographer29]

My huge beef is that routes in the list aren't arranged based on route number. So if I start out with 1, 2, 3, 4 ... all the way to 20, and I renumber 5 into, say, 105, now my routes are listed 3, 4, 105, 6, 7, ...

This is a bit of a visual pet peeve, but it'd be nice so that if I've got dozens of routes, and I customize numbers, I'm not scrolling through the whole list looking for it. I know here it'll be, if it was in order.

 

[unmerged(265228)]

My huge beef is that routes in the list aren't arranged based on route number. So if I start out with 1, 2, 3, 4 ... all the way to 20, and I renumber 5 into, say, 105, now my routes are listed 3, 4, 105, 6, 7, ...

This is a bit of a visual pet peeve, but it'd be nice so that if I've got dozens of routes, and I customize numbers, I'm not scrolling through the whole list looking for it. I know here it'll be, if it was in order.

this also bothers me immensely.

it seems like the UI would benefit greatly from even a quick usability / user experience pass, fixing up a few things causing everyone such headaches.

 

[neko_ceko]

I agree with every post in this thread! These things aren't very big and probably aren't hard to do, but to many people they make a huge difference. So, longer route names, adding letters to route numbers (27a, 27b etc.), sorting routes by numbers. Those would be very very awesome!

 

[Jokurr]

Should be an easy thing to implement. Hopefully the devs can change this, I would also love longer route names.

 

[co_martsu]

Should be an easy thing to implement. Hopefully the devs can change this, I would also love longer route names.

Unfortunately it's not trivial to implement longer route names at this time. Otherwise we wouldn't have had to limit the characters at all

I'm sorry I'm afraid that due to the UI design and the limitations we can't allow longer route names. However we'll take this into consideration in the future!

 

[Norfolk_Chris]

Unfortunately it's not trivial to implement longer route names at this time. Otherwise we wouldn't have had to limit the characters at all

I'm sorry I'm afraid that due to the UI design and the limitations we can't allow longer route names. However we'll take this into consideration in the future!

Would it be too much to ask for route numbers AND names to be displayed on the front (and back) of vehicles in their destination displays, in you considerations in the future?

 

[unmerged(676128)]

Would it be too much to ask for route numbers AND names to be displayed on the front (and back) of vehicles in their destination displays, in you considerations in the future?

Woo awesome +1

 

[kellergeist79]

Perhaps you could allow longer route names and display the text that does not fit to the UI anymore in an appearing tool box when the mouse is over it, just like the help-toolboxes. If a text is short enough, then without the appearing toolbox.

 

[unmerged(265228)]

just out of curiosity, what parts of the current UI make this unfeasible?