FSX/FSX-SE Aircraft and Panel Design Forum - How To

Gents, I have been working on a panel that has alot of "background" coding to fit the actual aircraft system. IIRC Doug Dawson made a gauge that saved a variable state in an .ini/cfg for the next aircraft load. Am i correct in this assumption? If so, where can I find one? file name? Or- just give him a note of THANX! and a request? Been using his gauges constantly... The Sound gauge for sure .... & The Variable monitor gauge to make sure my coding doesn't suck. ( Cuz it happens LOL! ) Regards,Roman

I have used two analog fuel gauges (Round) with .gau extensions for small aircraft with 1 or two fuel tanks. I am looking for the same in FSX, but also for 3 and 4 tanks.

We all know how bad the start-up sequence is with FS. Once you add fuel at approx 20% N2, the N2, N1 and EGT peak at ridiculous values making the combustion part of the start-up sequence extremely short.Is there any way to avoid this without changing the N2 spool times for higher RPMs to abnormal values? Bj

I am working on a FM2 Wildcat which has folding wings. I would like to attach nav lights to the wings that will stay attached to the wings while they are folding (although in real life they probably turned off the nav lights before folding the wings).From what I have read, this will involve modifying some FSX and FSDS files and creating attach points (whatever those are).I am not a newbie (I designed several ships for fs9 that had a variety of lights, including aimable searchlights made using landing lights), but this is an area I have never explored, especially with FSX. Is there a tutorial that I have overlooked?Thanks,Phil

I'm trying to create a gauge that reads Turbine %RPM (Left and Right) in each engine. The gauge works fine, however when I try to add a mask image to the '%RPM meter' strips, the strip completely disappears.I tried to create the mask image using Paint and Gimp, however every time I color the Mask Image with two different colors (0,0,0 and 1,1,1) it all just seems to blend into one (0,0,0); therefore making the whole thing transparent. Can anyone explain to me how to create mask images using Paint or Gimp?Is it not keeping the color properties because it needs to be 36bit? I'm really lost so plz help

I would like to add this bitmap that I am editing to a panel as a landing view. Can someone assist me with this? Thank you.

Hi there,I'm looking for a "nil" aircraft to use in FSX for pure slew/screenshot purposes. Essentially, from a Top Down and/or external view, I don't want to have any form of aircraft visible.Is there an "aircraft" to download to accomplish this, or can I do this within FSX? Thanks!~Nate

How are 16-bit signed integers representing pseudo-degrees converted into "real" degrees?

Good morning all (morning here in France

Hi,I have come across a very annoying problem with one of my gauges: it works fine when I run the gauge in VS2008-debug mode, but it generates errors when I compile in "release" mode.The problem most likely is related to a memory allocation problem with a pointer or array.It would make my life a lot easier if I could open a console window from my gauge to write some variable values to, so I can see what is happening inside the gauge exactly!Has anyone been able to do this and would you share this knowledge ?Thanks,Bj

Some days ago I raised the question of being unable to show both Capt & FO panel views simultaneously on dual monitors with the DreamFleet Baron. It was one or the other- not both.Since then, the postman delivered my latest addon- Extreme B200 KingAir (CD version). I thought someone might be interested in these screenshots.Although there is much duplication or overlap in these two panels, it shows the improvement over the method of simply using popups to simulate the FO panel. (Engine nacelles yet to be rotated a bit in PCfg to properly display them aimed forward.) Imagine the appearance if this was a widescreen monitor rotated 90

Back again, with another probelm.I've been making a FMC for my panel through XML for FS9, now I've come to a problem. I've modeled the FMC after the typical Boeing FMC's - the 76 in particular - now the only difference concerned here is that I've used an IRU instead of IRS but that has nothing to do but graphics really.In the FMC the first page of relating to POSITION is the POS INIT page, in this page I want to display the LAST POS or the position in LAT/LON that the aircraft was shut down at. I've tried to accomplish this using the following code: <Element> <Select> <Value>(L:PWR,bool) 0 == if{ (A:PLANE LATITUDE,degrees) (>L:FMC-IRU-POS-LAT-L…

Hi. I know how to put icons into a/c cockpits which open up various windows in the panel.cfg file, and similarly basic stuff, using XML code - I'm not an expert here. But I now want to have an icon in the cockpit that would open up a window that is controlled by a keyboard command, (such as Ctrl+Shift+A, or similar). I started on this, then realised I was lost! Can anyone advise how to transfer such a keyboard command to an icon/XML gauge please?Many thanks,Martin

Hello everybody,Here is one thing that drives me mad: Please tell me I'm wrong...I always thought - even more, I' almost convinced that it is enough to either have the main battery switch or one of the generators switches set to "on" to get electrical power on the systems (with electric_always_available = 0).But now - regardless which aircraft I use - turning off the main battery switch disengages all electrical systems, also when all generators are working.Is this normal?, Does my memory really fool me? Or is there any general setting which I might have changed?Any help more than welcome!!Herbert

Hi,Could someone remind me how to correct AI a/c with too much reflection, as in these examples, using Photoshop ideally:I have changed the colour balance to c.230 all channels (I thought that was the trick), but I don't recall now how to save the file (I have to save the alpha??). I did it several times a few years back, now I seem to have forgotten and almost an hour searching on Google hasn't helped!Many thanks,Martin.. they are my previous before & after shots, obviously! But what did I do?? :(

Hi. Could someone kindly advise: how do you make a switch or knob (e.g. an altitude select knob) keep turning as long as the cursor is over it and the left mouse button is held down, rather than only moving up a notch every time the mouse button is clicked?Thank you for any help,Martin

The DreamFleet Baron has both Captain & CoPilot 2D panels with click spots to switch back and forth. Very nice. (Sure beats panning!)But I'm running multiple monitors and I would like to have both panels open simultaneously on adjacent monitors. Essentially a single, very wide complete- full width panel.I can open the copilot panel, undock it and drag to monitor #2- but that deletes the pilot panel on #1 mon.. And vice versa. In Panel Cfg these panels are set up as Views rather than Popups- which are easily undocked & dragged.Any thoughts on how I might be able to display both panel views simultaneously?Alex Reid

I sometimes want to move a 2D panel window (FS9) from its default position - for instance, moving an overhead panel to the top instead of having it open in the middle of the screen, as per 'out-of-the-box, or have the radio/throttle windows open somewhere over the main panel, instead of in front of the a/c window, blocking all views. But just occasionally I download a new a/c where the panel refuses to play ball (i.e. the B737-800 Scheffel). No matter what I do, changing the co-ordinates/window position & size in the panel.cfg file, the windows stubbornly open in the same place (which is not in position 0 through 8 either). It's not because I'm doing something wrong, …

We had an earlier thread regarding getting the name of the folder that holds the Flight Simulator saves files (thanks Ed!). While this thread did return the correct name, it didn't give the absolute path. The following code will give you the absolute path - I'm certain that there are easier ways of doing it than this but each function returns information that is useful in its own right. I'm also aware that there are safer ways of copying the strings (e.g. strcpy_s etc.), so if you use this code feel free to update/upgrade it. Finally (just for Beatle (Tim)!) I'm also aware that there's a loose handle still floating around in getSimVer() which I really should do something …

Sorry for the multiple post but I tried this in the FS2004 section and got no responses - perhaps folks who know something about the guts of FS9 and FSX are more likely to hang out here...Hi folks,Can somebody tell me the difference between (user aircraft) sound configuration in FSX and FS2004?Specifically, I'd like to know if it is possible to use a soundpack made especially for FSX (the new IRIS BAe146 in this case) in FS2004 - either with or without some modification of the sound.cfg file..?I have downloaded a few FSX soundpacks from the library and they don't look too different from FS2004 ones but then I wonder why IRIS don't market their product at both sims if it i…

I have a plane I just installed in FSX and the engine quits because the idle engine speed is too low with my throttle set to minimum position. I have never had this problem before. I have to crack the throttle quite a bit to keep it running. Is there some setting in the aircraft.cfg or air file that I can edit to increase the idle speed with min throttle? I have looked at min_throttle_limit and the idle_rpm scalars but don't know which to edit and what to edit them to, if these are the ones I need to edit. Best regards, Bob.

I would like to preset my home airport ILS frequencies in the nav1 radio. Is this a fairly simple thing to do? Anyone wish to help me out? Thanks.

Hey guys,I am trying to design an XML fuel gauge for the C172 aircraft, which has a status bitmap at the bottom of the fuel gauge which will either display Fuel Insufficient if the time to fuel exhaustion is less than the time to the next GPS waypoint, or Fuel Ok if there is sufficient fuel onboard. I have used a Select tag at the bottom which toggles the corresponding bitmap to display depending on the value computed like such - <Element> <Position X="72" Y="305"/> <Visible>(A:GPS IS ACTIVE FLIGHT PLAN, bool)</Visible> <Select> <Value>((A:fuel total quantity, gallons) (A:eng1 fuel flow GPH, gallons per hour) /) ((A:GPS WP DISTANCE, …

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Anyone have any insight into this issue?// Display Strings //stringFormat.SetAlignment(StringAlignmentCenter); // choose the string alignment: Left, Right, or Centergraphics.DrawString(L"PRE FLIGHT",-1,Arial18,MPRect,&stringFormat,whiteBrush);In FSX, that code will result in the text being centered, which is what I want.But the exact same code in FS9 will result in the GDI text aligning full left. StringAlignmentCenter has no effect in FS9.Any ideas on why this happens in FS9 only?Cheers,