The panel and gauge side of MS Flight Simulator

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November, 2005

TechNet Blogs » The panel and gauge side of MS Flight Simulator » November, 2005
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  • A Pathetic Lot

    Posted over 9 years ago
    by TechNet Archive}
    Hal recently posted a couple of e-mails sent to FS Ideas that he thought were, um, interesting... So I can't resist sharing my all-time favorite. (OK, I've been in this group for less than two years, but this one is over a year old and really stands...

  • Vars used by GPS

    Posted over 9 years ago
    by TechNet Archive}
    I finally compiled a list of the GPS vars (most of which are used in the XML for the FS9GPS) and their default units and whether or not you can get/set them. Hopefully this will be a handy reference for those creating their own GPS. I've also created...

  • One more note on color: HilightColor

    Posted over 9 years ago
    by TechNet Archive}
    I meant to mention in my previous post today on color that there are a few gauges that utilize the "HilightColor" (yes, it should be spelled "HighlightColor", but I have no control over what was written in FS8/9) attribute, including the Beech Baron clock...

  • Dev Humor

    Posted over 9 years ago
    by TechNet Archive}
    Thanks to Raf for sharing this guide to how to write unmaintable code. I haven't read all of it yet - my sides already hurt too much from laughing so hard.

  • Colorful

    Posted over 9 years ago
    by TechNet Archive}
    Last night I was thinking about colors when I left work and they were setting up green lights for the front of our building to celebrate the launch of Xbox 360. So what can we do with colors in XML gauges in flight sim? We ship a colors.doc in our...

  • Don't let this happen to you

    Posted over 9 years ago
    by TechNet Archive}
    Continuing on the theme of displaying text in an XML gauge, I just spent more time than I would like to admit trying to figure out why this script wasn't working for me: %( (A:ATC ID) )%!s! The problem, of course (which I only resolved by stepping...

  • Conditionally Displaying Text in XML Gauges

    Posted over 9 years ago
    by TechNet Archive}
    I thought this might be of interest to some people out there: You can use the %{if}, %{else}, and %{end} constructs to choose which text to display. Note that if, else, and end are case-sensitive and must be typed in lowercase. The syntax for usage...

  • Typos

    Posted over 9 years ago
    by TechNet Archive}
    Have you ever found yourself making humorous typos? For example, have you ever typed "dev" to jump to your private dev directory in your enlistment (OK, most people will have no idea what I'm talking about here), but type in "deb" instead? Which of...

  • Where have I been?

    Posted over 9 years ago
    by TechNet Archive}
    I've been meaning to blog lately, but for some reason, life has been getting in the way. Things like training classes ("Threat Mitigation"), travelling, bike racing, skiing, helping out friends, and life in general have been keeping me away from my desk...

  • From the "Who knew?" department

    Posted over 9 years ago
    by TechNet Archive}
    Apparently the runway at KBFI is pretty bad . I've taken off there twice in a little RV owned & operated by a coworker, but our takeoff roll was about 100 yards so I didn't notice any bumpiness...

  • Gauge humor

    Posted over 9 years ago
    by TechNet Archive}
    This is the first case I've seen of panel-design-related humor. Wow! Although just how funny it is could be debated...

  • Displaying text in XML gauges

    Posted over 9 years ago
    by TechNet Archive}
    Since this topic isn't covered at all in the FS 2004 SDK documentation, here's some info that I haven't yet seen covered online anywhere: Displaying Text in Gauges Formatting numbers To display the value of a sim variable in text, use the following...

  • XML script: What's the max stack depth?

    Posted over 9 years ago
    by TechNet Archive}
    Thanks goes out Tom Gibson for this question ... I didn't know this one off the top of my head, so I first cheated by looking at the source code for the stack calculator in FS and then verified te answer by doing a simple experiment. I put the following...

  • Ye can't be rotating yer images with alpha

    Posted over 9 years ago
    by TechNet Archive}
    Nick Post mentioned in a comment that he's had problems trying to get images in the 2D panels that have an alpha channel to rotate. An astute observation! I had to try this out myself with an XML gauge to see why it doesn't work, and sure enough, this...

  • Google's duo goes for a 767

    Posted over 9 years ago
    by TechNet Archive}
    Check out this article about how Sergey Brin and Larry Page bought a 767 as their "corporate jet". I'm looking forward to seeing a "Goooooogle" livery for a 767 add-on. Of course, the 2D panel would have to have some kind of search mechanism built in...

  • An alphabet worth of variables

    Posted over 9 years ago
    by TechNet Archive}
    After mentioning which types of variables can and can't be set in my last post, I was feeling a little guilty. In the FS2004 SDK we didn't actually define which types of variables CAN be set. So here's an improved table of variable types, since the SDK...

  • Pop-arazzi

    Posted over 9 years ago
    by TechNet Archive}
    When do things get popped off the stack? The question was posed in a comment, and I think it deserves some space as a post, so here we go: Question : If I have the following script: 0 (>L:MyVariable, number) will '0' still be on the stack...

  • A word from the spelling nazi

    Posted over 9 years ago
    by TechNet Archive}
    Though I'm nothing like the kids featured in the movie Spellbound , I generally like to spell things correctly and seeing spelling mistakes always grates on me a little bit. For some reason, the word " gauge " trips up a fair number of people, and I've...

  • Reverse Polish Notation

    Posted over 9 years ago
    by TechNet Archive}
    If you create XML gauges, unless you're doing the most simplistic of gauges, you'll need to have a good understanding of RPN (Reverse Polish Notation, not to be confused with RPM, or Rotations Per Minute). Here's a decent description of it. I think...

  • You learn something new every day

    Posted over 9 years ago
    by TechNet Archive}
    You'd think that after over 18 months of work on the panel system in FS, I'd know all there is to know... but you'd be wrong. I just learned about the "Strings" section that can be used in the panel.cfg file from a tutorial made by "Greekydeke" I found...

  • Online tutorials for gauge creation

    Posted over 9 years ago
    by TechNet Archive}
    Just found this . The "Gauge Graphics" tutorials, parts 1-3 are very detailed and oriented towards those creating artwork to be used in gauges. From what I've heard, there is value in the FS9gauges.h file that's part of the Gauge Creation Tutorial...

  • Worthless

    Posted over 9 years ago
    by TechNet Archive}
    My blog is (currently) worth $0.00. Invest now and watch the value increase 100-fold! Oh wait, that would still be $0.00... My blog is worth $0.00 . How much is your blog worth?

  • Words of Wisdom

    Posted over 9 years ago
    by TechNet Archive}
    "If something works surprisingly well on the first try, you probably made a mistake" -Doug Matthews Yes, a mistake like using old file(s). : )

  • Timestamps

    Posted over 9 years ago
    by TechNet Archive}
    I'd just like to say that my first two entries were not posted at 3 or 4 a.m. - it was more like 7 or 8 p.m. Not sure what happened there, but I didn't (intentionally) change any time-zone settings on this blog at any point...

  • How can an 8-bpp bitmap contain 256 values of alpha?

    Posted over 9 years ago
    by TechNet Archive}
    The question was posed to me yesterday (which relates to the entry I wrote about creating a .bmp-with-alpha to use in the panel system of Flight Sim: what IS the deal with the .bmp files that are used by the panel system that have alpha in them? A great...