FS Panel Studio

By Terblanche Jordaan (24 January 2002)

The 'toeters en belle' (as they say in Dutch) later became quite real when I did my PPL. Needless to say I had to do my IFR and later CPL just to find out more about the digits and dials in every cockpit I came across. I couldn't care about high pressures above (or below) the wing, neither did I care about how many horsepower or G's the plane could pull as long as I know what every gauge could do, I was happy.

Various panel editors came along from FS5 to FS98 to FS2000 and now FS2002 that caught my attention. I used them all. I've even paid for some I never mastered and then one day I saw CfgEdit and I downloaded the little gem and to my surprise this little program could do the same and even more than some expensive shareware I bought. I was delighted and I started to rip my panels apart. I sat through nights and nearly lost my girlfriend in the process but boy-oh-boy, this program could do it all.

Unfortunately I had one or two bad experiences before where I asked people very nicely if I could use their gauges to upload some of my panels for the joy and pleasure of other people and then either got no reply or a very simple 'NO!' and I've stopped uploading panels.

Then I saw the upgrade for CfgEdit and it is called FS Panel Studio. Unfortunately it has now become shareware but it has a lot of functions and I hope (even if you are ever so slightly interested in designing panels) that you will do yourself the favor to go and see what this powerful tool can do.

First the specs. Here is what the designers of the program suggested:

• Windows 98, ME, 2000, XP or NT 4.0. Windows 95 is not recommended.
• At least 64 MB of physical memory, 128 MB or more is highly recommended. Systems with 64 MB may be limited in panel size.
• Display resolution of at least 800x600 pixels, 1024x768 or higher is highly recommended. Not all windows may fit onscreen with certain combinations of font sizes at a resolution of 800x600.
• A video card capable of displaying at least 16 bit color.

Note: Windows ME, Windows 2000 or XP are highly recommended for best drawing speed -- both support a high performance transparent BitBlt function. Windows 95 and 98 do not. For panels with many or large gauges, or when zooming in, the difference in performance between Windows ME and Windows 95 can be 50X!

FS Panel Studio is compatible with FS98 / FS2000 / FS2002 / CFS and CFS2. Make sure you also have a very good picture editor like Paint Shop Pro because FS Panel Studio could go directly to PSP to edit some bitmaps and even gauges.

What the program can do for you:

1. This program could add any gauge that is in you GAUGES FOLDER to a bitmap, it could size and move the gauge with your mouse or with the arrow keys on your keyboard. You could select a group of gauges and sort it horizontally or vertically. Resize it to the same size or even copy or cut it the next panel.

2. You could edit any panel and delete or add gauges as you wish.

3. FS Panel Studio could tell you what the problem is within a panel.cfg file with the Design Check tool and even clean up the gauges that are not used in you GAUGES FOLDER with the Gauge Cleaner.

4. You could edit the new format of XML gauges of FS2002 within FS Panel Studio that makes use of a picture editor like Paint Shop Pro.

5. Say for example you want to create your own panel from scratch - it is as simple as one, two ... three!

5.1 You make a bitmap or edit an existing one. For example, look at the image to the right.

I know that I am biased if it comes to panels and panel editors but this program is an absolute MUST for any panel designers. I thought that $24.99 was expensive but that could be that my perceptions is blurred by the fact that our currency lost 43% of its value against the dollar the last six months.

Terblanche Jordaan
Cape Town
terblanche@icon.co.za

FS Panel Studio was designed by Ed Struszynski. Visit the official web site here:

www.fspanelstudio.com

More Examples Of Panels I've Done With FS Panel Studio