Since the early days of FS5 I have always been trying to re-adjust the panels to some extent. However, the repositioning of instruments is nowhere near as easy as it was in FS2000 and as it is in FS2002. Even those of us who are no expert panel designers can do a lot of changes to suit the panels to our liking. The variety of adjustments ranges from dislocating and repositioning particular instruments, replacing an instrument by inserting another one, placing whole pop-up windows at any desired position of the panel, or even manipulating the panel bitmap itself. Thanks to the open code of how to do that, as published in the MS SDK, and also due to an increasing number of codes for the entries in the panel.cfg file, it should be possible for the average user to perform some very useful alterations without using any additional program at all. So the following tutorial is certainly not meant for those well-experienced simmers who have been fiddling with panel configurations for long, but if you do go on here, please backup the files you are going to change in case you should want to restore them again. I'll give some hints along the way, too, while parked at the ramp at TIST.

Correcting The Cessna C172SP Default Panel (Job #1)

Let's begin with an easy task. For sure some of us will have noticed that with the default Cessna Skyhawk panel the DME indicator is a bit displaced to the right, thus covering the right utmost rim of the square frame which surrounds the DME, IOAT, OMI indicators and the NAV/GPS toggle switch. To reposition the DME indicator (outlined in green) a little bit to the left you must change a particular entry in the panel.cfg file for this aircraft.

So open the file panel.cfg in the folder AIRCRAFT\C172\PANEL by the Windows text editor or similar and replace the entry for "gauge06=Cessna!DME, 544, 49" by "gauge06=Cessna!DME, 540, 49" (without inverted commas, of course; the bold face here is just to make it easier to see what has been changed). In this case, with the first number after the name of the gauge, we have changed the x-value or horizontal left-right position of the DME on the screen: increasing the value shifts the gauge more to the right and vice versa. With the second number, the y-value, we could change the vertical up-down position: increasing the value helps us position the gauge further down on the screen. Be sure to save the file and start FS to see whether you like the new position of the DME gauge on the panel.

Minimizing The Radio Stack Panel (Job #2)

In our second job we get to know a very powerful command line which makes it possible to minimize or maximize a particular window panel, e.g. the radio stack panel displaying the Bendix King radios. The default setting for this window or panel (shift+2) is a bit large, I think, so we would like to do a bit of finetuning and minimize it without changing the aspect ratio of its sides irregularly. Once again we open the panel.cfg file of the Cessna Skyhawk and scroll down until we find the [window01] line:

Deactivate the command line window_size_ratio=1.0 by putting a semicolon before it and insert the command line windowsize_ratio=0.95. Note that for some unknown reason the default line has an old FS98 / FS2000 carryover flaw in its spelling: we must obviously write the word windowsize in one word to make the command take any effect at all (at least in the German version of FS; in the SDK for FS2000 MS is confused about the correct spelling themselves!). The value =1.0 is always default and a command line like that could all the same be left out entirely without causing any harm. Check it out. By the way, in the above screen shot you can see that the GPS panel [window02] has been magnified a tiny bit.

Please be aware that if you have FS running while you change entries in aircraft or panel cfg files, you must first load another plane into FS and then reload the former one again to see the effect of the changes you have just made. This is a tedious job if you want to check out quite a number of different changes in the cfg files, but to my knowledge there is no work around for that. On the other hand it is a good idea to be able to do such changes by hand because once you have bought a panel designer to do the job, you surely know far better what is going on behind the scenes, technically speaking, but we won't enter into that here.

Rearranging The Learjet Default Panel (Job #3)

Next we take a closer look at the Learjet panel: by default both the throttle quadrant and the annunciator are placed upwards outside the main panel itself (position=0), and I thought they should be repositioned as shown in the following screen shot to enable maximum view through the cockpit window. If you must perform trim procedures, just press shift+5 and the annunciator instrument is toggled off again. The same goes for the throttle quadrant window if you want to see the nav radio again (press shift+4).

A comparison between the default Lear panel entries (panel.cfg in the FS2002 folder AIRCRAFT\LEAR45\PANEL) and the changed values clearly reveals how to achieve the desired effect:

So what have we done in particular? Well, by both changing the original value for windowsize_ratio and adding the extra command line window_pos= we have managed to place the two panels [window03] and [window04] at exactly the positions that I found most appropriate. With these command lines MS have given us a fine and useful way of readjusting panels to our own liking, haven't they? I myself am glad we finally have that after the frustrating efforts to achieve such effects at the times of FS5 or FSFW95.

To be precise I must say that with regard to panel configuration it was FS98 that had already made the major break-through, whereas its successors FS2000 and FS2002 offer more possibilities by an increasing number of available command lines.

And that's what it looks like after the changes we have made so far: hitting shift+4 opens and harmoniously integrates the throttle quadrant into the main panel while leaving enough open space for the gear indicator to be seen. By pressing shift+5 the annunciator is displayed on the right top end of the main panel.

The B737-400 Panel Configuration (Job #4)

For this panel (AIRCRAFT\B737_400\PANEL) I thought it necessary to alter the default positions of the throttle quadrant, of the radio stack and of the compass panel. The GPS panel window is all right by default and its position needn't be changed. Note that the screen shots do not contain all the text lines of the original cfg files in order to save space here in the screen shots. These ellipses are clearly marked. DO NOT DELETE ANY SUCH LINES IN THE ORIGINAL CONFIG FILES.

Let's first readjust the throttle and the radio stack panel windows. If you have followed me with acute eyes so far, it should be but a little challenge for you to change the appropriate values in the panel.cfg file. Have a try first on your own, but if you are in a hurry (which shouldn't occur with a real flightsim enthusiast) or if for some unexpected reason it really takes too long, you will find the screen shot with the correct entries a little bit further down. So here is what it should be like after the alteration of the panel configuration:

The following screen shot reveals new positions both for the compass and for the radio stack (panel.cfg.alt; if you choose this, rename it panel.cfg again) as some users may want to have the radio stack integrated as shown in the next shot. To achieve the best possible results and not to cover parts of the autopilot, however, I have excluded the Comm2 instrument here.

It goes without saying that it is not enough only to delete or deactivate the default entry for the Comm2 gauge (gauge01=737-400!Comm 2, 0, 54). The numeric succession of gauge numbers needn't be continuous like in FS2000, but their respective positions have to be adapted and rearranged as it is shown in the screen shot (B737 panel change alternative).

The Cessna Amphibian Caravan Panel Configuration (Job #5)

I guess I can hardly refer to all the minor changes I have made within the panel config files of FS2002 default aircraft, so I'd like to finish off the tutorial by explaining only one further effect we can achieve when changing the default Amphibian Caravan panel configuration.

By default, the throttle quadrant panel [window03] is placed somewhere in mid-right position within the main panel, thereby limiting my view at the VOR2 and ADF. If you like to have it that way, leave it there. If you are like me, you may decide to remove it to a better place on the screen, blending it over the main cockpit panel on the far right (position=8). At the same time the throttle panel should not cover and hide significant instruments of the main cockpit panel [window00]. That is why it is not enough just to deactivate the default window_pos= command and to insert the position=8 command line, but we have to alter the value for windowsize_ratio, too (windowsize_ratio=0.625). This minimizes the throttle panel so that it does not overlap the right side of the ADF indicator. Additionally you might find it necessary to fine-tune only the height of the throttle panel window without altering the x-value of the windowsize_ratio. This can be done by inserting a different y-value 242 for the size_mm= command PLUS adding new values for the gauge00= and gauge01= command lines, all this shown in the screen shots below. Note that the double commas are important and must not be left out! If no value is specified in between them, the default value for width is valid.

There is still another reason for me not to keep the original panel config file as it is: the gauge36=Cessna208!DME is displayed at a size which reduces readability (left part of the screen shot). So I fill in a third value for its size (Cessna208!DME,514,150,94), which fully solves the problem (right half of the screen shot). I have left all the default entries in the panel cfg file of the Cessna Caravan Amphibian, but only deactivated them by semicolons, so that you can easily see which changes I have made for this plane.

Summary

So let us sum up the information we have gained so far in the preceding jobs and which we must keep in mind if we want to adjust the panel configuration manually:

• The first two numbers after the name of a gauge define the x- and y-position within a panel window. After a comma, you can add a third number which will then set the proportional size of the gauge within the panel window: gauge06=Cessna!DME, 540, 49, 95. Default for this is 100 (but this may vary with other gauges), so if you want to minimize the size of the gauge, try and insert a lower number, and vice versa. A fourth number specifies the vertical size in mm without affecting any of the preceding three values (gauge01=Cessna208!ECU, 48, 0, , 242).
• The command windowsize_ratio= makes it pretty easy to alter the size of a window panel as a whole, at the same time maintaining the original correlation of its sides. If nothing is specified, 1.0 is the default.
• The command window_pos= is a great means to exactly place a panel window at a desired position on the screen. It overrides the position= command automatically.
• The visible= command defines whether the gauge is initially displayed when the panel is loaded. Setting the default value from 0 to 1 will have the gauge displayed initially without any need to press shift+2...6 (if available).
• The command size_mm=x-value, y-value makes it possible to change the length of sides of a pop-up window background regardless of the overall windowsize_ratio of the gauge itself.

That's all there is to it. If I can do it, so can you. Now some of you may ask why they should take great pains in changing all the necessary values. Isn't it easier to load a panel in FS and then position the above pop-up windows via drag&drop? Of course you can do that, and you can even save the new positions with the flight situation. But be aware that this is not enough to make them stay permanent for long. Whenever you load another aircraft into this selected flight situation and then want to go back to the B737, for instance, all the positions of the B737 panel windows are default again. The only easy way to fix this is by following the strategies described above and carrying out the jobs #1-5 in order to achieve the desired effects (or to buy a panel designer program instead). We will also have to wait for Microsoft's SDKs (Software Development Kits) for FS2002 which will certainly give further useful insight into the programming code, which is so urgently needed for third-party developers.

Oh, sorry, I almost forgot to mention that indeed there is a more comfortable way to have all the changes at once by downloading the fs2k2cfg.zip package at FlightSim.Com. It contains all the panel.cfg and aircraft.cfg files which I have changed. They are packed in the same hierarchical structure of the FS2002 AIRCRAFT folder. For all panel.cfg files I have also added the original version. The aircraft.cfg files now all contain the so-called damage line, that means I have inserted the entry "visual_damage=1" (again without inverted commas, of course) to show off all the cool damage effects that FS2002 keeps in stock for us and which are partly evaluated in my pictorial review of FS2002 on January 23rd.

By the way...

now if I was going to really nit-pick, I would have to say that there are at least two spelling mistakes in all the aircraft.cfg files: incremenet, availiable instead of increment and available. However, they won't do any harm as they are in the descriptive and non-active parts of the text file, but nevertheless they are corrected in the package as well.

Huh, it has been great fun to write this while I passed my time at Charlotte Amalie King on the Virgin Islands, and if anyone feels that it might have helped him, then it was worth doing so all the more.

Enjoy your flights!

Ulrich Klein
huki.klein@t-online.de