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Showing results for tags 'panels'.
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When I'm in 2d cockpit view press W or CTRL + 1, etc, a box flashes on the screen for half a second and disappears. Panels won't display at all, in any aircraft, whether I select them thru kb shortcuts or clicking thru the menus. Any help greatly appreciated.
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Hi all. I need your help. I'm attempting to add Bob Kellogg's excellent HUD display to my simulator. I've had success adding this gauge, and scaling the width & length. Where I'm failing is the ability to relocate it to the position I desire. I am able to move it up and down. But for the life of me, I cannot get this gauge to move laterally to the left. I am using a Matrox Triplehead2Go for my front (3) windows. The center is my primary, meaning it has FS9's menu etc. I have added many other HUD gauges, readily available here, and have had zero problems scaling them and positioning them as I see fit. But this guy will not budge to the left where I need it to go. It's already set to (0) which normally would instruct the gauge to position at the farthest left position. But it is not. It is somewhere about 40% right of the edge. I've attempted to contact the author without success. I have added (2) images to help in illustrating the issue. Image 1 Image 2
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many people have problems with the saitek panels are not working in ms fs 2020 I had it to. no problem, buy spadnext (full version) and learn to program the panels with spadnext (youtube). my panels are working great again with all planes. try it, its worth the money have fun again and fly like real pilots. gr john -
Hey Gyu's. Can someone please make sense of the installation, of the A320 FD-FMC with SID/STARS? Don't know why this has to be so complicated, their is so much to read and figure out. Most of the instructions simply lead you to more pages of instructions, in the end none of what you red works in the aircraft. Example below. What does this mean? Or where does it go? C:\\Users\\Fdd\\Mes Documents\\Fichiers Flight Simulator X\\ // // Please, edit the first line to create your path to access to flight simulator/P3D savegame folder. // Path must be at the first line of the file. // No leading or trailing space; All "" character must be doubled. FMC_Path.ini This was inside the FD-FMC Folder where the SID'S/STAR'S are...However their isn't a mention as to where it goes in the sim. I've red all the novel's on FD-FMC installation and, each time i activate the panel no SID'S/STAR'S are seen. This is very frustrating
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My Way Of Making 3D Panels For X-PlaneBy Gary MiloglavMy Basic Setup Windows 10 Home Edition 16 GB RAM Intel Core i7-7700HQ at 2.80 GHz 64-bit operating system, x64-based processor AC3D 8.3.30 Plane Maker 11.35r1 (build 113510 64-bit) X-Plane 11.35 (on Steam) GIMP 2.8.22 I am, by no means, an expert increative artwork, and I experienced many hours of frustration tryingto figure out how to do this, but when I discovered how easy it was, Iwondered why the X-Plane folks never bothered with a simpletutorial. With that said, I think the techniques mentioned here can beused to create very complex 3D cockpits (not just the 3D instrumentpanels). Also, the reason I wasn't satisfied with 2D instrumentpanels, as good as they are, is because I wanted to be able to use themouse to change views, and "travel" within the simulation using themouse. By that, I mean to go inside, outside, etc. without having toresort to the arrow keys and pre-built views. Whenever I start to build an aircraft (this first example is theApache Attack Helicopter) I first create a file folder in the X-Plane"Aircraft" folder (...X-Plane11/Aircraft/Helicopters/Apache), and thenext thing is to search the internet for specifications, like atechnical manual and/or a pilot operating handbook. In this case, Iwas fortunate to find the actual U.S. Army Technical Manual/Operator'sManual (TM 1-1520-251-10). It has everything I could ever need, so Idownloaded it and put it into a subfolder "Documentation". Once I have the basic X-Plane model created, and often before it isflyable, I create the 3D cockpit. I don't even bother with the 2Dcockpit until I'm almost done with everything else and I needsomething that 3D can't do yet (like a HUD). At that point, I justcut and paste from my 3D cockpit to the 2D in plane maker. A good shortcut is to start with a panel supplied by X-Plane from the X-Plane11/Resources/bitmaps/cockpit/-PANELS- folder. In this first example, I chose the "Panel_Fighter_IFR.png" file.It most closely matched the actual Apache pilots panel when comparingit with the one in the Technical Manual. You can always modify thepng file to your liking with a good image editor like GIMP. I copied X-Plane's panel into a new folder".../Apache/cockpit_3D/Panels", keeping the name "Panel_Fighter.png".I opened it with GIMP, set the Canvas size to 2048x2048 so the finaldetails would be clear, changed the panel size to 1/2 of the canvas,and created a block of gray color to become the side consoles: /images/howtos/3dpanels/t/3d-panels-06.jpg /images/howtos/3dpanels/t/3d-panels-25.jpgIn Plane Maker, fill in all the instruments you want. In thiscase, I added various instruments to both console areas. Obviously, Iwasn't able (yet) to match what is in the technical manual, and don'tworry about the "keyboard unit", that is a work in progress and notseen or mentioned again. /images/howtos/3dpanels/t/3d-panels-13.jpgNext, I created an object in AC3D using the XP"Fighter_Panel_IFR.png". You can either create a solid object or justa surface. I usually prefer a solid object because I may want tomodify it later, but in this example, I chose to make the panel a"surface". When adding the panel properties latter on, you have tomodify just the surface (otherwise, your panel image will appear onall 6 sides). /images/howtos/3dpanels/t/3d-panels-16.jpgBecause the Apache has dual panels (Pilot and Gunner/co-pilot), Icopied the panel and put it in front of the pilot panel. I also addedtwo consoles (left and right), then copied those for the co-pilot.Then, I adjusted the angle using the "rotate" button to give thecockpit the tilt needed to fit the helicopter, and separately, theconsoles a tilt that would make them more visible to thepilot/co-pilot. (First experiment with small angles until you get thecorrect axis - X, Y or Z). Next, "select all" (Edit, "Select all" or Ctrl-A) and apply thetexture to the object surfaces. ("Object" button, then "Texture" fromthe pull-down menu, then "Load Texture" and browse for theFighter_panel_IFR.png" file). Every cockpit object must be part ofthe same png file, although individual object surfaces can be adjustedto fit specific areas within the png file. Now, using the "surface" cube (3rd cube from the left, top left ofthe AC3D home screen) and select only the panel(s). Next, hit F10 to bring up the "Texture Coordinate Editor" and youwill see (greatly expanded) the panel png. Use a mouse wheel toadjust the size or use the mouse to select either of the "arrow" keysin the upper right of the editor screen. /images/howtos/3dpanels/t/3d-panels-11.jpgUse the sizing box to outline just the panel area using the square"handles". Note: include the transparency section, if any, you mayhave created in the panel png in GIMP as desired. In my case, thetransparency is the upper half of the panel. Then select the console surfaces from the main screen and apply 1/2of the left side "gray block" to the left console, and the right 1/2side of the block to the right console. Do the same, if you haven't already, to the other panel andconsoles. Sometimes, the result may be skewed, so experiment with the"Remap" controls and readjust using the sizing box. When all of the surfaces have been applied, click on "X-Plane" fromthe top AC3D menu bar to bring up the "X-Plane properties" screen.From the "Surface" pull-down menu, select "object". From the"Manipulators: Kind:" pull-down, select "panel". Optionally, you canselect "deck" and/or "wall" to make the panel "solid" to preventpassing through when using the mouse in the simulator. /images/howtos/3dpanels/t/3d-panels-17.jpgBack to the main AC3D screen, select all (just to be sure) and"File, save as" (whatever your panel object will be called). Makesure you save it wherever the panel png file is saved(Cockpit_3D/-panels- folder). Then "File, Export, X-Plane 8 ObjectFile (.obj)..." in the same folder (Cockpit_3D/-panels-). OK, back to plane maker, select "Standard, Misc Objects", click"add" (bottom of the screen), the click on the square box on the rightnext to the blank box. If this is the first, or new object, hit the"Re-Scan" button at the bottom, then click on "cockpit 3D", and"panels" and you should see the name of the object you just created.It may not be visible in plane maker until you click on the "ExtCockpit" radio button. Make sure the "lighting" is "inside" the"hi-res" is checked, "shadow mode is "none", "No Prefill" selected,and "Int Cockpit" is selected. /images/howtos/3dpanels/t/3d-panels-15.jpg /images/howtos/3dpanels/t/3d-panels-04.jpgSave in Plane Maker and open or switch to the simulator. If thesimulator is already running, click on "Developer, Reload the CurrentAircraft and Art" to reload your cockpit object. Note: Once you have added the cockpit panel object to plane maker,any further adjustments can be viewed in the simulator after doing theAC3D Export and the simulator "Reload", skipping the reload in planemaker. (Saves time) Eventually, you should also synchronize the plane maker versionwith the simulator by clicking on the object box and saving. "Adjust To Fit"You will probably have to jump back and forth numerous timesbetween the plane maker, simulator and AC3D to finalize the size andposition. This is the hardest part...trying to get everything "justright", but when you're finished, and satisfied, you get anice-looking panel. /images/howtos/3dpanels/t/3d-panels-12.jpgAnother example: This example is how I created a 3D panel for my flying saucer (moreon that later). The panel is two semi-circles arranged above and belowthe pilot's forward view. As in this picture: The first thing I did was to create a 4096x4096 pixel png in GIMP.The reason for choosing a 4096x4096 image is because I've learned thatreally enhances the resolution. /images/howtos/3dpanels/t/3d-panels-01.jpgI then subdivided the picture into 12 sections that I wanted torepresent as the panels. I created 12 sections by simply drawing finedividing lines. At first, I was going to have the instrument panelscompletely surround the pilot, but later decided on two semi-circularpanels. /images/howtos/3dpanels/t/3d-panels-03.jpgI saved this image into the Cockpit_3D panel folder, in thesub-folder "-panels-" as "panel_general.png". From there, I startedfilling out the "squares" with the instruments I wanted. I wanted themall, but eventually decided on just the "relevant" ones that didn'tduplicate functionality (much). To make things easier, I used the "Group" function to organizewhich "panel" had which instruments. /images/howtos/3dpanels/t/3d-panels-22.jpgOnce I was satisfied with that, I went into AC3D to create thepanel object. I originally used the "Sphere" mode, and then reducedthe sphere into a circular section with a slightly tilted aspect togive the layout a raised desk look. That didn't look well, so I switched to 12 individual squarerectangles, and after experimenting with those, changed to 10rectangles arranged in "top" and "bottom" semi-circular panels. Then,I loaded the object texture from the panel_general.png from theCockpit_3D panel folder, sub-folder "-panels-". Switch to "Surface", select each desired rectangle, then, using the"Tools/Texture Coordinate Editor" (F10), apply each square of thepanel png to each rectangle on the object. Do this for each rectangle(that's why I grouped the instruments into "panels" in plane-maker). /images/howtos/3dpanels/t/3d-panels-20.jpg /images/howtos/3dpanels/t/3d-panels-02.jpg Most Important:Select "X-Plane/X-Plane Object Properties" to open the propertiesscreen. Under "surface", select "object". Under "manipulators, kind",select "Panel". /images/howtos/3dpanels/t/3d-panels-09.jpgBefore you wrap this up, it is a good idea to select everything anduse the "Move to" click in the "Utils" to center everything. Whenfinished, save the object (file/save as..) into the "objects" folderas whatever name you like to describe it. I chose "circular panel". Remember to export it from AC3D as well(file/export/X-Plane 8 Object File (.obj)...) at the very bottom ofthe drop-down menu. Don't close the AC3D application just yet. Going back to Plane-Maker, go to "Standard/Misc Objects" to add thepanel. You should get used to doing a "re-scan" before selectingobjects. If you are like me, you will be adding a lot of them. Below,the first object is my "circular panel" and after it is added, itshould appear as dark objects seen here. If not, you may have to goback into AC3D to "flip normals" on each rectangle. Position the panelobjects as desired. Use the "inside" lighting, "hi-res", "int cockpit"and "outside cockpit" selections as in the picture below. Most likely is that it will not be the size you want, and you maynot even see it (too small or too large) until you zoom in or out inthe default view. If that is the case, go back into AC3D and make sureyou are in the group object mode and everything is selected. Then usethe "Scale" click to adjust the size of the object. (Don't use the"Size to") If the object is extremely large (usually the case) changethe "scale" setting to 50, 50 50 for a 50% reduction. Once I get theobject down to something reasonable, I do finer adjustments usingeither 110, 110, 110 for 10% increases in size, or 90,90,90 todecrease. You can use any adjustment you prefer, but just make surethey are all the same or your object will be distorted. You will be jumping back and forth between AC3D and Plane-Makereach time you make an adjustment. Be sure to save and export from AC3Deach time and click on the Plane-Maker object box next to the objectname to reload it each time. /images/howtos/3dpanels/t/3d-panels-24.jpgAfter a great deal of adjustments tweaking of instrument positionsand sizes, AC3D, GIMP, and Plane-maker fiddling, you will eventuallyget where you want to be. My top set of screens: /images/howtos/3dpanels/t/3d-panels-19.jpgBottom set: /images/howtos/3dpanels/t/3d-panels-05.jpgScreen resolution is good. Some Final CommentsX-plane will fly just about anything that's built (somewhat)aerodynamically sound. For example, in this case I built a flyingsaucer, but the underlying aircraft is this: /images/howtos/3dpanels/t/3d-panels-23.jpgAdding objects does not affect the weight, balance, or flyingcharacteristics, unless you manage to accomplish that, which I havenot. Using AC3D, GIMP and plane-maker objects function, I came up withthis (and it flies well): /images/howtos/3dpanels/t/3d-panels-26.jpg(I especially like the spider legs, which fold up when the landinggear is retracted and v.v.) Since I made this as a "Space Force" joke for some fellow Marines,I added an interior: /images/howtos/3dpanels/t/3d-panels-14.jpg /images/howtos/3dpanels/t/3d-panels-08.jpg /images/howtos/3dpanels/t/3d-panels-18.jpg /images/howtos/3dpanels/t/3d-panels-21.jpg /images/howtos/3dpanels/t/3d-panels-10.jpg /images/howtos/3dpanels/t/3d-panels-07.jpg /images/howtos/3dpanels/t/3d-panels-27.jpgFinal points: Save oftenIn AC3D, make sure you are in "Object" mode when you resize, and "Surface" mode when you are placing surface textures from your png fileHave patienceEnjoy!
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With FsXpand you can build your own panels for your sim. FsXPand runs on your simulator pc with FSUIPC. It connects to FsClient running on one or more PC's (or even the FS PC). New in this release: - Online feature: You can now track your flight by switching the feature on in FsXpand and then go to https://flyware.nl/track - Added Mooney Bravo cockpit - Added Kingair 200 en 350 engine gauges - Added prop sync gauge Improvements: - QNH (Altimeter) can now be set separately for Captain and F/O - The ADF indicator will change now needles VOR1/VOR2 and ADF1/ADF2. A separate key command can be set for this purpose. - Night lighting is now available. You can set you intensity and tone of colour. Follows your light switch. - For those who run more than 1 client on a machine: You can set the name of the client so you can easily identify it. - Performance upgraded You can try out FsXpand for free. Why would you choose FsXpand? - Flexibility: With most panel suites, you buy per aircraft type. With FsXpand, you have several cockpits at once (more to come), no need to switch to other software if you change your a/c type. - Versatility: You can make your own selection of gauges/panels, drag, resize over 100 different networked gauges. Works with the most popular sims. - Adaptability: Even modify your gauges using the Gauge Editor (expert option). - Portability: A system change does not require you to renew the license. Neither is there a limit to the amount of clients/panels you want to run. The license is valid for 1 Local Area network (255.255.255.0). 1 FsXPand (server component), clients unlimited. https://flyware.nl
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I have just purchased the Steam edition of FSX and find the instrument panel and gauges awful with no clarity at all. My FS9 panels were all crystal clear. Is there some settings I should change or is this a recognised shortcoming of FSX.
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How To...Install New Panels In FS2004 By Andrew Herd If you have been around FlightSim.Com for any length of time, you will have heard people going on endlessly about installing new panels, and you may have wondered what on earth they were talking about. This article will make you a member of that group, because it will show you how to find a new panel for the default 747 and how to install it. First of all, just to clear up some terminology. It used to beat me what people were talking about when they were raving on about how good some "panel" or other was. But by sticking around and asking stupid questions, I eventually figured out that what they were talking about were instrument panels and the mists cleared. As a matter of fact, the term is used to mean not only the instrument panel, but also 2D views within and outside the cockpit. Panel packages vary - many freeware ones have just one forward view, the main instrument panel itself, others come with subsidiary panels, overheads, pedestals, you name it. What you do not get as part of a panel package is any virtual cockpit views, because the virtual cockpit is part of the aircraft model itself. But why install 2D panels at all if virtual cockpits are around? After all, you can pan and even work the instruments in FS2004 VCs? Well, sure, that's right, but 2D panels are fast, very flexible, and best of all, there are a lot of them around. We are going to go a step further than we did last time, because we are going to look at the configuration files that are part of the guts of FS2004. FS uses config files to set up everything from the way the scenery looks to the way aircraft fly. If you know how to edit these files safely, then the program is defenseless before you. So back things up before you change them! This tutorial relies on you having WinZip installed - check out the first article in the series to see where to get it. Yes, I know that Windows XP has its own zip reader, but WinZip is better if you handle a lot of archives. For now, I want you to start up Windows Explorer and take a look at the folder structure of the default 747. Assuming you used the default setup for FS2004, the aircraft is installed in C:\Program files\Microsoft games\Flight Simulator 9\aircraft\b747_400. What a mouthful. You can go straight to it by left clicking on the plus sign next to - then the plus sign next to Program files - then the plus sign next to Microsoft games and so on until you finally click the plus sign next to "b747_400" and expand that folder. If you look, you will see several sub-folders including model, panel, sound and textures. The sub folder called model contains information about the way the aircraft appears in FS2004; while texture folders contain the graphics which 'skin' the plane and give it different liveries. The panel and sound sub folders are pretty self explanatory. Let's take a look in the panel sub folder by clicking on the word panel in the left hand pane of Windows explorer. You will see a number of files, one of which will be called panel, or panel.cfg, depending on which options you have turned on in Explorer. What I would like you to do is to double-click on that file. You will get a dialog called 'Open with,' and the purpose of this dialog is to let you associate an application with a particular file type. In this case, we are going to associate Notepad with files which have names ending in .cfg. You will see why in a minute. Use the slider to scroll down the list in the bottom box until you see Notepad, then left click on the Notepad icon and click the OK button at the bottom of the 'Open with' dialog. Some people will find that this dialog won't appear, by the way. This sometimes happens because of a Windoze bug, and the only way around it, short of finding out which app is associated with Notepad files and fixing it, is to open Notepad manually and do things the long way around. You can do this by clicking on the Start button, then clicking on "Run" and typing notepad in the dialog that appears. That gets Notepad up and running - but you will have to step through the folder structure using notepad to get to C:\Program files\Microsoft games\Flight Simulator 9\aircraft\b747_400 and you will also have to select "files of all types" on the "files of type" drop down that appear when you hit file\open on the Notepad menu. Whichever method you end up using, the panel file should open in Notepad and it should have reams of text in it, which sets up the panel for the default 747. Shut down Notepad and swap to Windows Explorer, because what we are going to do is to rename that file to 'panel.cfg.old'. This lets us back the file up while leaving it in the panel folder - we are only installing the 747-200 panel as an example and you may want to change back to the default panel later. Basically, what the panel.cfg file does is to point at one of the default instrument panels folders stored in FS2004. When you select the Boeing 747 aircraft in FS2004, it does a quick read of the panel.cfg file and loads whichever panel it is told to. In the default 747 setup, the panel.cfg says 'use the bitmaps in this folder and get the following gauges from the \gauges folder and stick 'em in the places I tell you' but you could set it up to load the Cessna 172 panel if you wanted - this is called making an "alias". The point of all this fiddling about is to point up the fact that the modular nature of Flight Simulator makes it possible for an aircraft to load with just about any panel you want - so if it pleases you to fly a 747 with the default Cessna 182 panel, you can, just by altering the panel.cfg to look like this: [fltsim] alias=c182\panel Which redirects FS2004 to the Cessna 182 panel folder, where it reads another panel.cfg file and does whatever that tell it to put on screen. This sounds totally wacky, but there is method in Microsoft's madness - for once. While it is rare for aircraft files to get seriously big, panels can trespass well over the 10 Mb mark these days (don't laugh if you are reading this in 2010 and panels are a minimum of 1.4 Gb, remember I was writing this a long time ago). So if you are into 747s and you find one panel you really like or want to get familiar with, you can load up the panel once, install six different aircraft, point the alias in every aircraft's panel.cfg file at your favourite panel, and when you are flying no one will know you are cheating (-: Makes sense now, huh? Incidentally, you can do the same thing with sound, but that will be the subject of the next article in this series. What we are going to do right now is to find a new panel for our 747 and make FS2004 load it instead of the default one when we run the plane. So rename the panel.cfg file you find in the \b747_400\panel folder to panel.cfg.old. That way, if you want to change back, all you have to do is delete the alias file we are going to make and rename panel.cfg.old back to panel.cfg and everything will be back the way it was. If you aren't connected to the Internet already, fire up your connection and point your web browser at FlightSim.Com. I want you to log on, and then go to the 'search file libraries' page from the Main Menu, just like we did last time. Pull down the slider in the 'search only file section' drop down until you can select 'FS2002 panels' by left clicking it, then type '747' (without the quotes) in the 'search for text' box. Now left click the 'start search button.' Why are we searching FS2002 panels and not FS2004 ones? Well, at the time I wrote this, there weren't any panels built specifically for FS2004, so I didn't have much choice in the matter, but if an FS2004 panel section exists when you come to do this, be my guest and use it. However, for the purposes of this tutorial, we are going to use an FS2002 panel, which seems to install pretty much OK. You will get a list of panels to choose from, each with its own description and picture. Browse through the list using the right hand scroll bar and if necessary use the 'next 10 files' link down at the bottom of the web page. We are after a particular file, so I want you to go back to the search page (use the back arrow, or the 'exit list files' link on the web page. Once you are at the search page again, make sure that the 'search for text' box is empty by deleting '747' and type 'b7474az2.zip' in the file name box. Check that 'FS2002 panels' is still selected and then click the 'start search' button. You should get a one file search result, showing a 5.3 Mb panel for a 747-200. I want you to download this to the download folder you created in the last session, by clicking the download link above the file description, then clicking 'I accept, start download' on the download copyright page, and selecting your download folder as the destination. Once the download is complete, close your web browser and shut down your Internet link. If you take a look in your download folder now, you should see the file in there. If you can't see b7474az2.zip there, you downloaded it to the wrong directory and will you need to use the finder to locate it. Next I want you to go to your 'Junk' folder and delete everything in it (that's why we call it 'junk'). Then go back to b7474az2.zip and double click on the icon. WinZip should show the contents of the file. There should be many files, in there as shown in the illustration. I have chosen this particular panel because it illustrates more or less everything you might have to do when installing a 2D panel - with the majority of packages there is usually less to do, so take comfort in the fact that this is as bad as it is likely to get. A couple of things while I think of them. First, make sure you check the included list of files out carefully. Many panels include a utility called FSUIPC.dll, which works fine in FS2002, but doesn't work at all in FS2004 (it may actually crash the program) unless you have an updated, payware version. I haven't got any firm details about the payware FSUIPC yet, but I will add them in here as soon as I know. But for now, the message is - don't install panels which use FSUIPC.dll, unless you already have the payware version installed somewhere and even then, be careful you don't let the panel installation overwrite a more recent version of FSUIPC, so check out the file dates when you get the 'File overwrite?' dialog. Second, you may find other dll files such as FSSound in the zip. It is more than possible that if these are installed, they will generate error messages early on in FS2004's load routine, but in the case of FSSound, you can answer yes to the 'Do you want to load this dll?' prompt. If you get tired of seeing the prompt, check out the FS2004 FAQ for instructions on how to get rid of the dialog. Make sure you have 'use folder names' checked in WinZip or the files will decompress in an unholy mess which even I will not be able to sort out. Hit the 'extract' button and unzip everything into your Junk folder. If you are not certain how to do this, go back and work through the first tutorial. Now go check out Junk. All the files should be there. Depending on how you have set up Windows Explorer they may appear in a different order to the illustration. The first thing to do in these circumstances is to RTFM (this being a family web site I can only reveal what this means by private email, as long as you can guarantee to me that you are over the age of 35. In general, this means being familiar with the early works of groups like Fleetwood Mac) by double clicking the file labelled ReadmeFirst742.txt. This panel was written by I. D'Attomo and not only is it a terrific piece of freeware, the readme actually tells you what you need to do to install it, but just for the purposes of this tutorial, we are going to ignore it and I am going to walk you through. Close the readme file for now and stop talking in the back there, you are ruining my concentration. Some panel files unzip to show folders, others contain folders and zips (that's right, you can put a zip inside a zip), but in either case, the principles are the same. Now and again, you discover zips within zips within zips within zips, which always makes me wonder if the developer enjoyed pass the parcel as a kid. First step, I want you to open the zip called "Gauges747.zip". Double click on it to open (apologies again to everyone with single click set-ups, it's my age, you know). You should see something like the illustration. Use the scroll bar on the right just to show how many files are in there, if you are curious. What you are looking at are the files which create the gauges you see on the panel - if they aren't copied into the right folder in your FS2004 setup, your panel will have holes in it where the gauges should have been. If you come across a panel where the gauges are in a folder rather than a zip, don't panic, just open the folder called "gauges" and follow the instructions below. If the gauges are just dumped in the junk folder with everything else, select all the files ending in .gau or .cab and then carry on as below. Now we need to find the folder where FS2004's gauges live. Assuming you have a standard setup, this means left clicking the little plus sign next to C:, then using the scrollbar to find program files and clicking the plus sign next to that, then scrolling down again to find Microsoft Games and clicking the plus sign next to that, then clicking the plus sign next to Flight Simulator 9, and then left clicking on the folder you see called 'gauges'. Resist the urge to click the plus sign next to gauges, or it will become a habit. Incidentally, I realise that I am being inconsistently referring to FS2004 all the time, when the folder is called Flight Simulator 9, but you try calling it FS9 out in the forums and see how many people understand what you are talking about. Take a second to look at the left hand pane, which shows the FS2004 folder tree expanded, the gauges folder circled about halfway down. This is where FS2004 expects to find its gauges, when it loads a panel. With WinZip showing the contents of the gauges zip, you can either choose "actions" then "select all" from the WinZip menu, then left click on one of the files in the right hand pane, hold the button down, and drag the files across to the left pane until the highlight is over the \Flight Simulator 9\gauges folder - and release the button... or you can use the 'Extract to' dialog that pops up when you hit the 'Extract' icon to navigate through the folder structure and find \Flight Simulator 9\gauges. The advantage of using this second method, as shown in the screen shot, is that WinZip keeps a recent extract folder list, which makes it easy to select frequently used folders. If the gauges are in a folder, then the procedure is to use 'edit' on the Explorer menu, then 'select all', left click on one of the files in the right hand pane, hold the button down, and drag the files across to the left pane until the highlight is over the \Flight Simulator 9\gauges folder - and release the button. In all probability, WinZip will quietly extract all the files and then go about its business, but you may see a message asking about a file overwrite, if you have installed any other panels besides the Microsoft default set. If you get asked this, you will have to weigh it up yourself. In general, I look at the dates and press no if the file I am overwriting is newer than the one in the downloaded panel. But as I say, hopefully this won't happen to you. When WinZip is done all the extract dialogs will disappear and the green light will come on again at the bottom right of the WinZip window. You can close WinZip and breath again. You may be wondering why we have installed the gauges first. Well, in my experience the most common problem people face when installing new panels is forgetting to put the gauges in the \Flight Simulator 9\Gauges directory, with the result that when the panel loads for the first time they are faced with a bitmap with a series of black holes where the instruments should be. If you install the gauges first you won't forget them. Now the next step is to install the rest of the panel files. This is a little more complicated than installing the gauges as we are going to have to make a new folder to put them in, deep within the folder structure of FS2004 - but if you have already worked your way through the first article in this series, you should have done this once already. Just make sure you read this carefully, and keep double-checking. Find your Flight Simulator 9 directory using Explorer (it should still be open from when you last used it). I want you to click on the plus sign next to the 'aircraft' subfolder in Flight Simulator 9 - OK, I've had it with saying 'click the plus sign,' from now on I'm going to say 'open' or 'expand,' right? Within the aircraft folder you should find a folder called fsfsconv. Every version of Flight Simulator except FS2002 has an fsfsconv folder and it is where most of the panels lurk What we need to do next is to create a folder inside of the Fsfsconv folder called 'panel.747.200' excluding the quotes of course (and from now on, I'm not going to remind you about that anymore, either!) So let's go. With fsfsconv selected, click on 'file' in Windows Explorer, then highlight 'new' and finally, slide the pointer over to 'folder' and click on that just like you did to create the Convair aircraft folder in the previous article. A new folder will duly appear and I want you to rename it 'panel.747.200' as shown in the illustration. The next thing we need to do is to go back to the Junk folder, and select the panel zip. I want you to select all the contents of this folder and copy it into C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\Flight Simulator 9\aircraft\fsfsconv\panel.747.200. I can hear some sharp intakes of breath out there, so I'd better do some explaining. Flight Simulator 9 is simply the full 'path' name of the folder you just created, the one called panel.747.200. If you imagine that every single one of those backslashes represents a plus sign you have to click on in Windows Explorer, you can see that this is just a shorthand way of referring you to a particular folder, without saying 'click the little plus sign' six times. So using whichever method you favor for Winzip extracts, extract all the files in panel.zip to the \fsfsconv\panel.747.200 folder. Incidentally, the screen shot here shows exactly what a panel looks like if you forget to copy the gauges across. Once seen, never forgotten! If you are installing a different panel and the gauges are in a folder, use 'edit' and then 'select all' and then left click and hold and drag 'em across just the way you did before. We'll go through it one more time in detail, expand by left clicking the little plus sign next to C:, then using the scrollbar to find program files expand that, then scrolling down again to find Microsoft Games and expand that, then expand Flight Simulator 9, then expand 'aircraft', then expand 'fsfsconv' and finally, left click on the folder called 'panel.747.200' so that it is highlighted and then do the select all the files thing and drag 'em out of hiding in the junk folder and into panel.747.200. You will almost certainly find that you need to use the horizontal slider to see what you are doing at some stage, because FS2004 has a deeply nested folder structure. There are still a couple more things we have to do, one of which is to extract the sound zip. The destination folder is \Flight Simulator 9\Sound and not the aircraft sound folder. This is a potential source of confusion and one very good reason why it always pays to check out readmes before doing anything with downloaded files. The reason for not putting these particular files in the sound folder is that in general, the sound files that come with panels relate to sounds made by the panel and heard in the cockpit, rather than sounds made by the plane. So in the absence of instructions to the contrary, you can assume that any sound files included in a panel distribution should be placed in the main Flight Simulator sound folder and not the aircraft folder. One final bit of file moving you have to do is to extract FSSound.dll from the zip and put it in the \Flight Simulator 9\Modules folder like this. FSSound allows the panel to do some clever stuff and is a neat little freeware utility. At the time of writing there isn't a native FS2004 version, so it may generate a dialog when Flight Simulator boots, as I mentioned above. We are very nearly there, except that our Boeing 747 is still blissfully unaware that we are going to all this trouble on its behalf. We need to edit its panel.cfg file to let it know about the new panel it is going to use. So open Notepad on a clean page and type: [fltsim] alias=\fsfsconv\panel.747.200 Make sure that it looks exactly the way it does in the screen shot and also that you definitely renamed the original 747_400 panel.cfg file to panel.cfg.old. Then save the notepad page as a file called 'panel.cfg' in the default Boeing 747 panel folder. It is essential that you get this in the right folder, or nothing will happen - if you get a file overwrite message you have either selected the wrong folder or you failed to rename the original panel.cfg file. If you have check everything is OK and have the text done, click file on the Notepad menu, then save, then navigate all the way through the folders until you reach \Microsoft Games\Flight Simulator 9\aircraft\b747_200\panel and then click the down chevron next to 'file save as type' and select 'all files'. Then enter 'panel.cfg' (no quotes) in the file name box and hit save. Now double check. In the \Microsoft Games\Flight Simulator 9\aircraft\b747_200\panel folder, you should have several files including one you renamed earlier to panel.cfg.old and the one you have just created, called panel.cfg. The reason I keep emphasising this is that panel aliasing like this is incredibly powerful and recreating the original 747 panel.cfg is not an easy task, hence our renaming of it. But should you lose it, there is a replacement one here. See how we look after you. We should have the show on the road now, so start up FS2004, select the Boeing 747 and… was it worth it, or what? Well if you don't like the result, there are plenty of other panels out there. Be my guest and try 'em all! If you get tired of the 200 series panel, all you have to do is go back to the \Microsoft Games\Flight Simulator 9\aircraft\b747_200\panel folder, rename the panel.cfg file to panel.cfg.bak, rename the panel.cfg.old file to panel.cfg and you will get the default panel back - just make sure that you don't have the 747 loaded when you do this, as FS2004 may crash. Andrew Herd andrew@flightsim.com -
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How To Adjust FS2002 Panels By Ulrich Klein 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. /howto/fs2002pa/caravanl.jpg Current Update: Since the latest release of the MS Panel SDK there is a new, mighty command line to define any x- and y-value for the size of a panel window: e.g. "window_size=0.5, 0.3" (without quotes, of course). This new command overrides the position= and windowsize_ratio= commands automatically. Check it out! 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 -
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How To Build Your Own Aircraft - A Step By Step Guide For Beginners Part 2: Finding And Installing FS2002 Panels By Andrew Herd If you worked through part one of this series, you should have a Delta Boeing 757 installed in Flight Simulator 2002 in addition to the default aircraft. The 757 is a great aircraft, but like many freeware planes for FS2002, it uses a default instrument panel which looks nothing like the panel from a real 757. If you have been around FlightSim.Com for any length of time, you will have heard people going on endlessly about installing new panels, and you may have wondered what they were going on about. This article will make you a member of that group, because it will show you how to find a new panel for your new 757 and how to install it. The instructions here will not work unless you have already installed the aircraft in the first article. First of all, just to clear up some terminology. It used to beat me what people were talking about when they were raving on about how good some "panel" or other was. But by sticking around and asking, I eventually figured out that what they were talking about were instrument panels and the mists cleared. As a matter of fact, the term is used to mean not only the instrument panel, but also 2D and even 3D views within and outside the cockpit. Panel packages vary - many freeware ones have just one forward view, the main instrument panel itself, others come with subsidiary panels, overheads, pedestals, you name it. We are going to go a step further than we did last time, because we are going to look at the configuration files that are part of the guts of FS2002. FS uses config files to set up everything from the way the scenery looks to the way aircraft fly. If you know how to edit these files safely, then the program is defenseless before you. So back things up before you change them! For now, I want you to start up Windows Explorer and take a look at the folder structure of the Delta 757. If you remember (assuming you used the default setup for FS2002) the aircraft is installed in C:\Program files\Microsoft games\FS2000\aircraft\Delta 757-200 `97 colors. What a mouthful. You can go straight to it by left clicking on the plus sign next to - then the plus sign next to Program files - then the plus sign next to Microsoft games and so on until you finally click the plus sign next to "Delta 757-200 `97 colors" and expand that folder. If you look, you will see several sub-folders including model, panel, sound and texture. The sub folder called model contains information about the way the aircraft appears in FS2002; while texture contains the graphics which 'skin' the plane. The panel and sound sub folders are pretty self explanatory. Let's take a look in the panel sub folder by clicking on the word panel in the left hand pane of Windows explorer. You will see just one file, called panel, or panel.cfg, depending on which options you have turned on in Explorer. What I would like you to do is to double-click on that file. You will get a dialog called 'Open with,' and the purpose of this dialog is to let you associate an application with a particular file type. In this case, we are going to associate Notepad with files which have names ending in .cfg. You will see why in a minute. Use the slider to scroll down the list in the bottom box until you see Notepad, then left click on the Notepad icon and click the OK button at the bottom of the 'Open with' dialog. Some people will find that this dialog won't appear, by the way. This sometimes happens because of a Windoze bug, and the only way around it, short of finding out which app is associated with Notepad files and fixing it, is to open Notepad manually and do things the long way around. You can do this by clicking on the Start button, then clicking on "Run" and typing notepad in the dialog that appears. That gets Notepad up and running - but you will have to step through the folder structure using notepad to get to C:\Program files\Microsoft games\FS2000\aircraft\Delta 757-200 `97 and you will also have to select "files of all types" on the "files of type" drop down that appear when you hit file\open on the Notepad menu. The panel file should open in Notepad and it should have just two lines in it, saying: [fltsim] alias=b777_300\panel Basically, all the panel.cfg file is doing is to point at one of the default instrument panels stored in FS2002. When you select the Delta 757 aircraft in FS2002, it does a quick read of the panel.cfg file and loads whichever panel it is told to. You could set it up to load the Cessna 172 panel if you wanted - this is called making an "alias". It takes all sorts to make up a world. The point of all this fiddling about is to point up the fact that the modular nature of Flight Simulator makes it possible for an aircraft to load with just about any panel you want - so if it pleases you to fly a 747 with the default Cessna 182 panel, you can, just by altering the panel.cfg to look like this: [fltsim] alias=c182\panel This sounds totally wacky, but there is method in Microsoft's madness, for once. While it is rare for aircraft files to get seriously big, panels can trespass over the 5 Mb mark these days (don't laugh if you are reading this in 2005 and panels are a minimum of 1.4 Gb, remember I was writing this a long time ago). So if you are into 747s and you find one panel you really like or want to get familiar with, you can load up the panel once, install six different aircraft, point the alias in every aircraft's panel.cfg file at your favourite panel, and when you are flying no one will know you are cheating (-: Makes sense now, huh? Incidentally, you can do the same thing with sound, but that will be the subject of the next article in this series. What we are going to do right now is to find a new panel for our 757 and make FS2002 load it instead of the default one when we run the plane. If you aren't connected to the Internet already, fire up your connection and point your web browser at FlightSim.Com. I want you to log on, and then go to the 'search file libraries' page from the Main Menu, just like we did last time. Pull down the slider in the 'search only file section' drop down until you can select 'FS2002 panels' by left clicking it, then type '757' (without the quotes) in the 'search for text' box. Now left click the 'start search button.' You will get a list of panels to choose from, each with its own description and picture. Browse through the list using the right hand scroll bar and the 'next 10 files' link down at the bottom of the web page. We are after a particular file, so I want you to go back to the search page (use the back arrow, or the 'exit list files' link on the web page. Once you are at the search page again, make sure that the 'search for text' box is empty by deleting '757' and type 'mz757pnl.zip' in the file name box. Check that 'FS2002 panels' is still selected and then click the 'start search' button. You should get a one file search result, showing an 2.9 Mb panel for a 757-200. I want you to download this to the download folder you created in the last session, by clicking the download link above the file description, then clicking 'I accept, start download' on the download copyright page, and selecting your download folder as the destination. Once the download is complete, close your web browser and shut down your Internet link. If you take a look in your download folder now, you should have two files there. The first is your 757 (n604dl97.zip), the other is the file you just downloaded, mz757pnl.zip. If you can't see mz757pnl.zip there, you downloaded it to the wrong directory and you need to use the finder to locate it. If you are wondering why my directory shows only mz757pnl.zip, it is because I have temporarily misplaced the aircraft file. Next I want you to go to your 'Junk' folder and delete everything in it (that's why we call it 'junk'). Then go back to mz757pnl.zip and double click on the icon. WinZip should show the contents of the file. There should be many files, in there as shown in the illustration. Scaaareeey, huh? Make sure you have 'use folder names' checked in WinZip or the files will decompress in an unholy mess which even I will not be able to sort out. Hit the 'extract' button and unzip everything into your junk folder. Now go check out Junk. All the files should be there. Depending on how you have set up Windows Explorer they may appear in a different order to the illustration. The first thing to do in these circumstances is to RTFM (this being a family web site I can only reveal what this means by private email, as long as you can guarantee to me that you are over the age of 35. In general, this means being familiar with the early works of groups like Fleetwood Mac) by double clicking the file labelled readme. This panel was written by Mario Coelho and while it is a terrific piece of freeware, the readme is concise. Close the readme file for now and stop talking in the back there, you are ruining my concentration. Some panel files unzip to show folders like this one, others contain folders and zips (that's right, you can put a zip inside a zip), but in either case, the principles are the same. Now and again, you discover zips withing zips within zips, which always makes me wonder if the developer enjoyed pass the parcel as a kid. First step, I want you to open the folder called "757-200_gauge". Double click on it to open (apologies again to everyone with single click set-ups, it's my age, you know). You should see something like the illustration. Use the scroll bar on the right just to show how many files are in there, if you are curious. What you are looking at are the files which create the gauges you see on the panel - if they aren't copied into the right folder in your FS2002 setup, your panel will have holes in it where the gauges should have been. If you come across a panel where the gauges are in a zip, don't panic, just open the zip called "gauges" and follow the instructions below. Now we need to find the folder where FS2002's gauges live. Assuming you have a standard setup, this means left clicking the little plus sign next to C:, then using the scrollbar to find program files and clicking the plus sign next to that, then scrolling down again to find Microsoft Games and clicking the plus sign next to that, then clicking the plus sign next to FS2002, and then left clicking on the folder you see called 'gauges,' - see the illustration. Resist the urge to click the plus sign next to gauges, or it will become a habit. Take a second to look at the left hand pane, which shows the FS2002 folder tree expanded, the gauges folder being about halfway down. This is where FS2002 expects to find its gauges, when it loads a panel. Choose "edit" then "select all" from the window menu, then left click on one of the files in the right hand pane, hold the button down, and drag the files across to the left pane until the highlight is over the \FS2002\gauges folder - then release the button. If the gauges are in a zip, then the procedure is to open the zip by double clicking on it, go to the WinZip icon bar and click 'extract', use the dialog which appears to find and select the \FS2002\gauges folder and click the 'extract' button in the dialog. There will be a burst of activity. In all probability, WinZip will quietly extract all the files and then go about its business, but you may see a message like the one below, if you have installed any other panels besides the Microsoft default set. If you get asked about a file overwrite, you will have to weigh it up yourself. In general, I look at the dates and press no if the file I am overwriting is newer. In this case I would press 'yes' since the file I am overwriting is older. But as I say, hopefully this won't happen to you. When WinZip is done all the extract dialogs will disappear and the green light will come on again at the bottom right of the WinZip window. You can close WinZip and breath again. You may be wondering why we have installed the gauges first. Well, in my experience the most common problem people face when installing new panels is forgetting to put the gauges in the \FS2002\Gauges directory, with the result that when the panel loads for the first time they are faced with a bitmap with a series of black holes where the instruments should be. If you install the gauges first you won't forget them. Now the next step is to install the rest of the panel files. This is a little more complicated than installing the gauges as we are going to have to make a new folder to put them in, deep within the folder structure of FS2002 - but if you have already worked your way through the first article in this series, you should have done this once already. Just make sure you read this carefully, and keep double-checking. Find your FS2002 directory using Explorer (it should still be open from when you last used it). I want you to click on the plus sign next to the 'aircraft' subfolder in FS2002 - OK, I've had it with saying 'click the plus sign,' from now on I'm going to say 'open' or 'expand,' right? We are going to create a new folder within the \aircraft folder called fsfsconv. Why? Well, tradition mainly. Every version of Flight Simulator until this one had an fsfsconv folder and I don't see why Microsoft should spoil our fun by leaving it out. Fsfsconv is where all the panels used to lurk in previous versions of Flight Simulator, and if you can now create a folder called fsfsconv, by highlighting the \aircraft folder and then using Explorer's "File", "New", "Folder" commands from the menu, I would be obliged. What we need to do next is to create a folder inside of Fsfsconv called 'panel.757' excluding the quotes of course (and from now on, I'm not going to remind you about that anymore, either!) So let's go. With fsfsconv selected, click on 'file' in Windows Explorer, then highlight 'new' and finally, slide the pointer over to 'folder' and click on that just like you did to create the 757 aircraft folder in the last article. Incidentally, the pic in the right hand pane is what a panel looks like in FS2002 when you forgot to copy the gauges over. Once seen, never forgotten. A new folder will duly appear and I want you to rename it 'panel.757' as shown in the illustration. The next thing we need to do is to go back to the Junk folder, and select the panel folder. I want you to select all the contents of this folder and copy it into C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\FS2002\aircraft\fsfsconv\panel.757. I can hear some sharp intakes of breath out there, so I'd better do some explaining. C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\FS2002\aircraft\fsfsconv\panel.757 is simply the full 'path' name of the folder you just created, the one called panel.757. If you imagine that every single one of those backslashes represents a plus sign you have to click on in Windows Explorer, you can see that this is just a shorthand way of referring you to a particular folder, without saying 'click the little plus sign' six times. Select all the files in the \junk\panel and copy them across to the \fsfsconv\panel.757 folder. If you are installing a different panel and the gauges are in a zip, hit the WinZip 'extract' button and go through the directory structure in the dialog that pops up just the way you did before. We'll go through it one more time in detail, expand by left clicking the little plus sign next to C:, then using the scrollbar to find program files expand that, then scrolling down again to find Microsoft Games and expand that, then expand FS2002, then expand 'aircraft', then expand 'fsfsconv' and finally, left click on the folder called 'panel.757' so that it is highlighted and hit the extract button. You will almost certainly find that you need to use the horizontal slider to see what you are doing at some stage, because this is a deeply nested folder structure. We are very nearly there, except that our Delta 757 is still blissfully unaware that we are going to all this trouble on its behalf. We need to edit its panel.cfg file to let it know which panel it is going to use. So use Windows Explorer to go to the "Delta 757-200 `97 colors" folder (which is in C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\FS2002\aircraft if you get lost.) If you created the association between files ending in .cfg and Notepad, panel.cfg should have a little Notepad icon, and you can just double click on it to open it automatically in Notepad. If you didn't, go to the back of the class. We are going to do a small hack to this file - because it points to the default Microsoft 777 Panel and no one wants to be seen dead flying with that. Instead we are going to point it at our new file. Delete everything in the original panel.cfg and type this instead: [fltsim] alias=FSFSConv\Panel.757 Make sure it looks exactly the way it does in the screen shot. Then click on file, then save and close down Notepad. Okay, now the Delta 757 knows which panel it is supposed to be flying with and we are set, but one thing you might come across is a folder, or a zip called 'sounds' as part of a panel installation set. If you do find something like this, it is a sound set which is linked to various actions on the panel, like switches and other stuff. If you see something like this, open it up in Explorer or WinZip as appropriate and you should see something like the illustration. Those files belong in C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\FS2002\sound and this time, you are on your own getting them there, because you ought to know how to do it by now. We should have the show on the road now, so start up FS2002, select the Delta 757 and was it worth it? Well if you don't like the result, there are plenty of other panels out there. Be my guest and try 'em all! The next article in this series will be on installing a custom sound set to complete this aircraft. Andrew Herd andrew@flightsim.com How To: Install FS2002 Aircraft -
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How To...Add FS2000 GPS to FS98 Panels By Art Burke With the advent of faster, more powerful computers in the last few months, more and more flightsim enthusiasts are discovering FS2000. Many, if not most of these new users, bring lots of their FS98 aircraft with them. In the midst of failing attitude indicators and dying batteries lurks the dilemma of adding the default FS2000 GPS to older-style panels. A dedicated, persistent simmer can often accomplish this task with the bare essential - Windows Notepad. However, most users will find the addition of one more tool quite beneficial - CfgEdit. CfgEdit is a WYSIWYG panel editor by Ed Struzyinski. It is freeware, easy to use and has become invaluable among my personal list of tools. This panel is from an A-4F Skyhawk. There is a gauge missing next to the turn coordinator, but we'll ignore that for the moment. Everything else is what one would typically find (and need) on a panel for use in FS98. FS2000, however, has a GPS gauge and, as yet, there's no way to access it with this panel. So let's add the GPS and a "switch" to turn it on and off. There's not much extra room on the panel at the moment to add much, so we'll have to make just a little bit of room. (We can't use that space at the lower left. That's where the fuel gauge is supposed to be.) However, at the upper right of the panel is a device used to identify the Outer, Middle and Inner Marker. We can alter its position just enough to give us a little breathing space. Before you begin, make a backup copy of the panel.cfg of the plane you intend to alter! Microsoft Panel SDK (Software Development Kit). Fortunately, to utilize CfgEdit, only the basics are really necessary. Here is a piece of the panel.cfg file for the A-4F Skyhawk. You can see gauge16 has the same information we see highlighted above in CfgEdit. What we're essentially going to do now is move the cessna_182.omi down a little. If you understand the numbers, it's relatively trivial to change the "Y" coordinate to something slightly smaller than 59. Since we have our WYSIWYG editor, however, it's very trivial to simply move the gauge to a convenient spot. We need to take care, however, not to cover up parts of any other gauges. Here, you can see I've moved the gauge down just a little, staying clear of the gauges below. It's also been shifted just a hair to the left, but not enough to make any difference. We'll leave it here and take a peek at what's happened to our panel as a result. We can see our OMI gauge has been moved down exactly where we want it! Now we're ready to place our GPS toggle. You can see above I've executed the "add gauge" menu and chosen the KINGAIR.GAU. This particular gauge (like all the default FS2000 gauges) has the characteristic of having all the gauges for this plane consolidated in one large file. We'll see shortly how identifying the specific gauges is accomplished. On the right side of our dialog box we can see there are 59 separate gauges in this one folder. We need only one specific gauge at the moment. Here is the selection: The bitmap in the lower left is a real jumble, but that's only because it's been magnified. Once it's on the panel it will look just fine. By clicking OK to verify the selection, the gauge will be placed temporarily in the middle of the panel. Then you can move it wherever you want it on the panel. Obviously, we're going to put this one just above the OMI gauge. Particularly since we went to the trouble to move it in the first place! Here I've placed the GPS toggle just above the OMI gauge and selected it so we can see the gauge properties. Here's what our panel.cfg file looks like: You can see we now have a new, 20th gauge. It's our new GPS Display Toggle! The hard part's over. Now we have the toggle. Next (and our last step) we'll add the actual GPS itself. We won't need CfgEdit for that. Notepad is all we'll need. Let's start by looking (and copying) what was done in one of the default FS2000 aircraft. Since it has the GPS gauge already, we'll just "borrow" a little from it! This is a part of the panel.cfg file from the King Air 350. I've clipped the first couple of windows (the main panel and the radio stack) just so our excerpt doesn't take up too much room. Window02 is for the GPS. When we click on the toggle on the panel, the contents of this window (i.e., the GPS instrument/gauge) will be displayed. If you already have a Window02 in your panel, you will need to renumber the window in both the [Window Titles] section and the window itself. Now, when you click on your new panel toggle, here's what you'll see: Oops! There's gonna be a problem! When I started building this example, I put the toggle just where we have it now. When I realized there was a problem I left it there, on purpose. I'll show you how easy this problem is to rectify. Our problem is we've displayed the GPS, but, in the process, we've accidentally hidden our "switch!" It's currently hiding behind the GPS data. We could close the GPS window by pressing SHIFT+3 (on the main keyboard NOT the numpad), but that tends to defeat our purpose. The solution - start CfgEdit again, highlight the GPS toggle and just move it somewhere where it will be convenient to use AND won't get covered up in the process! In the example below, I've moved the GPS toggle to the opposite side. After a few minutes practice on your own, you will be able to do the same thing! Once you're convinced the panel is okay, and you have the gauge (the GPS toggle is technically a gauge) where you want it, you can safely remove the backup copy you made before you started. Here's our final result: You can see the GPS toggle at the upper left side of the panel. The GPS display is showing on the far right. Clicking on the GPS toggle will close the display. Presto! Now you have the GPS on your old-style panel. Only one potential problem remains. You should be able to fix that on your own, now that you've had some experience. If you look at the default FS2000 panels, there's a small toggle switch on the panel, typically labeled as "NAV/GPS" or something similar. When the switch points towards the NAV side, the autopilot functions are in a mode with which you should already be familiar. You can view the GPS display, but the GPS will not currently "control" your flight. To have the GPS control (i.e., link to the autopilot) your flight you need to do the following: Establish a flight plan using the default FS2000 Flight Planner Initiate the flight plan and Flip the toggle switch from NAV to GPS The details of how to use the flight planner and GPS are available in the on-screen help of FS2000. Following the above examples you should be able to add the necessary switch to your panel using Notepad and/or CfgEdit. Enjoy your own labor and don't forget to make that backup before your start! Art Burke Aburkenc@aol.com Download CfgEdit -
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