Fsbuild-2 Flight Planner

I recently purchased the ISG1 set and I am really enjoying it. On a few aircraft I installed it on, I decided to have the B777_PFD_NB and the HW_B737_ND_NB appear as menu items View>Instrument Panel instead of replacing the existing gauge in the aircraft due to panel space limitations. What I do is simply open the PFD and ND via the View>Instrument Panel and then place the gauges over the panel of the aircraft I am flying in. Only issue with this is that I sometimes cover other important gauges like engine performance gauges. When I need to view these other gauges, I close the PFD or ND so I can view the other gauges. This is typically just a brief view of the other gauges and then I need to bring back my PFD or ND. This becomes tedious because I have to go back into the View menu. I am hoping there is a code I can enter into the [Window00] field of the Panel config file for icon buttons for these displays to easily toggle them on and off. Similar to an icon button for the EFIS to toggle it on and off.

Thanks for your help everyone and sincere apologies if this is already out there somewhere. I've been unable to find it.

Merry Christmas.

Jason
California, USA

A gentle bump

Gentle bump

Did you get this resolved?

Jerry

Hi Jerry,

Thanks for asking. No I have not. It's not a big issue. I just thought if there was a toggle available, it would save the hassle of going into the instruments panel each time I wanted to open these panels. I was just hoping for a toggle similar to the EFIS or FMS icons.

Thanks,
Jason

When I add something that I want to toggle such as the PFD, FMS or ND I put them in a new window. Then size and position the window where I want it. Icon buttons have a click function in them that tells them what window ident to open/close. You can clone an icon button and modify the click parameter to match the window ident number you assign to your new window.

Sample window ident found in panel.cfg:

[Window11]
Background_color=0,0,0
size_mm=197,271
window_size_ratio=1.000
position=7
visible=0
ident=5000
window_size= 0.310, 0.620
window_pos= 0.690, 0.382

gauge00=isg1!SMITHS_FMS, 0,0,197,271
gauge01=ISG1!FMS_OPEN, 4,109,13,14

Sample coding of an icon click:

<Click>5000 (&gt;K:PANEL_ID_TOGGLE) </Click>

The 5000 is the window ident of this particular icon. This causes the window with an ident of 5000 to toggle open or close.

If this is confusing I can go into more detail if you want.

Jerry

Hi Jerry,

This is great information. In your example below, I can locate the panel.cfg and I see the ident code. First question with that... The two windows I want the toggle icon for have the same ident code of 4004.Should I change those to be unique and this will not cause any issues? Hear is a copy of what is currently in the panel.cfg

//--------------------------------------------------------
[Window12]
Background_color=0,0,0
size_mm=197,271
window_size_ratio=1.000
position=0
visible=0
ident=4004
window_size= 0.283, 0.401
window_pos= 0.167, 0.577

gauge00=isg1!B777_PFD_NB, 0,0,197,271


//--------------------------------------------------------
[Window13]
Background_color=0,0,0
size_mm=197,271
window_size_ratio=1.000
position=0
visible=0
ident=4004
window_size= 0.250, 0.450
window_pos= 0.455, 0.560

gauge00=isg1!HW_B737_ND_NB, 0,0,197,271


A couple of things I am confused on:
1) in your below example you have gauge00=isg1!SMITHS_FMS, 0,0,197,271 as the coding to put the icon in the aircraft. I've done this same thing for the FMD, EFIS, LNAV, and VNAV. I'm just not sure what the gauge coding would be for the two icons I am trying to create.

2) I don't know where you want me to enter the click information for the ident code.


I'm assuming there is coding somewhere that tells the program to open a particular window when the icon button is clicked. I do not know where that is at. I understand that the panel.cfg allows me to 1) get the specific window (panel) into the aircraft and also allows me to 2) get the specific icon into the aircraft. What I don't know how to do is specifically create the icon and have the icon open something when I click it. I don't even know where this is in order to see how the FMS or EFIS icons work.

Thanks Jerry for trying hard to help me!!

Jason

Three things are needed to make a popup window controlled by an icon.
1--a window containing the gauge you want to pop on and off.
2--a .bmp file containing the picture of what the icon looks like.
3--an .xml file containing the code for the icon actions.

Here is an example of a pop up MCU. Note the ident is 4001.

From the panel.cfg file:

[Window10]
Background_color=0,0,0
size_mm=330,175
window_size_ratio=1.000
position=7
visible=0
ident=4001
window_size= 0.330, 0.270
window_pos= 0.670, 0.730

gauge00=ISG1!MCU, 0,0,330,175,WN
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From the icon .xml file. Again note the click statement says it controls window ident 4001:

<Gauge Name="MCU Icon" Version="1.0">
<Image Name="MCU_Open.bmp" ImageSizes="18,40,18,40"/>
<Mouse>
<Cursor Type="Hand"/>
<Click>4001 (&gt;K:PANEL_ID_TOGGLE)</Click>


</Mouse>
</Gauge>
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

And a .bmp file for the icon. Note the .bmp file is named in the icon .xml file "MCU_Open.bmp"

Window idents should be unique however changing the ident may have an effect on other actions. The window you are wanting to turn on and off will need to have a unique ident number. Otherwise the icon will toggle all windows with that ident number.

If you are planning on doing much panel work I suggest getting FS Panel Studio. It is a great, user friendly program to create or modify panels.

Hope this helps.

Jerry