I thought I read somewhere in this forum, or it could have been in another, or I could have been dreaming...but I seem to recall a post that stated that you could create a gauges folder within a given aircraft folder in FS2004. This is of interest to those of us who do not wish to co-mingle third party gauges in the FS2004 main gauges folder. It is also for ease in removing or updating those third party gauges with respect to new aircraft panel offerings.Searches return nothing. Any recollections? help?

Try this topic: http://forums.avsim.net/dcboard.php?az=sho...topic_id=141113. Author was "Dark Moment" so you can do a search on that name if this link does not work. You can keep your third party gauges in your respective aircraft panel folder. Hope this helps.Jim Young

That's what I do and it works great for checking out new panels that you're not sure if you're going to keep. Everything is in the Panel folder so you can just delete it if you don't like the panel and there's not a bunch of stuff hanging around. :-)

Yes it's neat. You can keep gauges in either the GAUGES folder or the aircraft's individual PANEL folder ... works both ways. Only negative, of course, is duplication of gauges where many third party panels use the same gauge files ... so you'd better make sure you have plenty of hard drive if you're going to use the new method, as you may well end up with forty copies of bigfatgauge.gau.Mark "Dark Moment" Beaumonthttp://www.swiremariners.com/newlogo.jpg

Thanks all for the response.One final clarification....do you have to modify the panel config to point to the gauges folder in the individual panel folder? Or do you just place them there. Can someone post a portion of a sample screen?ThanksDom

Try looking at one of the new aircraft's panel.cfg for your answer. For instance, the R22:[Window00]file=robinson_r22_background.bmpsize_mm=622, 768window_size= 0.607, 1.0position=6visible=1ident=MAIN_PANELgauge00=Robinson_R22!VSI, 7, 373gauge01=Robinson_R22!Altimeter, 78, 542You can also alias the gauges in a panel folder:gauge04=..aircraft(name of aircraft)panel(name of gauge)gauge04=..aircraftRobinson_R22panelRobinson_R22!Airspeed, 299, 369You would have to adjust the numbers at the end to place the gauge on your panel. See the panel SDK for information about the numbers.W. Sieffert

Yes, WS, but I note that the new aircraft for FS2004 have their cab gauge in the panel folder and it is NOT necessary to put any more than the gauge name in the PANEL.CFG. Recent FS2004 panels (Milton's, Trev's) can reference either way, and using the same PANEL.CFG without everything you suggest above.But, the old FS2002 imports that ship with the new sim .... Baron, King Air etc. .... do NOT have the gauge(s) in the panel folder. So is it only the case with FS2004 designed panels, I wonder, that they can operate this way? Or can any imported FS2002 aircraft now have their gauges in the panel folder and NOT have to change everything as you suggest?Note I haven't bothered to check this out for myself, lazy buzzard that I am .... wondering if you/anybody has tried this yet?Mark "Dark Moment" Beaumonthttp://www.swiremariners.com/newlogo.jpg

On the a/c that I been moving over from 02 to 04 I put the gauges in the panel folder for that a/c and works fine.http://www.enter.net/photoalbum/data/reddog/551867.jpgSceenshots and Pics athttp://community.webshots.com/user/reddog18951USMC Retired

Just to carry this thread a bit further....I notice that the gauges for the new FS2004 aircraft are listed in the panel folder as compressesed .CAB files. I searched and could not find a .cab compresser, but I know that winzip will read and decompress the .cab filesSO, my question is...in lieu of a .cab compressor, can I use winzip to compress the gauges of a FS2002 aircraft, change the file extension to .cab to make it work in FS2004?Thanks

Hi,No, there is no editing of the cfg file required at all - drop them into the plane's PANEL folder and they all work fine.BTW, for those who make separate folders for their panels (I use the AIRCRAFTdc6pnl6 folder, for example, for my DC-6 panel), you can just drop them into that folder and they will still work. The rule is to drop them into the same folder that has the panel bitmaps in it.Hope this helps,--Tom GibsonCal Classic Propliner Page: http://www.calclassic.comFreeflight Design Shop: http://www.freeflightdesign.comDrop by! ___x_x_(")_x_x___

All the above said, in my experience so far, developers have one thing to look out for. Which is, that referencing default VCs requires that the default aircraft's CAB file be copied into the main GAUGES folder. Trev Morson's DC-3 panel is a case in point; the VC has no gauges unless you copy DOUGLAS_DC3.CAB from the DC-3's own PANEL folder into the main FS9 GAUGES folder. This won't be the case, of course, if you just overwrite what is in the default PANEL folder already when you add a third party panel; but I don't think many of us do that. Most of us alias alternative panels, do we not?Mark "Dark Moment" Beaumonthttp://www.swiremariners.com/newlogo.jpg

You do have the file to make *.cab files in your drive:Program FilesMicrosoft GamesFlight Simulator 9 folder labelled cabdir.exe. However, you might need the instructions on how to use it. Visit http://zone.msn.com/flightsim/FS02DevDeskSDK00.asp and download Cabfile_SDK.exeW. Sieffert