Utility to find relevant gauge files

[Carob 2]

Hello.

 

Quite some time ago there used to be some tools out there that would allow you to find installed gauge files that went with a particular panel.  If I remember correctly, though, they didn't work all that great.  Or maybe it was just me.

 

Can anyone tell me if there is a more updated utility somewhere that does this task?  I have a couple of specific panels I'd like to possibly remove and would like to get all of the necessary files that go with it.

 

Any help would be appreciated.

 

Thanks!

[mebull 27]

 

 

Any help would be appreciated.

 

I am not aware of any specific utility for that. Be forewarned that many panels use commonly used gauges and that by removing them you may also find them missing in aircraft panels you do intend to continue to use. For that reason I either always leave the gauges in the gauge folder when I remove a aircraft / panel or when I install a aircraft / panel I temporarily place the provided gauges right in the panel folder until I decide whether to keep the aircraft / panel or not. Pay ware and some installations may not give that option however. That said - written, the only option I can think of that would accomplish what you are asking would be to open the panels configuration file and use that as a reference while searching through the gauge folder for the names of the gauges listed in the configuration file. Tedious but effective.

 

Regards,

[Carob 2]

GaugeExplorer 1.1.0 will actually tell you which ones are for which aircraft and which are, or are not, being used by others but I was hoping there was something more recent that handled things better.

[N60JBravo 27]

I personally don't trust any of these cleanup utilities and would never turn them loose on my sim.

 

I would not worry about having unused gauges, they are usually pretty small files so they don't take up much disc space and they don't do anything in the sim until they are called by a panel.cfg.

 

Like Mel, I put gauges for a new plane in it's panel folder so the gauges go with the plane if it gets deleted.

 

If an addon has a gauge that I might want to add to other planes I might consider moving it to the Gauges folder though usually I just copy it to the panel folder.

 

BTW, FS looks in the local panel folder for gauges before it looks in the Gauges folder.

 

regards,

Joe

[Carob 2]

I agree with all of that.  But, there is another reason I'm looking to find out this info as well.  I might be trying to transfer a particular panel or two from one machine to another and need to know which gauges are required.

 

So, the question still remains I guess.  Other than the tool mentioned above, does anyone know any other tools that are out there that can accomplish this?

[Bert Pieke 7,584]

Open the panel.cfg file with Notepad..  You will quickly see what names are used for the gauges.

[Carob 2]

That was mentioned.  And as stated, is very time consuming and tedious.  Not to mention easy to miss something.  I was hoping that since 2005 a more updated tool(s) had been created.

Open the panel.cfg file with Notepad..  You will quickly see what names are used for the gauges.

[ronzie 21]

You also need to be aware that some .gau files are compressed library collections.

 

In the C208B panel.cfg:

gauge00=Cessna208!Clock,2,82

 

refers to this file in the FS9 gauges folder:

 

Cessna208B.gau

 

The ! in the example line indicates it is some kind of collection in this case with the desired gauge listed after the ! .