So in v10.4x this was added:-

 

Hobbs time is now tracked with an aircraft that has a working hobbs meter that notes the total hours flown. Most Hobbs meters shown in X-Plane are usually fake.

 

Does anybody know if the carenado aircraft support this function, or if theirs are fake?

 

Also a few years ago there was a plugin called x-Hobbs, which tracked hours for every plane, and this lead to failure etc... Does it still work?

I just installed a real Hobbs meter in my sim and called it good.   :wink:

OK, here's what's happened:

 

-There's a dataref in X-Plane, which is called "sim/time/hobbs_time".  This Hobbs meter just kept moving forward, and all it was able to do was generate a semi-random number for the actual Hobbs meter.  Not very useful.

-Carenado and Alabeo created our own Hobbs dataref, and set the logic to start the Hobbs meter whenever the engine of the plane was running, and saving the value to disk, for next time the plane was loaded.  

-X-Hobbs did something very similar.  In both cases, the trick was, to have a little text file inside the plane's folder that would register the new Hobbs value attained during that flight, and continuing the count, as it were, next time that plane was loaded.

-Then Laminar did something similar in v10.40: they added the Hobbs value to the "***_prefs.txt" file (the asterisks represent the name of your plane).  Here, stuff like the chosen livery, the camera snap points, and also now the Hobbs meter value were stored.

-As soon as Laminar came out with this, it became superfluous for Carenado/Alabeo planes to use this.  Newer planes simply use X-Plane's internal Hobbs meter.

-An interesting note: Carenado and Alabeo have used stored camera snap points way before X-plane did this... and from the way the Algorithm looks, Laminar's implementation is almost identical.  So again, we've been trailblazing features that end up finding their way into X-Plane itself... both with camera snap points, and with Hobbs meter functionality... next up seems like we'll soon see universal SuperManipulator á la Carenado in X-plane... but probably not before XPv11.

 

Some older Carenado and Alabeo planes might still have the old custom implementation, due to the fact that it's difficult to go back into the source files and change the animated components without the risk of damaging other aspects of the plane, due to changes in the authoring tools.

Also a few years ago there was a plugin called x-Hobbs, which tracked hours for every plane, and this lead to failure etc... Does it still work?

 

I've used it, but ended up having an issue with it - whether it was crashing my XP, or causing a conflict with something I can't recall, and so I had quit.

 

 

-An interesting note: Carenado and Alabeo have used stored camera snap points way before X-plane did this... and from the way the Algorithm looks, Laminar's implementation is almost identical.  So again, we've been trailblazing features that end up finding their way into X-Plane itself... both with camera snap points, and with Hobbs meter functionality... next up seems like we'll soon see universal SuperManipulator á la Carenado in X-plane... but probably not before XPv11.

 

 

Well, thanks for doing the trailblazing - it helps make XP a better sim, and that's something that we all benefit from in the long run.

 

No offense, but I do hope that the SuperManipulator tech doesn't become a core part of the sim.  There's times when I love it, and times when I can't stand it!!  I love being able to zoom in/out with my mouse, so I never would turn off that functionality, but when you are scrolling the mousewheel while flying and you slip off the clickspot and your camera does a face plant into the gauges... well, suffice to say it's annoying.  :smile:

For those who don't like the scroll wheel feature, you can always disable the plugin, and only use the click, click-hold, click-drag horizontally, click-drag vertically features.

 

So what concrete steps would you suggest to avoid the "faceplant into the gauges" scenario? 

 

One thing I could think of doing, would be to ask Laminar to provide an option to disable mouse wheel zoom via dataref.  Currently, that's not possible.  I imagine, as Laminar spends some more time thinking through this, they'll also come up with some better ways to avoid common unpleasant scenarios, especially if it can be shown that the market (i.e., you) are expressing preferences/opinions about these things.  (Not that Laminar has always listened when the market made requests, but... if we don't say ANYTHING, there's no way Laminar will get the sense that it is something important to end users.)

 

Another idea would be, to request Laminar to tie the "Scroll for Zoom" functionality to the right mouse button... so that zoom, at least in the cockpit view, only occurs when the right mouse button is simultaneously pressed.  Normally, right-click allows you to pan around the cockpit... so if you're in that mode already, of scanning around the cockpit, pointing the camera at a gauge of interest, it'd make sense to have the scroll wheel available for zooming. 

 

External view could remain as it currently is, as right-click panning often pushes the plane out of frame, unintentionally.  

 

Or a combination of these things.  One could have a dataref that, when set to "0" disables all "scroll-to-zoom" functionality.  When set to 1, you'd have "scroll to zoom only when right mouse button is pressed, inside the 3D cockpit view."  When set to 2, you'd have "Scroll to zoom only in outside views; not in 3D cockpit view at all." When set to 3, you'd have "Don't scroll to zoom at all."  That'd give authors some flexibility which they can pass on to their clients as well.

 

I think I'll suggest this to Laminar, actually.

For those who don't like the scroll wheel feature, you can always disable the plugin, and only use the click, click-hold, click-drag horizontally, click-drag vertically features.

 

Except that sometimes it's great.  It's only when the clickspot is small and 'finicky' when it's troublesome.  Other times, it's really superb.

 

 

Another idea would be, to request Laminar to tie the "Scroll for Zoom" functionality to the right mouse button... so that zoom, at least in the cockpit view, only occurs when the right mouse button is simultaneously pressed.  Normally, right-click allows you to pan around the cockpit... so if you're in that mode already, of scanning around the cockpit, pointing the camera at a gauge of interest, it'd make sense to have the scroll wheel available for zooming. 

 

External view could remain as it currently is, as right-click panning often pushes the plane out of frame, unintentionally.  

 

Or a combination of these things.  One could have a dataref that, when set to "0" disables all "scroll-to-zoom" functionality.  When set to 1, you'd have "scroll to zoom only when right mouse button is pressed, inside the 3D cockpit view."  When set to 2, you'd have "Scroll to zoom only in outside views; not in 3D cockpit view at all." When set to 3, you'd have "Don't scroll to zoom at all."  That'd give authors some flexibility which they can pass on to their clients as well.

 

I think I'll suggest this to Laminar, actually.

 

A 'scroll to zoom when right mouse button is pressed' is quite brilliant, actually!

 

I still fly both FSX and XP (although time spent is running at a ratio of 10:1 in favor of XP), and one of the most striking things when I fire FSX back up is how clumsy the camera control is.  I love being able to control the camera without any other key presses or command toggles.

 

In my opinion a good set of dataref options could be:

 

"0" to disable mouse wheel zooming

"1" to enable unassisted mouse wheel zooming (current standard)

"2" to enable right click mouse wheel zooming only in 3D cockpit view

"3" to enable right click mouse wheel zooming in all views

 

That said, any aircraft author would always have to be careful. An example is the SuperManipulator tech in Carenado/Alabeo aircraft which, by default, overrides / locks out the mouse wheel zoom when your cursor is over a control.  If the option was there to lock out all mouse wheel zooming while in the 3D cockpit, the temptation would be there for a developer to use that, which would immediately put off a segment of users who prefer that functionality.  The available options would have to be fully present for the end user as well via a setting in the sim's control panel.

Nice one thank you. So with the Hobbs meter recording the total hours flown, does that contribute towards the hours failure set in xplane, so say that after 1000 hours some part of the plane could fail?

Actually, for the newer planes, the scroll wheel plugin has the option to turn off scroll-for-zoom already.  So, as a user of one of the newer planes (SuperManipulator-equipped), you could either shut off the scroll plugin altogether (via the "Plugins>Plugin Admin>Enable/Disable plugin" dialog) in order to ONLY zoom with scroll wheel, OR you could go to "Plugins>MouseScrollOptions" and click on "Disable Scroll Zoom" in order to JUST have access to the scroll wheel for manipulation of knobs... leaving you to zoom in with keyboard short cuts or joystick button assignments. (Not a bad option either).

 

For now, we'll have to wait for Laminar to give us any sort of control over the right mouse button, before we can span it in to do anything like what the idea was above... however, we can already explore creating options to allow users to disable "scroll for zoom" via keyboard short cut, or when inside the 3D cockpit only.