I use SPAD.neXt (http://www.spadnext.com/home.html) for controlling all my Saitek gear (Cessna yoke, pedals,..Radio etc panel, ... 9 FIPs) in a networked configuration (which is based on a plugin installed into XP). This works great - and I can use even sophisticated gauges - however, there are two side effects which are IMO more XP than SPAD.neXt issues, thus I am asking here.

1. I have that annoying crosshairs continually on display. I understand that given all controls are connected to the networked computer, XP seemingly thinks I don't have any joystick and activates mouse control. Is there any way to remove that crosshairs without plugging in a joystick (and yes when l plug in a joystick it disappears, however the joystick interferes with my networked controls of course)?

2. The plane is controlled by the yoke instead the pedals during taxiing. I would trace this back to XP feeling I don't have a yoke connected (to the main machine) and thus going into some auto-coordination mode (at least that's what I suppose). Can this mode be deactivated?

I thought about asking at the SPAD.neXt forum, however there's only a small percentage of XP users and, moreover, among them I might be pretty much the only one with a networked configuration.

Does anyone of the XP experts have an idea how to solve these? I would supopose these could be controlled via some datarefs (if so which ones?) and perhaps someone can give a hint how to do it via, e.g., a LUA script?

Thanks and kind regards, Michael

I found two datarefs that could be relevant, they are:

"sim/operation/override/override_joystick", and

"sim/joystick/eq_pfc_yoke".

Try setting each of them to 1 (the default value should be 0), and see what happens.

You can modify them using the DataRefEditor ( https://developer.x-plane.com/tools/datarefeditor/ ), but in this case they revert back to their default value each time you start X-Plane.

However, once you determine that it works, you can then install FlyWithLua and write a simple script to change their value at startup.

For now you could install DataRefEditor and see if modifying the above datarefs helps.

 

Thanks Murmur, I'll definitely try these, I have the dataref editor installed already. Will write back later.

Kind regards, Michael

 

You hit the nail. The first Dataref stops the yoke interfering and the second one removes the crosshairs. I made a little Lua script which does the job automatically:

---------------------------------------------------------------------

if LUA_RUN == 1 then
    set( "sim/operation/override/override_joystick",   1 )
    set( "sim/joystick/eq_pfc_yoke",   1 )
end

---------------------------------------------------------------------

I'll repost the solution in the SPAD.neXt forum, together with a solution for a 3rd issue caused by SPAD.neXt itself. Might help someone with the same troubles. 

Kind regards, Michael

pmb...i too use Spad.next and have for a long time. Love what ConneX has created. I switched full-time to XP last year and found that a combo of XP settings and Spad.next work really well. I use XP for Yoke, Rudders and Trim in combo with Spad. All other buttons/switches are directly programmed thru Spad. Just my two cents. Finally, I agree, not many XP users have realized what a great tool Spad.next really is.