I'm opening a new topic for the Q400 so that it doesn't get mixed up with the FSL A320.

 

While you are working on an update that makes use of the 2D panels to allow MCE to operate more switches on the Q400 here is something to take into consideration:

 

MCE already makes use of the 2D FMS Popup panel to tune frequencies. I struggled with that because MCE kept on opening the Engine Display Popup instead. I finally found, the reason was that I installed the Weather Gauge by Active Sky. So the numbering of the panels in the panel.cfg was changed and the FMS Popup became Window18 whereas MCE still opened Window17. I had to manually rearrange the panel.cfg to make MCE work as expected.

 

So it would be nice if MCE would read the panel.cfg, detect any changes made there and take them into account.

 

BTW the Weather Gauge is the reason why I wouldn't want to set the 2D panel transparency to 100% permanently. So it would be great if MCE would be able to set that to 100% temporarily as suggested by Roman.

Alternatively: Is there a minimum size for the 2D panels to be usable for MCE when I resize them?

 

 

20 hours ago, RALF9636 said:

I'm opening a new topic for the Q400 so that it doesn't get mixed up with the FSL A320.

 

While you are working on an update that makes use of the 2D panels to allow MCE to operate more switches on the Q400 here is something to take into consideration:

 

MCE already makes use of the 2D FMS Popup panel to tune frequencies. I struggled with that because MCE kept on opening the Engine Display Popup instead. I finally found, the reason was that I installed the Weather Gauge by Active Sky. So the numbering of the panels in the panel.cfg was changed and the FMS Popup became Window18 whereas MCE still opened Window17. I had to manually rearrange the panel.cfg to make MCE work as expected.

 

So it would be nice if MCE would read the panel.cfg, detect any changes made there and take them into account.

 

BTW the Weather Gauge is the reason why I wouldn't want to set the 2D panel transparency to 100% permanently. So it would be great if MCE would be able to set that to 100% temporarily as suggested by Roman.

Alternatively: Is there a minimum size for the 2D panels to be usable for MCE when I resize them?

 

 

Thanks for that. May have to leave it to users to manually edit "Panel.cfg" since those who add gauges to aircraft would know about that.

As far as minimum size, I guess it depends how many clickable areas are on the 2D panel and how close they are to each other.

If 2 click ares are separated by more than 4 pixels, reducing the window size up to a forth of its normal size would do. If it's more than 10, then up to a tenth of its size will do, etc.

You don't have to be concerned with exact sizing. The window can have any shape, stretched horizontally or vertically. Only requirement is for the window to be entirely within the simulator window. You can't have only part of it poking its corner say from the bottom right of the screen.

You can experiment with FMC 2D panel. See how small you can make it, and still have FO accurately compute ad-hoc click-points based on its present location and size.

 

On 6.2.2018 at 1:32 PM, FS++ said:

As far as minimum size, I guess it depends how many clickable areas are on the 2D panel and how close they are to each other.

If 2 click ares are separated by more than 4 pixels, reducing the window size up to a forth of its normal size would do. If it's more than 10, then up to a tenth of its size will do, etc.

You don't have to be concerned with exact sizing. The window can have any shape, stretched horizontally or vertically. Only requirement is for the window to be entirely within the simulator window. You can't have only part of it poking its corner say from the bottom right of the screen.

You can experiment with FMC 2D panel. See how small you can make it, and still have FO accurately compute ad-hoc click-points based on its present location and size.

 

Just FYI:

I changed in the panel.cfg:

 

window_size_ratio=0.2

position=8

 

(and //commented out "window_size=" and "window_pos=").

 

MCE works fine setting the frequencies and the window is barely noticeable in the lower right corner.

With window_size_ratio=0.1 it did not always work properly.

This is with a 4K Monitor.

 

Ralf, what about to undock 2D panels which you use? I think this way they should not be affected by 100% transparency.

Roman

2 hours ago, sbs9 said:

Ralf, what about to undock 2D panels which you use? I think this way they should not be affected by 100% transparency.

Roman

Nice idea.

The downside is that undocking a panel decreases performance significantly. Not too much of a problem though with the framerate-friendly Q400 and because I have the Weather Gauge open only for a short glimpse.

 

But another aspect:

The popping up panel can also serve as a warning (in addition to the red text) that you should not touch the mouse until MCE is done with its procedure. And that warning can be quite welcome because it already happened to me that I was trying to set something else in the VC with the mouse at the same time, messing up the whole procedure.

 

I will give it some thought.

 

From the Aerosoft preview forum:

http://forum.aerosoft.com/index.php?/topic/127623-aerosoft-a318a319a320a321a330-professional-preview-part-4/&do=findComment&comment=865342

Quote

P3Dv4.2 fixes issues with clickspots in the VC. This fix is needed for the new buses.

 

So, any chance that this will also be the solution for the problems MCE has with the clickspots in the Q400 (and the FSL Bus)? Or is it something completely different?

To avoid any confusion: P3DV4.2 is not yet released!

 

43 minutes ago, RALF9636 said:

From the Aerosoft preview forum:

http://forum.aerosoft.com/index.php?/topic/127623-aerosoft-a318a319a320a321a330-professional-preview-part-4/&do=findComment&comment=865342

 

So, any chance that this will also be the solution for the problems MCE has with the clickspots in the Q400 (and the FSL Bus)? Or is it something completely different?

To avoid any confusion: P3DV4.2 is not yet released!

 

Thanks for the link.

Could be. Something LM changed in FSX code caused the simulated clicks not to work as they used to, starting from P3D V3.2 (it was OK in P3D V3.1 and earlier). It's not related to 64 Bit.

It's possible, the issue will go away with upcoming V4.2

Because it's not something in the SDK, we always saw this as something for us to address rather than file a complaint with LM.

Hence the need for this temporary 2D workaround, just in case.

New dll File for Q400 should be ready later this evening.

 

3 hours ago, RALF9636 said:

From the Aerosoft preview forum:

http://forum.aerosoft.com/index.php?/topic/127623-aerosoft-a318a319a320a321a330-professional-preview-part-4/&do=findComment&comment=865342

 

So, any chance that this will also be the solution for the problems MCE has with the clickspots in the Q400 (and the FSL Bus)? Or is it something completely different?

To avoid any confusion: P3DV4.2 is not yet released!

 

EDIT: P3DV4.2 has just been released.

58 minutes ago, RALF9636 said:

EDIT: P3DV4.2 has just been released.

Just when you think you're done 

 

On ‎12‎/‎02‎/‎2018 at 4:08 PM, RALF9636 said:

EDIT: P3DV4.2 has just been released.

No change regarding clicks in VC with P3D V4.2.

Download this patch

It assumes you have MCE 2747 or higher already installed

Manually replace 4 files.

FO will handle the remaining switches via simulated clicks on relevant 2D panels.

7 minutes ago, FS++ said:

No change regarding clicks in VC with P3D V4.2.

Pity.

 

7 minutes ago, FS++ said:

Download this patch

It assumes you have MCE 2747 or higher already installed

Manually replace 4 files.

FO will handle the remaining switches via simulated clicks on relevant 2D panels.

Great.

Could you list which 2D panels MCE will use so that I can make sure they are properly configured in the panel.cfg?

 

2 hours ago, RALF9636 said:

Pity.

 

Great.

Could you list which 2D panels MCE will use so that I can make sure they are properly configured in the panel.cfg?

 

All the panels that pop-up when MCE starts and connects to the aircraft

Window01=First Officer Panel
Window02=Overhead Panel
Window03=Center Forward Panel
Window04=Center Aft Panel
Window05=Captain Side Panel
Window06=FO Side Panel

Window17=FMS POPUP
Window18=ARCDU POPUP

Just to make it clear to others.

There is no requirement to configure anything in the "Panel.cfg". Especially when you make them transparent.

Ralph wants to do that in order to avoid resizing and moving panels at runtime.

You may want to follow his advice on how small you can make the windows via the config file..

20 hours ago, FS++ said:

Download this patch

It assumes you have MCE 2747 or higher already installed

Manually replace 4 files.

FO will handle the remaining switches via simulated clicks on relevant 2D panels.

Works great, thank you!

 

Just one thing:

Is it possible that MCE sets the frequencies via the ARCDU panel instead of the FMS?

Alternatively if setting the frequencies via the FMS can MCE afterwards switch the FMS back to the page it was in before, so that it does not always end up on the TUNE page?

 

Some issues emerged (I reverted the panel.cfg to the original to rule that out as a factor):

 

"Engine intake doors close" (or similar) always crashes P3D. The 2D panel opens, the mouse moves to the correct spot but then turns into the blue circle and P3D becomes unresponsive.

 

Whereas this does not occur with all other commands I could think of when giving them separately as a voice command, I also encountered similar freezes when running voxscripts at seemingly random commands.

I found that this was caused by several 2D-panel-commands in a row. Adding a pause of at least 5 seconds between the commands prevents the freeze. It does not happen with all 2D-panel-commands but with some. For example

"left mfd set to nav
right mfd set to nav
autofeather arm"

works fine, whereas

"anti skid on
pause=5
standby hydraulic pump on
pause=5
hydraulic ptu on"

always leads to a freeze where the pause is left out.

 

It would be nice if MCE could handle this in a way that no freezes occur.

 

19 hours ago, RALF9636 said:

Some issues emerged (I reverted the panel.cfg to the original to rule that out as a factor):

 

"Engine intake doors close" (or similar) always crashes P3D. The 2D panel opens, the mouse moves to the correct spot but then turns into the blue circle and P3D becomes unresponsive.

 

Whereas this does not occur with all other commands I could think of when giving them separately as a voice command, I also encountered similar freezes when running voxscripts at seemingly random commands.

I found that this was caused by several 2D-panel-commands in a row. Adding a pause of at least 5 seconds between the commands prevents the freeze. It does not happen with all 2D-panel-commands but with some. For example

"left mfd set to nav
right mfd set to nav
autofeather arm"

works fine, whereas

"anti skid on
pause=5
standby hydraulic pump on
pause=5
hydraulic ptu on"

always leads to a freeze where the pause is left out.

 

It would be nice if MCE could handle this in a way that no freezes occur.

 

Thanks for feedback.

Because MCE is multithreaded, the simulated clicks are actually queued.

Try this new dll

Timings have been adjusted to ensure the whole process of popping-up the 2D panel, simulating click and closing panel reliably doesn't take more than half a second per click.

It wouldn't be right to ask users to insert 5 seconds pauses for that purpose.