Two or three weeks ago I posted complaining that the menus needed to go to full screen... that this has always been a sore point with me in FS04 to have the tiny menu in the middle of the big black area. At that time I hadn't seen the demo. I had seen the setup at IFC Denver but either it wasn't the same as the demo or I failed to notice it.The increase from 800X600 in FS04 to 1024X768 in FSX is a big help. Further the fact that it sits on your desktop instead of the artificial "blackhole" is much appreciated by me. :)http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/154703.jpgI also like that I have full access to my desktop with the menus up. That and I used to hate that whenever the cursor "fell into the blackness" or was over the 3D depiction of the aircraft it would disappear and being the simple minded sort I sometimes had trouble finding it. :-lolWith FSX you not only have a cursor over the desktop parts but you get a "grabby" one in the 3D window and you can grab the aircraft and turn it around or flip it over to see the detail... good stuff!Thank you MS & Aces! :-waveJust a pic I snapped last night...http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/154704.jpg... while fooling around with the Beaver.(And yes... I know... past time to clean up my desktop. ;))

I like the new non-fullscreen UI setup too, it may take a little bit longer to go into and out of a flight (switching into and out of fullscreen mode) but it avoids a bug introduced in Nvidia drivers a long time ago that prevents you from interacting with the aircraft in fullscreen mode.Not so enthusiastic about the new aircraft select screen though, with less options for aircraft sorting it's going to get really messy really fast. (Since it seems the only way you can select a specific repaint is to click "show all variations," which shows all variations for all aircraft by the same manufacturer.)"Let me help you out. You're cleared to taxi any way you can to any runway you see."

I have to admit that the new menu system is something I took to straight away myself.

"Not so enthusiastic about the new aircraft select screen though, with less options for aircraft sorting it's going to get really messy really fast. (Since it seems the only way you can select a specific repaint is to click "show all variations," which shows all variations for all aircraft by the same manufacturer.)"I find it awkward too but I guess we will get used to it. Once we have a full load of aircraft I'm sure we will want to select the manufacturer and go from there.Another thing that struck me is that the planes no longer show up in alphabetic order within the aircraft manufacturer and model. Instead they show up in the order they appear within the aircraft.cfg file. Using that you can edit the file so that your favorite always shows up first or only if you don't have "show all" checked.http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/154743.jpgIf you want more than one to show up you can get creative and make the model name slightly different as is the case with the Lockheed Vegas above.I'm sure we will get used to it. :)

What everyone seems to be overlooking is this... those two picklists, "Publisher" and "Aircraft Type" are extremely flexible......you can actually put anthing you want into those picklists! ;)

But nothing is in them by default, (for existing FS9/FS8 planes) which means you have to go and edit them in for each repaint entry for each plane. I've got hundreds of planes, many with multiple repaints. (The FSDSv2 Amphib Beaver I use, for instance, has 8 repaints. And that's just one model.)I'm not looking forward to spending a couple days editing aircraft.cfg files to fix what I see as a step backwards. (No to mention taking hundreds of screenshots for preview pics.) FS9 had a nice, logical, sorting system. The preview pic thing is a neat idea, but I wish they'd kept the FS9 sorting options, or let you choose a repaint on the Details screen."Let me help you out. You're cleared to taxi any way you can to any runway you see."

How did you get the thumbnails to show! Looks great.I copied aircraft from my FS9 aircraft folder to FSX simobjects/airplanes folder but i dont get the thumbnail pictures to show.I can select and fly the aircraft, just no pictures.Can you post your config file if you had to modify it?

Each FSX aircraft's texture folder contains a 256x128 jpeg image named thumbnail.jpg. For older aircraft you have to make your own thumbnail.jpg image.Oh, and a note about the Manufacturer/Publisher/Aircraft Type entries, trying to use them for sorting isn't very intuitive. Changing aircraft type (AKA role) will reset the other two, changing publisher won't affect the other two, and changing manufacturer will reset publisher. So it's right, left, middle for priority order. So to get a similar sorting system to what we have in FS9 we'd have to do it this way:Use ui_typerole for manufacturer, use ui_manufacturer for model, and use ui_createdby for a specific repaint.So what was:ui_manufacturer=De Havillandui_type=DHC-2 Beaver MKI (Amphib)ui_variation=Nightwolf Air ServiceWould become:ui_typerole=De Havillandui_manufacturer=DHC-2 Beaver MKI (Amphib)ui_createdby=Nightwolf Air ServiceI think I like the old way better."Let me help you out. You're cleared to taxi any way you can to any runway you see."

"I'm not looking forward to spending a couple days editing aircraft.cfg files to fix what I see as a step backwards. (No to mention taking hundreds of screenshots for preview pics.) FS9 had a nice, logical, sorting system. The preview pic thing is a neat idea, but I wish they'd kept the FS9 sorting options, or let you choose a repaint on the Details screen."I find the new options awkward too. But my advice is to consider the reworking as a labor of love. You don't need to bring everything over at once. Do one or two at a time and get them tested out good. This is after all a hobby and you have to look on it as something fun to do.The payware planes will come out with FSX specific versions and those will undoubtedly include a thumbnail... that probably applies to many freeware ones as well.http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/154756.jpgI made 21 thumbnails and I think it took me about 40... maybe 45 minutes. :)(I made them all off of the FSX "details" screen.)