Anyone want a Panel Maker???...

[Guest]

Are you kidding? You're kidding, right? How can you possibly ask me that?! :-)Holy Panels Batman! A Panel Maker!! Yippee!!! :-jumpyOK. So when will you have it ready? Today. Tomorrow. Hmmmmm? Are we there yet? ...Let's see now. How many more silly quips can I put in here... *:-*Cheers, Tony

[Guest Henri W]

Excellent idea, Matthew. If you get this working you have a big winner. I will be one of many to use such utility.Good luck,Henri

[Guest]

Please Please build it. i will learn how to use it!Thanks a million!I want to beta test the DC10 also, could I?Earl.... "and the greatest of these is Love." I Cor. 13:13

[Guest Roy]

Good idea Matthew.I say go for it.I'm not sure if I'm going to use it, but then again, I didn't think I was going to use TerraModels eighter until I got started with ENGM and now I'm on the home stretch. :()Roy B. :-waveOslo, Norway

[Guest]

I would love to use it! I would like to create aircraft but I am not an artist. I can program the computer but everything looks bad. This program would help many people with the same problems.

[Guest]

With a panel maker I could probably finish the 4-5 aircraft I have made in MAX and get them into FLYhenrik

[Roger Mazengarb 0]

Mathew,What an absolutely brilliant idea! A tool for building a basic panel will do wonders for the future of Fly! II.Would it be possible to fully document just exactly what happens every time you click a mouse so that the user is getting a tutorial at the same time so that eventually the user will get the confidence to branch out on his own as eventually we will want to make full use of Fly! II's capabilities. We have been shown great aircraft models that as yet haven't developed any futher due to lack of a panel. Initially, panels need not be exactly true to life, I can remember flying a Lockheed Constellation (on a souped up cessna panel I think ), and I thought it was great! :-)Go for it Matthew. If you want testers count me in. Cheers,Roger @YSSY

[Guest Josve]

This would mean a lot for all those aircrafts that I know floats around on someones harddrive but not beeinr released in lack of a panel :)So even I could consider doing a panel.....Johnny"I'LL BE BACK"[div align=center]http://www.avsim.com/hangar/fly/josve/fly2/vas.gif][/div

[Guest]

Hi Matthew;If you'll willing to supply developement tools that will enhance Fly II and possibly future updatesversions I for one appalude you. At this time there is so much discussion and sqabbling about which sim is better,that it takes away the fact that Fly II is very much alive and will stay that way with people like you and a number of others that have the talent to enhance what we now have. It doesn't matter which sim is better at this time,the reality is if we have talented people willing to spend the time and effort, those talented individuales will keep improving this great sim,which I believe will only get better as time goes on. For me Fly II will always be on my computer.The Fly II sim community has a lot of dedicated people in it and that also makes a positive difference as to whether this sim will improve or not. I see only positive times ahead,the spirit and dedication are there. Thanks again for your offer to help improve Fly II.

[Guest Fly II Pilot]

Matthew,You know, I've been thinking about this for years but I don't have the necessary programming skills. Wouldn't it be great if it was possible to install avionics just as in real life (GPS, Airspeed Indicator, Altimeter, etc.) and then graphically do the connections and wiring among these systems? One could even use an actual schematic design to do so. Wouldn't this be an educating piece of software?The way I envisioned it is first a panel shape editor in which you input the actual dimensions of the panel(s) (since all instruments. switches and controls are of a given size regardless of which panel they are installed in) and where you can paste an actual picture of the panel, and then just drag and drop the instruments into their respective places.The second part would be the system designer where you do the actual linking of the different systems, the electrical, pneumatic and fuel circuits, etc.Maybe I'm day-dreaming, but all I want to say is that I would love something like that!!!If I can help in any way, just let me know.Regards,Alejandro AmigorenaSyracuse, NYAthlon XP 1800ABIT KR7A-RAID768Mb RAMGeForce 3 64MBSB Audigy GamerCH Flight Yoke USBCH Pro Pedals USB

[Guest]

Hi everyone,First of all, thanks to everyone for the replies! It's really encouraging to see such enthusiam, so I'm going to try and produce a panel maker. :-)Here's what I had in mind:A bunch of tools to convert bitmaps directly into the graphical formats that are required by Fly!II, so there's no messing with raw files and colour tables. A main editor that would enable the graphical placement of gauges and their components created with the above tools, with a visual interface to set the parameters for the gauges. The development work for panels would be saved in a 'panel maker' format, with the editor being able to produce and export the pnl files that Fly!II uses. At current I don't anticipate that the first version would be able to read and edit the current Fly!II TRI panels, as there are too many different types of gauges that the editor wouldn't initially support (different gauges should be added in future updates propbably).... if anyone thinks this would be a major stumbling block let me know.I also think it would be necessary to produce some generic systems, so that users could confidently connect the gauges to these systems and know that they would work.... anyone got any thoughts on this?Thanks once again for the feedback, it's much appreciated! I've tried to go through and answer other questions in this thread individually, but if you want to know anything or have got any ideas just post a message. :-) I'll also get back to you with a list of gauges that I think the editor will initially support.Cheers,Matthew.

[Guest]

Hi Ben,The systems would basically be the Fly!II systems (with maybe a couple of custom subsystems thrown in as well to make a couple of areas easier to deal with), so they'd basically behave as they do at the moment.Matthew.

[Guest]

Hi TV,In order to stretch or enlarge the exisitng panels, you'd have to recreate all the artwork into a larger size. Stuff like the CRTs on the Hawker should be 'stretchable' though, as they are drawn in real time.Cheers,Matthew.

[Guest]

Unfortunately, you'd still have to create all the artwork to 'make it look nice', although, we could build up a library of switched and knobs etc. that other people could re-use. I was actually planning to create sets of needles to go with the editor, which should make things easier.Cheers,Matthew.

[Guest]

Hi Alejandro,We seem to think along the same lines :-)Fly! actually works in the way that you describe. What I would really like to do is not only have a panel editor, but a systems editor to go along side it. I wanted to create a systems editor with an interface rather like simulink (if you've ever seen this), so that people could drag and drop systems and conect them up simply by dragging 'wires' from on system to the next. However, this probably won't materialise, as it would take a long time to programme I would have thought (but never say never!!).Cheers,Matthew.