FSWidgets

Hi Gary, As KingGhidorah correctly mentions above, the SimConnect.XML file is not present by default. It will only be put there by addons that use SimConnect for networking purposes (or manually, for example using the TweakFS XML Toolbox). All the best,

Bryan, I am in a state of shock after reading the news, so sorry to hear about Maik. I also didn't know him personally but as with anyone who is part of the small, tight-knit FS community it certainly brings the reality of these events home (and it's been a bad year for aviation). My hometown also lost some, the two Aussies on board were from nearby. Sincere condolences to you and the family on the loss of your friend.

Next weekend FSWidgets will reach somewhat of a milestone - 10 years of developing flight simulation products! To celebrate this date the FSWidgets Sale of the Decade will be held on the weekend of the 2nd and 3rd of August 2014, for just 48 hours. We will take a massive 50% off across the board on all products, many of which are exclusive to our site and iOS apps distributed via iTunes are also included. We would like to express our appreciation for the magnificent support and encouragement we have received over the last decade! We look forward to the next 10 years developing more innovative products and continuing to bring further enjoyment to flight simulation enthusiasts.

So true, and even though many of the real-world apps have disclaimers about not using it as a primary means of navigation, that sobering thought alone means you have to dedicate yourself solely to that one product, that and hire a phalanx of software engineers.

Yes we have thought about it, but there are serious implications in taking that step (aside from technical, that's the easy part). The day we do we will have to dedicate ourselves only to one or two apps (not the 15 we have now). The level of attention to detail and the update schedule required for the data means you can really only focus on one or two products if you are to do them justice. As you mention above, for real-world pilots something like Foreflight or in our case OzRunways is a very small outlay, less than an hour in a Warrior. I spent a small fortune on maps and manuals when getting my PPL, if only iPad had been around then!

Hey no sweat, we're all entitled to use colorful hyperbole every now and then. Thanks for your support though, much appreciated.

Hi Charles, Thanks for having purchased GMapHD for Android in the past, I hope you can still get some use out of it. I also have Naviator and I agree with you, a real-world aviation navigation app will blow its dedicated FS equivalent out of the water almost every time. And there is a reason for it: the sheer volume of the sales in real aviation which are not possible in the FS market. Check out how many current installations he has (50,000-100,000). If most of those have paid at least the minimum $15 to unlock the basic app, and you add that to the fully paid up subscription customer, you get a very serious ongoing revenue stream (potentially millions over the life of the product). So yes, you can invest very heavily in developing advanced (read expensive) features. The integration into FSX/P3D is actually the smallest part of it but it makes perfect sense for them to do it (we have also been asked to help other companies add this capability). I hope one day our FS world enjoys that level of support.

I have a 27" iMac (2010 model) with an i7 chip but only 512 MB of RAM. I think you'll be delighted with how it performs.

I can confirm what Jim is saying is correct, the ZIP files and the EXE files are the same size. Extract one, compare and see what I mean. The MSE folk are basically using the ZIP file as a "container" for downloading purposes because many browsers and Anti-viruses balk at downloading EXE files from the net (for good reason). The compression of the scenery files is actually already present in the installer so there is no real advantage in keeping the ZIP files, in fact it may slow things down next time you have to install any MSE areas because the MSE Install Manager will have to unpack the ZIP files first. That is why in their brief for the MSE Install Manager development they directed us to keep only the EXE files. And of course, once you install a MSE area there is no need to keep the EXE files or the Install Manager on the same drive as the simulator, you can safely move them to an eternal drive and run them from there if a reinstall is required. Hope that clears it up somewhat.

Hi guys, it's nice to be missed, and we appreciate all your kind comments and confidence. Since more than 24 hours ago now our new server came online and all apps should now be loading the mapping engine properly, see our main FSWidgets landing page for details. What you say jtwhite in your second point is very true, and it just shows no one is bullet-proof, as even AVSIM itself can attest to.

Since more than 24 hours ago now our new server came online and all apps should now be loading the mapping engine properly, see our main FSWidgets landing page for details.

Hi guys, thanks for alerting us. I can confirm we had a problem on our server overnight our time (AU - UTC+10). It's actually a PHP issue so it affects our online store and our app support, most of which runs on PHP/MySQL. We are working with our data center providers in Irvine (CA, USA) to sort it out ASAP.

Sorry, I probably should have said the MegaSceneryEarth site instead of PCAviator (Robert owns both) where the support is more direct for the MSE product.

Hi FP, Actually, I did notice someone else mention this in the comments on the news release (AVSIM front page). The Install Manager only runs the installers, it doesn't actualy perform the installation itself and from what you are saying I gather you get the same result if you run the installers manually. You may want to report this to Robert at PCAviator in case there is some collective experience he can draw on to resolve this, or they may have to issue new installers because the setup EXE files should create the scenery library entries for you automatically.

No worries Jim, glad I was able to save you the hassle of having to rezip everything.