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.

Glad to hear you say that because this was the whole point of the utility, for it to act as an invisible pair of hands that performs the entire process with one click. The Install Manager doesn't make any changes to the system or perform any other tasks, it just unzips and runs the user-selected installers/uninstallers sequentially. I don't want to make any promises that someone else has to pay for, but one day it may even download them for you.

Hi Jim, I replied to your comment on this in another post, but will repeat it here in case you missed it. I think there is a bit of confusion about how the MSE Install Manager works so hopefully this will help. Just to clarify, that is the way the MSE Install Manager is designed to run, it extracts the ZIP files and retains the installer EXE files because both the ZIP and the setup EXE are the same size, so there is no space saving if you re-zip the setup files. Keep in mind the ZIP files are merely containers to facilitate downloading without Internet Explorer/Anti-virus software kicking up a fuss when downloading an EXE file. The ZIP files are not compressed, the compression is applied to the installer EXE files so there is no advantage in keeping the MSE installers hidden within a ZIP archive. Please be assured the MSE Optimizer will not make any changes unless you click yes (the only changes made are those listed on the MSE support page where it recommends about 4 scenery settings so its easy to change them back). Also, it does not pop up when folk are on the internet, it may have been a copy that was already running in the background behind the browser window. It is displayed by the last MSE installer in the series of setup files, just the same as if you were running them manually, not by the Install Manager. Hope that clears it up.

Hi Jim, Just to clarify, that is the way the MSE Install Manager is designed to run, it extracts the ZIP files and retains the installer EXE files because both the ZIP and the setup EXE are the same size, so there is no space saving if you re-zip the setup files. Keep in mind the ZIP files are merely containers to facilitate downloading without Internet Explorer/Anti-virus software kicking up a fuss when downloading an EXE file. The ZIP files are not compressed, the compression is applied to the installer EXE files so there is no advantage in keeping the MSE installers hidden within a ZIP archive. Hope that clears it up.

Hi Jeroen, There is a lot of mystique surrounding networking, but it really is very simple in the end. Basically one PC puts its hand up and says "hello, I can be found here at this address" (i.e. the IP address/Port number). The second PC has to be told where that address is and once that is done it the app can go there to connect and get the data. FSX definitely does not need to be installed on the remote PC/Laptop, not for SimConnect based applications. The only thing required is that you run the SimConnect.MSI installer. That installs the SimConnect.DLL into the Windows Side-by-side system. You get that installer from the FSX SDK, its in one of the subfolders: C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\Microsoft Flight Simulator X SDK\SDK\Core Utilities Kit\SimConnect SDK\lib\SimConnect.msi Once you run that on your laptop any SimConnect clients should be able to find the main FSX machine on the same network (as long as they are told where to look in via the SimConnect.CFG file).

Hi Mork & Pville211, glad to hear you are enjoying using GMap as much as we enjoyed making it. Mork to answer your question in a more positive way (i.e. an actual demonstration) disconnect the map in GMap, zoom out a little and drag the map to the KSFO area, then zoom back in and check out the live demo of the Nav Data (select the items from the pop-out menu in the top right corner of the map). You can indeed open and view that info in flight although under some circumstances it may be necessary to disconnect the map momentarily to view the Google Maps info window if the arrival airport is outside the viewable area of the map. Sorry the demo doesn't cover any of the areas MS Flight has scenery for, it was designed that way well before MS Flight came out.

Or what direction they are going. :P Having said that purpose of the plane symbol is to point in the right direction and thanks to all the feedback on this 2.1 beta we should eventually have a fix for the no-HUD scenario.

I can't offer any estimates or predictions (sorry), but the desktop version of GMap for MS Flight is serving as a test bed for MS Flight support which as you know is a challenging proposition. Once we have connectivity to MS Flight working without any major issues we will most likely add MS Flight support to the Network Pack utility (the utility that sends the data to the mobile apps).

Hi Jeroen, To answer your questions: The link in question is the same one you used in your other post (BTW thanks for sharing that info, very helpful). True, it didn't support the magenta line drawing due to an Android WebView limitation, however we are now preparing V3.0 and this will support the magenta lines as we have completely rewritten the mapping engine which uses SVG for rendering lines to get around that limitation. Refreshing you should say that, normally we get questions about how recent they are which is puzzling as they for use in the sim only. The charts are not current (not ancient either) so should align well with the data in FSX and MS Flight. The World Nav Data product is different from the chart data, it refers to the toggable data icons (Airports, VOR's, NDB's, etc.), a demo of which is in every copy of GMap (KSFO area). Hope that answers your queries without sounding too much like I'm spruiking any product. :)

Hi guys, not sure if this helps out with the above, but there is also a global hotkey to Hide/Show GMap: Ctrl+Shift+z

No worries Rob, and you're right about the mixed sources, I would also add "moving" as they often change often. We do have a "Charts Galore" post in our forum but it was compiled a while ago. However to answer your question, once you add the PDF's as described in the Charts section of the manual they are always there and can be updated or added to as required, as you say they are just grouped as sub-folder under the main Charts folder. As for an approach plate product, we don't have one for the EU but the charts are out there, here's the UK AIS site (not sure if all approach plates are listed):http://www.nats-uk.ead-it.com/public/index.php%3Foption=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=195&Itemid=281.htmlAnd it would be remiss of me not to mention the Aussie one :( :http://www.airservicesaustralia.com/publications/current/dap/AeroProcChartsTOC.htm