Pete Dowson

Sending increment/decrement controls? The encoder must be clicking on and off fast enough to send batches of controls, then. Each such control with do one inc and one dec, but if the arrive closer than about 400 mSecs apart FS's acceleration kicks in. Try it with a mouse -- hold the mouse on the + or - spots on the radio. Try the same with the +/- keys on the keyboard. Do the encoders click? Does one click equate to an on-off or and off-on, or does it do on-off-on or off-on-off? You may want to only program the "press" not both "press" and "release". Trurning it one click should give you one inc or one dec. For really smooth results, if you have local displays in your hardware, you really need to ignore the FS display entirely, turn to set the local hardware, then write the FS value directly when the local one hasn't changed for, say, half a second. Of course this pre-supposes you are programming your own hardware and linking to FSUIPC. Most of the professionally sold radio stacks would work this way. Otherwise, with no program to control this you have to turn the knobs fast to get close to where you want to be, then slow, single clicks, to set exactly. The same applies to all of the MCP values too of course. And what does that mean? What are you trying to do there? If I understood what you were doing maybe I could spot something? You appear to be making the operation of button 23 on joystick 22 conditional on button 22 on joystick 0. How do you get to joystick number 22? You also appear to want a different control sent when the button is released compared to when it is pressed. If this is true then your rotaries must behave completely differently to those that I've used. The ones I know about give "on-off-on-off-on-off ..." on one line turned clockwise, with a click for each change, and the same on another line (different button number) when turned anti-clockwise. I think you'll need to explain exactly how your rotaries work before we can go much further. Probably because there's no joystick number 22? I'm not sure where computer literacy comes into it. It's only all about joystick numbers, button numbers and control numbers, all of which are either known or easily found in tables. Regards, Pete

3.40 is well out of date and is not supported. Please update. The current user release is 3.48. Did you check the documentation, or -- look at the second of the pix you included. See the line there that says "These facilities only relate to global weather and clouds set by external programs"? There's no way FSUIPC can come between FS and its weather excepting for some small areas, like global weather (no use in FS2004 -- ok in FS2000 and FS2002) and some visibility and wind interceptions. You may want to consider using an external weather program. Regards, Pete

Download the FSUIPC SDK from http://www.schiratti.com/dowson. everything you need is in there. You will also need a user registered FSUIPC. Regards, Pete

What's the problem? I can't help in a vacuum. What don't you understand? What have you tried? Why do you want to use compound conditions? Surely if you are building a full panel you have rotary encoders for each radio, so normal direct programming should be fine. Pete

None of that makes any difference to the visibility. The application registration is just ignored once you register FSUIPC. Also, you only need to register FSUIPC once -- deleting the FSUIPC.KEY file is competely unnecessary, as is "reinstalling FSUIPC from scratch". The only file affecting how the options are set is the FSUIPC.INI file. So, are you certain you are not simply misunderstanding what the Metar visibility means in terms of actual visibility (bearing in mind what I said?). Unfortunately, you've given no examples of discrepancies, nor have you actually said how you are measuring the visibility in FS, so it is really impossible for me to help further at present. Let me know. Regards Pete

Well, I don't really understand what the problem was in the first place, but I presume your proposal would depend on the programming of Mr. Praxmarer. I'm afraid I don't know the capabilities and restrictions of your switch interface control program -- it seems to have some odd restrictions (like only being able to have one reference to any offset or bit?) I wonder why there's such a restriction. It must make a lot of things difficult. Wouldn't it be better, for the longer term, to get the author of that program to make the change, instead? Regards, Pete

But you said "ive even tried registering fsuipc and this did not help". With an unregistered FSUIPC install you don't get to set any visbility options in FSUIPC. So, you've set some visibility options which prevent the values FSMetar wants to set from activating. For example, you may have the minimum set to something quite large -- default for minimum visbility is 0 (i.e. very very thick fog!). If you go to the visibility options in FSUIPC (in your registered FSUIPC) you can check all this. Or just press the "default weather" button on the front page. Two things make no sense there. First, if you've registered FSUIPc you don't ever need to register any applications at all. It will make no difference. Second, this contradicts what you said above -- that when you removed the FSUIPC.INI file it was okay, then not again when you put the old one back. Here you say that it still occurs with no previous FSUIPC.INI file (i.e. just default options). All that is happening if you delete the FSUIPC.INI file, or take it out of the Modules folder, is that FSUIPC starts with defaults for everything and makes an INI file accordingly. You can compare that with your one to see what options you've changed. No. FSUIPC never changes any files outside its little set -- FSUIPC.INI, FSUIPC.LOG, FSUIPC.KEY. ActiveSky and FSMeteo set local weather too, and it is visible, but they do smooth the transitions a little. Well, I was asking where IN FS you were reading the visibility. you don't say. Also I suggested trying WeatherSet2 to read all the weather. Anyway, I think perhaps you are misunderstanding something fundamental. A METAR which states "10SM" (in the USA) or "9999" in Europe mean, respectively, "10 miles or more" or "10 kms or more". They do NOT mean the visibility is dead on 10 miles or 10 kms. If FSUIPC was to take that literally, you'd never get more than 10 miles no matter what -- excepting those few WX stations which are not automated and have human estimates for vis (in which case more than 10SM can be reported). This is all explained in the deocumentation. The option which does it is "Extend max METAR vis", and most weather programs enable it by defalut even if you don't. Regards, Pete

What does "control mode" mean? What doesn't? The bits don't change or SA_WXR doesn't see the change? Try using FSUIPC's logging, or even the real-time on-screen Monitoring -- with the latter you can display the value in 6D02 on the FS screen and see if it does actually change when you press your switches or buttons. No. The offsets are actually in FSUIPC and any client connected will see any changes made by anything on the FS PC or any client. That's the whole point really. I doubt it. Bit 7's value is 128 not 64. Bits are counted from 0 normally. Does it stay in control mode from then on? When you change the other bits are you "OR'ind" them in and "AND'ing them out? If you are simply writing a fixed number you'd lost bit 7, so you may need to add 128 first. Only the other two can answer this last bit I'm afraid. I don't know what they have implemented. Regards, Pete

Sounds like it could be some video card problem. Have you tried setting different visibilities in FS's dialogues? Otherwise maybe it's an FSMetar problem? Try enabling FSUIPC's weather logging (Logging page, left hand side). Then run FSMetar and see what visibility it should be setting, then check the FSUIPC.LOG file, see what is actually happening. Please give specific examples if you need to come back. Especially, how you are determining the visibility in FS (i.e. are you measuring it by seeing how far you can see, or looking it up someplace?) There's a little utility in with FSUIPC called WeatherSet2. Use that to display the settings, at the aircraft and/or at different ICAO Wx stations. You can also set the weather directly, at any ICAO station, from there. I don't know FSMetar at all by the way. Does it set different weather at each Wx station (like FSMeteo and ActiveSky) or only try to set one global weather. The latter method worked well in FS2002 and FS2000 but isn't so good in FS2004. Regards, Pete

I received a message from "darty", sent privately by mistake. Here's the reply: Sorry, Michel, but you really MUST have opened a wrong ZIP -- that message only exists in FSUIPC versions earlier than 3.40, i.e. before FSUIPC was adapted to work properly with version 9.1 of FS2004. It sounds like you have a few old files there and are using the wrong one. Regards, Pete

Inside the FSUIPC Zip package there's a document called "FSUIPC for Advanced Users". See the section entitled "Programs: facilities to load and run additional programs". There's also a utility written by Jose Oliveira called RunOptions or similar, available on the Schiratti 'Dowson' page which helps. Regards, Pete

Sorry, no. You need to contact SimKits. Regards, Pete

Yes, I think so. I don't use it myself so I've not tested it, but there's some stuff in the WideFS documentation about how to do it from another user. Did you check? No, the discount is only to encourage folks to buy both together. Less work for the sellers. Sorry. But you can read the docs before deciding! ;-) Regards, Pete

Great! Thanks for letting me know. Regards, Pete

Great! Well done! Pete

Ah .. probably quite difficult then, as you have less control. Okay. But you do realise that the starter has to be held on, don't you? In some aircraft this is done magnetically, but in FS it's held with the mouse or, by keypress, the repetitions whilst you hold the button down. You could check the Engine selection by moving the throttle (eg numkeys 9/3) and see which engine throttle moves. A possible problem is interference between the E and thr number from the panel you are using. Try a default panel. If all else fails, you can construct an FSUIPC control which selects the engine by writing to an offset. But let's leave that until it is needed. Another alternative is to program the keypresses to set/clear FSUIPC flags and use these (editing) in conditionals for the starter switch. Unless you use them conditionally with conditions set by the selector. The generic start is something like J then +/= repretiviely, for a jet, or M and similar for a prop, isn't it? I have really forgotten most about keyboard assignments, but try them on a real keyboard, then you'll know. Regards, Pete

Thanks for coming in here. Tell me, is what you've said any different from what you do if you only have one PC and want to run it on the FS PC? That was what was confusing me about the questions -- why would it be any different? Regards, Pete

Sorry, that had nothing to do with anything else and the word "subtle" doesn't have any meaning in connection with it. It was just good advice, which I thought you wanted. You are asking me questions which I really either cannot answer or have no business answering, especially as I would be biassed towards my own flight interests (737NG). If you want to know what gauges and aircraft and other programs are available for FS you need to browse, take a look. For example, if you want to know more about PM go to the PM site. And so on. This is not "technical" advice, it is surely common sense? It was in no way meant to be offensive as you seem to have completely misread it. I do try to support my own programs to the best of my ability, and I really cannot support and sell other people's or advise on their use to a wide variety of different interests. You know what interests you, please go and take a look at what is available. I am always here to help with FSUIPC or WideFS or other of my programs, should you need such. Please just ask. But I honestly cannot tell you much about programs I don't use and often haven't even seen. Sorry. If you have general questions and just need advise about where to go, what to look at, the FS2004 Forum near here would probably be the most appropriate in the first instance. Regards, Pete

Surely, since the whole point of WideFs is to allow programs which interface to FSUIPC to run on another PC, you do exactly as the tutorial says but on the WideFS client PC instead of on the FS PC? You must surely put it on the PC on which you want to run it? That is the point of having the program, so you can run it on the PC of your choice. There's no point putting it on the FS PC if you want to run it on the client PC. As for IP addresses, why should any of that be any different? I don't understand why the Google linking and so on is changing simply because you install programs on PC2 instead of PC1. I don't know, I haven't a clue what this question means I'm afraid. What is different about having it on PC2 instead of PC1 which gives rise to these questions? I think you need to ask questions about MyGoogleEarth of the MyGoogleEarth author, please. I really don't know how to answer -- should I reproduce MyGoogleEarth's long website instructions here? No, of course not. But what else? I don't understand what you are seeing different about installing it and setting it up on a different PC. Just pretend your client PC has FS installed in it and do the same as if it was. I'm at a loss. Sorry. He doesn't support his programs? Not even on his website? Really, if I knew anything about all this I would maybe be able to be more excplicit, but I am not the author, I tried it but once, a few weeks ago. I don't actually get time to play with such niceties so I don't learn that much about them. But his instructions did seem to be clear enough. I am not sure how I help. Regards, Pete

Sorry, I was simply illustrating that I didn't know what you were asking. Yes. FS is only running on PC1. Though I wouldn't use the Baron with the Boeing Glass Cockpit set of PM modules I have. I think they do a GA system based on a Garmin glass display which may suit the Baron. I only fly a 737-700 on my 6-screen setup and I am not an expert on all that PM provides. Yes, of course. That's what they are for -- though I don't think you'd get a good looking result for a Prop on jet aircraft instruments or vice versa. It works the other way too of course -- the PM's MCP/Autopilot and FMS can control the aircraft -- given matching PM and FS aircraft settings. All this sort of information is really best obtained from Project Magenta. You can check their entire range of products. I am only using the Boeing stuff. Well, I'm afraid your sarcasm does you no credit and has no place in intelligent discussions. I thought it was obvious that it was your original question which was not answerable without further questions that I was illustrating. Please do go and do some investigations, explore things that interest you THEN come back for technical assistance as and when you actually need it. I am not a sales executive for PM or any other programs, I can simply explain that WideFS links programs NOT part of FS to FS via FSUIPC. That is its function, which I am sure I have explained in completely non-technical terms many times in this forum, to you as well I think (in another thread). I suggest we stop this thread now and I let you go some research elsewhere. Okay? Regards, Pete

Of course it is. "Question about WideFS and multiple screens". I didn't know which thread you were in here -- that's the reason I don't like Private Messages for non-private one-off things, there's no threading there. You broke this thread unfortunately. Pete

This is in answer to a message sent privately by mistake: How do you mean? Just plug the monitors into the Parhelia card and switch on. I don't know what you mean else? I three 18" TFTs on a shelf about 3 15" TFTs. The upper ones are showing only the outside view from FS as one 3840 x 1024 screen. The lower ones are the instrumentation. Project Magenta Boeing glass cockpit -- Pilot PFD/ND -- EICAS -- Copilot ND/PFD. There are no outside views connected by WideFS because all the outside views are on one PC, the only one running FS! WideFS has nothing whatsoever to do with views. If you want multiple outside views on different PCs you need WidevieW. If is a different program entirely, not mine. Regards, Pete

I don't understand. Are you writing a program to interface to FSUIPC, or is this all keyboard stuff direct into FS (or FSUIPC's "Keys" options) without FSUIPC's programming interface being involved? It makes quite a bit of difference. Programming you would simply test your engine select switch position and then use the appropriate engine offsets in FSUIPC to start the selected engine. If this is all just keyboard codes, then you probably don't need FSUIPC anyway. Just make the engine selector send the engine select sequence (E then 1, 2, 3 or 4), and your starter the normal generic starter operation. Sorry if I misunderstand the problem but you don't give enough information for a definitive answer. Regards, Pete

Sorry, I only know as much as you can read about the GoogleEarth link. What sort of tutorial do you want? The documentation by the author seems excellent and I'm sure he'll answer questions if you have any. If you mean WideFS tutorial, it is unnecessary. Don't use any IP addresses, just put the ServerName into WideClient.INI, as per documentation. If you download the Beta WideFs from this Forum you don't even need to do that providing both PCs are running Win XP. It sorts it automatically. Pete