Pete Dowson

Good. Thanks for letting me know! Regards, Pete

That's why it's best to cut-and-paste. Don't forget to make a safe copy of the details (e.g. the FSUIPC.KEY file out of the FS Modules folder) somewhere AWAY from the PC. Hard disks do crash. Never trust information to be really safe in a PC. Regards, Pete

See "READ THIS IF YOU LOSE YOUR FSUIPC or WIDEFS keys" near the top of the forum. Pete

Thanks .. maybe I didn't eliminate that duplicate after all. There were several in the CONTROLs.DLL list. Maybe I missed one. Pete

Sorry, can you be more specific on the location? I am looking through it all and I cannot see where your "clear" bit ends and the "geek" bit starts. you say "on the very next page" but I cannot see any clear page demarcation for anything. Can you identify the actual heading, words, or something to help? The "easy" section (i.e. no conditions) defines the format with: = ,,C, and similar. Is this not "Geek"? The start of the section on conditions is a little more abbreviated: n=CP(+j2,b2)j,b, .... n=CU(+j2,b2)j,b, ... n=CP(–j2,b2)j,b, ... n=CU(–j2,b2)j,b, ... but surely the "j" and "b" references here strongly (unambiguously?) suggest the same as the and or your "easy" bit? There is even an explanation just a little later: (+j2,b2) means that button b2 on joystick j2 must be pressed ("on") for the current button action (for j,b) to be obeyed. (–j2,b2) means that button b2 on joystick j2 must be released ("off") for the current button action (for j,b) to be obeyed. The j,b,part is the usual button parameter, for the action of the “current” button which is button b on joystick j. In other words, the meaning of each symbol used is defined, just as it was in the earlier part. Please tell me why one is "clear English" and the other is "Geek". Agreed, the business of using conditionals is going to be more complex than simple definitions of "button X means do Y", but surely you must expect that? This stuff has been like this for years and I've really not had such adverse comments as your in all that time. Folks who don't understand conditionals apparently don't need to use them (as in fact it turns out you don't). I am left bewildered and confused here. Please help. Regards, Pete

I doubt it, but I don't really know. There are nearly a thousand controls in FS these days and I just haven't had time to try them all and see what they do. I think many are "left over" from previous releases and may or may not still work. And I know that some were added for future use, but that future doesn't seem to have arrived yet. FSUIPC doesn't "invent" the FS controls -- they are from a list in FS's CONTROLS.DLL. The words are obtained from there too. FSUIPC does ADD quite a few of its own -- those are listed in the Advanced User's guide. I can only suggest you assign some and see what they do, if anything. No, I don't think so -- it's an error in the list in CONTROLS.DLL. what version of FSUIPC are you using? I thought I'd eliminated that -- try the latest Beta in the first thread above. Let me know. Regards, Pete

I think it refers to a specific type of encoder (aparently called a "two-phase" type) which, instead of having two separate button outputs, one for each direction, has two outputs which pulse in different phases depending on the direction the knob is turned. I assume these are some sort of cheaper alternatives to all those I have seen. I have never actually had one such in my hands nor is that section authored by myself, but by a contributor who has experience with such devices and worked out how to program them. Please check whether you have "two-phase rotary encoders" or the more common (as far as I can tell) simple twin output digital ones. If the former then you'll need advice from someone else, not only for programming them but also probably for wiring them up. Er. Yes. How did you arrive at that? What would those two button numbers mean on their own, with no joystick number? Why two buttons, what happens to them? The line 1=CP(+1,1)1,2, ... is the same as 1=P1,2, ... but with the condition (+1,1) applying to it and the "C" warning me that the condition is coming. The active button declaration is the same -- how do you read my documentation in another sense, please? I will have to revise that somehow but I need to know how you arrived at such and what you thought it might mena. No, not at all. I expect you to understand complex things if you want to do complex things. Flying an airliner properly is a complex thing too, and folks have to understand a lot. If your rotaries are complex and need complex programming you will need to understand more about how they operate first and then delve into the complexities of programming them. Or else go purchase the simpler ones which have three wires and can be programmed as two buttons, one clockwise and the other anti-clockwise. Having done that, discard the Advanced User's guide for FSUIPC and just program them in the Dialogue on screen. My philosophy in all these things has been simple ways to do simple things, but allow more complication to do complex things. If I don't work that way I'd not get very far -- I'd still be trying to write the user interfaces for obscure stuff from long back. Regards, Pete

GoFlight modules don't use FSUIPC nor vice versa (excepting when you've programmed a GF button in FSUIPC -- but it still doesn't use a GF FS module, only the GFdev.DLL which is elsewhere). If FSUIPC is not set to process the axis, then it doesn't touch it at all. It is not touching it when it says "Set" in the top left button in its section of the options. It has got to be calibration, sensitivity or dead zone. For the latter two go to FS's Options-Controls-Sensitivities. Ensure max sensitivity, and eith no or little null zone. For calibration I have no idea -- Windows I expect, but check GF documentation. Always calibrate the two end positions with the lever OFF the end stops a bit, to ensure it will always reach the extreme values. Regards, Pete

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