Pete Dowson

Yes. It looks like I will most definitely need to go "payware". As from 1st May I have no other income, at least not till I arrange a pension. The voluntary donations were fine for the first two weeks, but all through April they've been a mere trickle. I've had good contributions from many of the more famous shareware makers, have no fear. Commercial setups with boxed products are more difficult, they need contracts, agreements, purchase orders, invoices. I will have to come to an agreement with each one individually (a real pain for someone who only wants to get on and program ). You wouldn't expect box shifting companies to make "voluntary" contributions, they've no mechanism for that, no way of budgeting for it except in advance, no accounting mechanism. And the royalties that the authors get are really relative peanuts -- it's normally the retailer that makes the money. Thanks! :D See above. The bigger the company the more difficult to do anything with. How do you think they get so big? Of course they know, and they are very friendly and (when they get time, which isn't so often, unfortunately) very helpful. But they are just a small team of programmers and designers in a huge company, and have no control over anything to do with money! Thanks very much, it is appreciated. I am pressing on. But I can see no alternative but to go commercial, probably with effect from the FS9 versions. I have a record of all contributions made under the voluntary scheme (with so few it is relatively easy to keep a small database ), so credit can be allowed on request when the time comes. Regards, Pete

Yes. It looks like I will most definitely need to go "payware". As from 1st May I have no other income, at least not till I arrange a pension. The voluntary donations were fine for the first two weeks, but all through April they've been a mere trickle. I've had good contributions from many of the more famous shareware makers, have no fear. Commercial setups with boxed products are more difficult, they need contracts, agreements, purchase orders, invoices. I will have to come to an agreement with each one individually (a real pain for someone who only wants to get on and program ). You wouldn't expect box shifting companies to make "voluntary" contributions, they've no mechanism for that, no way of budgeting for it except in advance, no accounting mechanism. And the royalties that the authors get are really relative peanuts -- it's normally the retailer that makes the money. Thanks! :D See above. The bigger the company the more difficult to do anything with. How do you think they get so big? Of course they know, and they are very friendly and (when they get time, which isn't so often, unfortunately) very helpful. But they are just a small team of programmers and designers in a huge company, and have no control over anything to do with money! Thanks very much, it is appreciated. I am pressing on. But I can see no alternative but to go commercial, probably with effect from the FS9 versions. I have a record of all contributions made under the voluntary scheme (with so few it is relatively easy to keep a small database ), so credit can be allowed on request when the time comes. Regards, Pete

Being naturally curious, I had a quick look this morning to see why FStarRC didn't work on XP. I found and fixed the problem. It was relatively trivial after all. Please look out for FStarRC version 1.83, being released as I type this. Should be on the Schiratti site withon hours, with luck! Regards, Pete

Being naturally curious, I had a quick look this morning to see why FStarRC didn't work on XP. I found and fixed the problem. It was relatively trivial after all. Please look out for FStarRC version 1.83, being released as I type this. Should be on the Schiratti site withon hours, with luck! Regards, Pete

Ah .. I owe you, and Herve, an apology. I was getting mixed up. As I stated in the documentation, in the History part describing the change to 1.82, I got it working on Windows 2000, and said there that I hoped it would be fine in WinXP (XP being basically Windows NT 5.1 whereas 2000 was NT 5.0, right? How much difference could there be?). Well, since doing that and testing it on Windows 2000, I updated that PC to Windows XP. And guess what? FStarRC 1.82 doesn't work on XP. :-( Sorry. I'll try and look for a solution to this when I can, but it's going to have to wait a few months. I simply must concentrate on getting my stuff sorted out for FS9. Please remind me again in September or so. Apologies for getting your hopes up. If you can dual boot with Win98 then I'd suggest doing that. I actually have this PC with both WinXP Pro and Win2000 Pro on it, and another PC with just Win98. Regards, Pete

Ah .. I owe you, and Herve, an apology. I was getting mixed up. As I stated in the documentation, in the History part describing the change to 1.82, I got it working on Windows 2000, and said there that I hoped it would be fine in WinXP (XP being basically Windows NT 5.1 whereas 2000 was NT 5.0, right? How much difference could there be?). Well, since doing that and testing it on Windows 2000, I updated that PC to Windows XP. And guess what? FStarRC 1.82 doesn't work on XP. :-( Sorry. I'll try and look for a solution to this when I can, but it's going to have to wait a few months. I simply must concentrate on getting my stuff sorted out for FS9. Please remind me again in September or so. Apologies for getting your hopes up. If you can dual boot with Win98 then I'd suggest doing that. I actually have this PC with both WinXP Pro and Win2000 Pro on it, and another PC with just Win98. Regards, Pete

Yes, it works fine through WideFS. There's no setting up to do. I just click on a WideClient shortcut, and the Wideclient.ini is set to load FSMeteo (and, as it happens, Radar Contact 3 and TrafficBoard as well -- I run all through on one of my networked PCs). Of course you need an Internet connection on that PC for FSMeteo to download the weather. In fact that's the main reason I don't like running FSMeteo on the main FS PC -- I'd rather keep that one free of such encumbrances. Pete

Yes, it works fine through WideFS. There's no setting up to do. I just click on a WideClient shortcut, and the Wideclient.ini is set to load FSMeteo (and, as it happens, Radar Contact 3 and TrafficBoard as well -- I run all through on one of my networked PCs). Of course you need an Internet connection on that PC for FSMeteo to download the weather. In fact that's the main reason I don't like running FSMeteo on the main FS PC -- I'd rather keep that one free of such encumbrances. Pete

Sorry, not really. I guess I'd have to take some time at it and think it through. I'm really deep into other things at present. It doesn't look too hard to test as a theory anyway, without committing yourself? Let me know what you find. Regards, Pete

Sorry, not really. I guess I'd have to take some time at it and think it through. I'm really deep into other things at present. It doesn't look too hard to test as a theory anyway, without committing yourself? Let me know what you find. Regards, Pete

It's not on any list yet, and I'm not making one yet. Too busy trying to sort things out for FS9. Please ask me again around Christmas time and it'll go on the list for next year. Pete

It's not on any list yet, and I'm not making one yet. Too busy trying to sort things out for FS9. Please ask me again around Christmas time and it'll go on the list for next year. Pete

There's nothing I've changed thenyou need to work out what you've changed. Maybe a rogue sound file? A problem with the sound driver? To get more information -- a DrWatson -- please follow the directions in the FSUIPC User Guide (under the heading "If FS crashes ..."). If you are using Win98SE this will give a helpful file. Unfortunately if you are using XP it is pretty useless. Hmmmso something else you changed has done the trick. You need to cast your mind back to what happened between it working and it not working. I'm sorry, I do not develop nor support Esound any more. If I can help I will, but you need to work out what the problem is I'm afraid. The clue will be what happened to make it change. (Maybe Esound itself got corrupted? Did you reinstall from the original Zip or download it again to check?). Pete

There's nothing I've changed thenyou need to work out what you've changed. Maybe a rogue sound file? A problem with the sound driver? To get more information -- a DrWatson -- please follow the directions in the FSUIPC User Guide (under the heading "If FS crashes ..."). If you are using Win98SE this will give a helpful file. Unfortunately if you are using XP it is pretty useless. Hmmmso something else you changed has done the trick. You need to cast your mind back to what happened between it working and it not working. I'm sorry, I do not develop nor support Esound any more. If I can help I will, but you need to work out what the problem is I'm afraid. The clue will be what happened to make it change. (Maybe Esound itself got corrupted? Did you reinstall from the original Zip or download it again to check?). Pete

I use FliteMap by Jeppesen, linked to FS by my GPSout on a serial cable. This is a realy professional solution, but it is expensive. There's a program called Nav3 by Ted Wright which I used to use. Maybe it is Nav4 or something later by now. Nav3 dates back to FS98 at least. There are programs like FlightMax, which had a "FlightMax Remote" part which would work on WideFS, but I understand that the website is now closed. Maybe a search for FSutilities would get results? If you are dead set on FS Navigator, the best solution is to add a second monitor to your main FS PC and move its screen there. Most modern video cards support two monitors (two VGA or a DVI and a VGA), or you could get a cheap PCI card for the second monitor. There are quite a few folks who've adoped this solution. Pete

I use FliteMap by Jeppesen, linked to FS by my GPSout on a serial cable. This is a realy professional solution, but it is expensive. There's a program called Nav3 by Ted Wright which I used to use. Maybe it is Nav4 or something later by now. Nav3 dates back to FS98 at least. There are programs like FlightMax, which had a "FlightMax Remote" part which would work on WideFS, but I understand that the website is now closed. Maybe a search for FSutilities would get results? If you are dead set on FS Navigator, the best solution is to add a second monitor to your main FS PC and move its screen there. Most modern video cards support two monitors (two VGA or a DVI and a VGA), or you could get a cheap PCI card for the second monitor. There are quite a few folks who've adoped this solution. Pete

Yes, it shows that FStarRC is not able to hook into the printing routines on your system. Are you using Win2000 or NT? I don't think it will work on those. I only just narrowly managed to make it work on XP -- but maybe you have to be the Administrator. The techniques it uses are probably not allowed otherwise. They are the same techniques used for debugging programs and hacking into others, so I think an ordinary XP user might be prevented from doing this. No don't bother. It is not getting anywhere close to even looking at that. If it cannot hook the routines it can do nothing. Of course, because it is not able to hook into it. The only reason I would have wanted to look at the output was if the format of the printing had changed between the version of FliteStar I am using and the one you have. As I said, the method is very sensitive in this regard. If you can get it working by running on Win98/Me or by using XP as administrator, let me know how please. I've never actually logged into XP as anything but me, so I'm not aware of what's involved. Maybe I need to adjust the FStarRC documentation. Pete

Yes, it shows that FStarRC is not able to hook into the printing routines on your system. Are you using Win2000 or NT? I don't think it will work on those. I only just narrowly managed to make it work on XP -- but maybe you have to be the Administrator. The techniques it uses are probably not allowed otherwise. They are the same techniques used for debugging programs and hacking into others, so I think an ordinary XP user might be prevented from doing this. No don't bother. It is not getting anywhere close to even looking at that. If it cannot hook the routines it can do nothing. Of course, because it is not able to hook into it. The only reason I would have wanted to look at the output was if the format of the printing had changed between the version of FliteStar I am using and the one you have. As I said, the method is very sensitive in this regard. If you can get it working by running on Win98/Me or by using XP as administrator, let me know how please. I've never actually logged into XP as anything but me, so I'm not aware of what's involved. Maybe I need to adjust the FStarRC documentation. Pete

If the makers of these panels have not provided any keyboard shortcuts or other controls, and don't support the standard FS controls for these aspects, then you cannot, I'm afraid, except possible with something like Luciano Napolitano's "Key2Mouse" which allows you to convert keypresses to programmed mouse clicks. Because PM provides a means of doing this. In fact it provides TWO methods -- keyboard shortcuts, and a more direct method via FSUIPC offsets -- both of which are clearly published. Regards, Pete

If the makers of these panels have not provided any keyboard shortcuts or other controls, and don't support the standard FS controls for these aspects, then you cannot, I'm afraid, except possible with something like Luciano Napolitano's "Key2Mouse" which allows you to convert keypresses to programmed mouse clicks. Because PM provides a means of doing this. In fact it provides TWO methods -- keyboard shortcuts, and a more direct method via FSUIPC offsets -- both of which are clearly published. Regards, Pete

I'm sorry, but I can't get my head around this one. Where are you getting the extra lever movement for reverse from, or do you just want it to go immediately from idle to full reverse? Wouldn't two levers in series do the job, with some sort of mechanical method of stopping the reverse lever moving back before the main lever was at idle? I'm not saying your idea won't work, but I don't know how at present. Maybe you need to conduct an experiment? Pete

I'm sorry, but I can't get my head around this one. Where are you getting the extra lever movement for reverse from, or do you just want it to go immediately from idle to full reverse? Wouldn't two levers in series do the job, with some sort of mechanical method of stopping the reverse lever moving back before the main lever was at idle? I'm not saying your idea won't work, but I don't know how at present. Maybe you need to conduct an experiment? Pete

The version of FliteStar (actually FliteMap) I have was purported to be 8.51 (the update was received only a few weeks ago), but the Help-About details say it is "Version 8.5 (Build 5204)". FStarRC 1.82 is working fine with it both under Win98SE and (for the first time) in Windows XP. Please check your Help-About details and let me know. I know of at least two other users who are using 8.51 + FStarRC 1.82 with no problems -- the only problem previously reported turned out to be due to wrong/different options chosen for the Nav Log. Unfortunately, FStarRC is very fussy about this -- the only way I could get at the data was to intercept the printing commands to Windows and recognise data according to context, page position, and also bycounting fields to some extent. There's some flexibility in format allowed, but not a lot. Check my previous reply here and see if the Nav Log options are set like mine. If still no joy, set "Log=Debug" in the INI file and do a short FliteStar session (print the Nav Log of an existing plan). Zip up the resulting Log file (it will be quite big), along with your INI file, and send it to me. Also please FAX the resulting printed Nav Log to +44 1782 379017. Please don't scan it and send it as an image. I'm only on dial-up and such files are far too big! Regards, Pete

The version of FliteStar (actually FliteMap) I have was purported to be 8.51 (the update was received only a few weeks ago), but the Help-About details say it is "Version 8.5 (Build 5204)". FStarRC 1.82 is working fine with it both under Win98SE and (for the first time) in Windows XP. Please check your Help-About details and let me know. I know of at least two other users who are using 8.51 + FStarRC 1.82 with no problems -- the only problem previously reported turned out to be due to wrong/different options chosen for the Nav Log. Unfortunately, FStarRC is very fussy about this -- the only way I could get at the data was to intercept the printing commands to Windows and recognise data according to context, page position, and also bycounting fields to some extent. There's some flexibility in format allowed, but not a lot. Check my previous reply here and see if the Nav Log options are set like mine. If still no joy, set "Log=Debug" in the INI file and do a short FliteStar session (print the Nav Log of an existing plan). Zip up the resulting Log file (it will be quite big), along with your INI file, and send it to me. Also please FAX the resulting printed Nav Log to +44 1782 379017. Please don't scan it and send it as an image. I'm only on dial-up and such files are far too big! Regards, Pete

Okay, so far so good. Hmmm --- this IS the Navigation Log selected by the "Reports" isn't it? Can you make a note of what report options you've got set -- with the Navigation Log displayed on screen, right click. In the menu which items are ticked? Then click on 'Optional Blocks'. Which items are ticked there? There may be some dependency on the formatting. I've not heard from anyone else with a problem, but just in case, try setting the same options as I have -- select "Expanded Log" and "Medium" in the first right-click menu, and the ALL of the optional blocks (not "Hide All"). If still no joy please send me your FStarRC ini file. In the worst case I shall ask you to edit it to turn on a Logging facility. Pete