Pete Dowson

They must be referring to the "Mouse Macro" facility. Read about it in the section by that name in the latest documentation (for FSUIPC 4.40 or 3.85). Pete

Those add-on aircraft which use FSUIPC often have their own offsets which I assign to them on request, but how they then use them is their business. Project Magenta openly publish their offset usage so every user can interface stuff to it. So does FlightDeckSoftware. The FS9 Level-D 767 usage is published in an SDK I think, and Nico Kaan has written interface software for them. The FS9 PMDG range uses FSUIPC offsets but they are kept confidential and you have to negotiate with them for support of specific hardware. I don't think it comes cheap. As for all of the others, some may use FSUIPC, some not. On FSX not many do as they can interface to FS using SimConnect. Of course, most add-on aircraft do not extend the subsystems beyond what FS offers in any case, so for those the existing FSUIPC offsets, and, in fact, the FS and FSUIPC assignable controls, normally do everything you might need. I think you misunderstand. "Mapping" is the job FSUIPC does in relating older (FS98) GLOBALS.DLL internal FS values ("offsets") to the same values in later versions of FS, to provide compatibility for add-ons. That's been added to with more data as FS develops, but there's no way I am going to buy every add-on aircraft there is, and hack into it with disassemblers and debuggers to see if I can ferret out where they keep things and find ways of fiddling them. In fact it isn't feasible nor right for me to do it even for one. For any add-on aircraft you are considering using when building a cockpit you will have to investigate the possibilities specifically for that aircraft, via the makers or their documents. Personally I tend to use only the visual models and air files I like, and have all of the subsystems and controls added by the likes of Project Magenta or FlightDeckSoftware. i.e. No FS panels nor gauges. Regards Pete

Yes, several ways. For up to 4 values you can use the Monitor option, on the right-hand side of the Logging page. That is fully described in the Advanced User's document. You can display it in real-time on screen. For any and all values you can use FSInterrogate2, supplied with full documentation as part of the FSUIPC SDK. Finally, you can use the Lua plug-in facility to monitor values in real time to the screen, save to a file, send over a link, whatever. There are examples of values displayed on screen ("display vals.lua") and recording to a file supplied in the Lua package with FSUIPC. Well the Logging and FSInterrogate options work anyway. The Lua plug-ins, which are extremely useful for trying out ideas as well as making little solutions, need a registered copy. Regards Pete

It's actually on the Saitek support forum, where Steve posted the same question. Check here: http://www.saitekforum.com/showthread.php?t=15568 Regards Pete

Yes, that is what i suggested. WideFS is way over the top in any case for merely communicating button presses. Regards Pete

Okay, thanks. Let's put it behind us. I'd still like to get to the bottom of the problems you've been having, though. They aren't common. As far as I understand, and assuming there's no problems with the actual Saitek driver installation (which is a worry because I have seen it be wrong), the only slightly peculiar thing here compared with the way FSUIPC was designed to handle separate throttles is the fact that you don't want the reverers operating from them. Whilst that shouldn't be a problem, by making one end of the idle zone the same as the Max reverse position, I can see that if this is likely to be a common requirement (which it really hasn't in the past) it might be easier for everyone to either have another complete set of 4 throttles which don't have reverse, or (and probably less work for me) another of those horrible button or checkbox options to set "no reverse zone". I am looking at doing this in the near future. This, however, still doesn't explain the problems you seem to have got into, and I'd like to understand those. Maybe, if you still have the FSUIPC.INI file which is giving you the headache I can take a look. I don't have Saitek gear, but I can certainly try things with your settings on the el cheapo game pad i normally do testing with. Please, ZIP your FSUIPC.INI (assuming it isn't already gone) and send to petedowson@btconnect.com. I'd also apprecate, with it please, a few notes about what you see going wrong with it. Regards Pete

What "clear" button are you talking about? You need to be more explicit. This is plain and utter nonsense. If you have made a mess and don't know what you've done wrong, just delete the FSUIPC.INI file before loading FS and everything will revert to defaults. It isn't necessary, but I cannot help people who won't help themselves by simply asking rather than whining, and moaning about money all the time instead of exchanging technical information for assistance.. You have never asked ANY questions about "clear". Really, you are being grossly unfair. If you read through this forum you will see my support is second to none. It is fast, and to the point You won't get as good anywhere else! You are simply totally unreasonable. you expect answers to questions you never ask, you fail to explain yourself and still expect people to read your mind. I really cannot help you at all if you insist on being so unreasonable. Pete

Well, as for any documentation. To find things out. You might use it to look up the name of an FS control you can't find in the drop-down assignments lists. After all you can search it, which you can't in a windowed list. There's also a list of FSUIPC-added controls provided in the Advanced User's guide for the same reason. Both also give the numerical equivalents so, if you ever want to do any more advanced tinkering with button programming, editing the INI files, you can work out what the funny numbers mean. I've published these lists continuously now since FS98 days. No one has ever actually asked me "why" before. Odd that. Anyway, if you need none of that, or you understand not a word, just ignore the extra documentation. Feel free just to use what you want. You can ignore the Advanced User's guide too, and any parts of the User's Guide which don't interest you. No one is actually twisting your arm! ;-) Regards Pete

Yes, certainly. You can copy it to another computer any way you like. The download in only a ZIP containing the files you need. There's no Internet access used either for installation or whilst it is running. Oh, and you don't need to purchase it first in any case. Download it, copy it, read the instructions, install it. Read the descriptions of the facilities you might want to use. Make sure you really want to buy it. Regards Pete

Oh? You don't pay any money for the Saitek throttle, only for FSUIPC? How do you expect me to write manuals for every piece of hardware out there that folks can connect to FS and maybe calibrate in FSUIPC? I don't even have any such hardware! And, apart from the fact that they have a button on the extreme low point, as far as i can tell from all these discussions, there's absolutely no difference between those axes and any others on any other devices as far as FSUIPC is concerned, therefore the same instructions apply. If there are truly problems with Saitek specifically, it is down to the Saitek drivers or even the hardware. FSUIPC is absolutely non-hardware specific. Someone did once produce a guide for CH stuff (it's up above), mainly because, I think, it gets complicated with CH having their own management software too. I really don't know about Saitek. But if someone were to write such specific help I'd certainly consider making it "sticky" here just like the CH one. Pete

Ouch. The only things i know which can cause a signature problem are: 1. Missing GlobalSign root. Usually happens on Windows 98, Windows 2000, Windows XP before SP2, and some non-English installations of Windows XP or Vista later than those. 2. Corrupted registry in the areas discussed earlier. Not sure what causes that -- and there may well be other types of corruption too. 3. Cryptographic services not running or faulty, somehow. A lot of folks stop some services running to try to eek out better FS performance. 4. FS itself installed in a folder which has non-ASCII characters (eg accented or other non-Latin alphabet characters) in its path somewhere. There appears to be an error in the Cryptographic code in Windows which makes it fail to convert these correctly between wide character ans Unicode format. i suspect it is all rerlated to code pages. If you've tried 3.85 now with no success i doubt that it can be #4 as i changed the code to try to deal with that. However, it might be something to look at. I really don't know any other way to help. BTW when you check the FSUIPC.DLL manually (right-click on it, select Properties - Signature, then select the signature and details) does it say it is okay? If so it cannot be #1 above, nor probably #3 either. Regards Pete

You wouldn't. You'd connect to a program written to the FSUIPC interface. That could run on the FS PC or any WideFS client. In any case, why bother? Why not try that SideWindow program? I didn't know about that, but i just downloaded it to try, and it is gorgeous! Wish I'd discovered it before! It is so easy to install and use it is ridiculous. You don't even need to do anything to your PDA, just connect it up! Amazing! All you then need to do is create your WideClient buttonscreen window on the normal screen, size it down to fit on the PDA and drag it over. WideClient should remember where it is next timebingo! ;-) Mind you I've not yet tried actually pressing buttons on it. Let me do that now ... ... Yep! All that works fine too! Wonderful! ;-) Regards Pete

Yes, in the morning only, along with my friend Ray who bought the Saitek yoke and additional throttle. It was rather a disappointing show for me, especially compared to the previous weekend at Lelystad with all those homebuilt cockpits and other goodies on display! ;-) The best thing last weekend was coming home and finding that Aerosoft's Madeira scenery had been released for download. My favourite destination! ;-) Yes, that's a worrying trend on these things. I'll have to consider having a "no reverse" option on the separate throttle calibrations page. Shame. The whole raison d'etre of that page was for throttles to have a reverse zone. something not provided by the normal FS throttle system (excepting on the graphics mouse-operated quadrant). Regards Pete

Can you be a little more informative at all, please? What "same error"? What operating system? Have you tried version 3.85 just released? Did you read any of the FSUIPC User Guide at all, particularly the Installation section? If so, did you miss the boxed part headed "IMPORTANT: FSUIPC is now “code signed”. Please check!". And if you did read that, have you tried running the Globalsign root fix as provided with FSUIPC3? There are no other answers except possibly the Registry patch mentioned earlier in this thread. Regards Pete

Yes, of course. I knew about it already because it is a problem which affected a good friend of mine just this last weekend, after he purchased a Saitek yoke, with throttle quadrant, and a second throttle quadrant, at the show in Birmingham. He found the registry fix mentioned in that thread by going to Saitek's Support forums and searching there. He is using FSUIPC now for every axis, the yoke aileron/elevator and the 6 quadrant levers, and they are all working well. Very smoothly. Sorry, but you guess wrong. There are lots of happy users. I really don't know what is wrong on your system, but knowing about the Saitek installation errors in the registry I suggested you look at that first. Otherwise maybe there's further assistance on the Saitek forums. FSUIPC doesn't do different things for different makes of device. It simply reads the values the device's drivers provide (or FS provides if assigning through FS rather than FSUIPC) and allows you to match the range of input values to the range needed by the specific FS control. There's no magic, and it doesn't know Saitek from CH from Microsoft from a home-built system. It isn't interfacing to hardware but to the drivers that are installed for the device, or to FS, depending on which is asked to read the values. Regards Pete

Apparently there is an installation bug with the Saitek Quadrants, needing some registry editing. Please see other threads on the subject, particularly this one, which I found by searching on "Saitek throttle": viewtopic.php?f=54&t=72153 The shortest and simplest, in very simple numbered steps, is the one in the FSUIPC User Guide. That is why it is there, and has stood the test of time over more than 10 years of FSUIPC users. Just press the "Reset" button in the calibration tab for your throttles. When the top left button in each section reads "Set" then FSUIPC is not doing anything. When it reads "Reset" you can push it to deactivate FSUIPC's calibration. Simple, and exactly what it says in the documentation, which is in English. Sorry about that. Maybe you could get help translating? Regards Pete

Oh dear, what confusion! Look at this part of the thread you just referred to: The fix in FSUIPC3 for the resulting symptom was intended as a temporary work-around, hoping panel writers would mend their ways. MS are certainly in no mind to change what FS does in this area. Unfortunately, that fix was based on a hack into FS9 which I cannot repeat easily on FSX as the actual compiled code of FS has changed dramatically and such things are becoming more and more difficult to find. Hopefully, for FSX, there would really be no need for it anyway as really the panel designers who did this sort of thing should be mending their ways and doing things correctly using all the new facilities at their disposal in FSX. See the emboldened parts? The message was obviously in reply to someone seeking a copy of a fix I did in FSUIPC3 (which is the version for FS2004) in the FSUIPC4 version, for FSX -- a fix which I didn't think I could do back then. Now you are asking for a fix which existed first in FSUIPC3 to be put into FSUIPC3? Evidently it is already there and was in there many years ago! Any and all supported versions. Certainly not 4.206 which hasn't been supported for many months. The current versions are 4.40 for FSX and 3.85 for FS2004 and before. Please see the Announcements at the top of this Forum. Regards Pete

No, WideFS is strictly a standard Intel-based Windows program. There's no way it will translate to other environments without substantial reworking, and I really cannot take on more work. For a small touch sensitive screen I recommend the Lilliput range. I use two of the 7" models. Very nice. Sorry, no. If you can construct programs for it I am sure you could make a small program to recognise your touchscreen aNd send small packets across to a little program on a PC interfacing to FSUIPC. The latter could then run under WideClient or FS+FSUIPC directly. The buttonscreen in WideClient is only making use of the virtual button offsets in FSUIPC, and any client program can do the same. Regards Pete

With FS9 that's a pretty standard known problem relating to specific types of misplaced scenery files (Landclass). It was very widely discussed about 5 years ago and there's a lot written about it. It is actually an FS9 bug -- it doesn't like landclass BGLs in scenery folders with no accompanying texture folders, or vice versa (sorry I don't recall all the details now, it has been too long!). There was a utility program around which would seek out the rogue scenery installations and fix their arrangements for you, but it is so long ago I'm afraid i don't remember it. I've really been a 100% FSX user for three years now. Best to search, or at least ask in the FS2004 forums. If you are writing here thinking it is anything to do with any of my programs I can assure you that there's never been any memory leaks from any of my programs. The probable reason you are hitting it a lot sooner with WideFS running is the usage of memory buffers for the TCP/IP protocol. You could reduce that part of the load by changing to UDP or even IPX, but it won't really cure the underlying problems. Regards Pete

Why edit the INI file? Why not simply re-program the button in FSUIPC options? What are you doing messing in the INI file? The facilities you need are all in the on-line options, in the Dialogue! And why are you doing that just to change the programming of a button? What has the programming of one button got to do with the macro and the macro file you originally programmed that button for? I've really no idea what you've done. Sorry. Not really, as i cannot see what you've actually done. Sorry. If you want me to find out you'll need to ZIP up all of your Macro files and your FSUIPC INI file. (Otherwise I'd advise you simply to delete everything and start again). Really, most of what you've done is simply not designed to be messed about with that way. I could have made all these files binary, or encoded them, to prevent folks messing, but it did seem to leave it more flexible to allow some editing. But editing when there's no need, and not knowing what you are doing, seems a little, er, foolhardy. Maybe there's a problem, or a bug, I don't know, and i cannot tell from what you've said. i'd need to see what is happening with the data in exactly the mess you have it in. ZIP it all and send to petedowson@btconnect.com. regards Pete

It's the same. It's been the same since FS98 days and is continued for compatibility throughout, including FSX and ESP. Regards Pete

Okay. Such a facility will be available in FSUIPC 4.40, which I hope to release within the next few days or so. You will have to manually add some lines to the [AutoSave] section of the FSUIPC4.INI file. For the PMDG 747X these would be: AlsoManage1=PMDG\747400\PanelState\*.FLT.sav AlsoManage2=PMDG\747400\PanelState\*.0.rte AlsoManage3=PMDG\747400\PanelState\*.1.rte as the PMDG can save these 3 file types for every saved FLT. The * represents the position where FSUIPC4 will substitute the AutoSave filename part. You'd need to do something similar I think for the MD11, but I don't know the details. The path given in these lines is WITHIN the main FSX path. If you have anything installed outside the FSX path you'd need to give the complete pathname, from the drive (e.g. C:\ ...) onwards (or the computer name for a Network in the usual form, i.e. \\ ...). Up to 9 "AlsoManage" lines can be given, numbered 1 to 9. All FSUIPC4 does is delete the files with those names in those paths when it deletes the related FLT + WX files from the FSX flights folder. Regards Pete

Okay, that's fair enough then. In the .KEY file you sent, the FSUIPC was good (purchased in 2006), but the WideFS key was one made by an old and illegal hacked key generator. If you are still using the bad WideFS you will continue to have intermittent troubles. You should delete it and purchase a legal one. Regards Pete

You do not need to purchase FSUIPC to download and install it. FSUIPC is in use, unpurchased, on thousands of user systems, many many more than paid-for versions! It is used by many many add-ons, licensed or freeware, and users do not need to pay for it for those functions. I expect all purchasers to at least read some of the user guide before purchasing. Else you are buying blind. I don't have all the products in the world, and specifically not that one, so I really do not know what is possible. Maybe that particular add-on uses 100% only facilities in FS, in which case they are all accessible via FSUIPC. Maybe it even uses FSUIPC for its functions, in which case it probably has some development kit which enables others to take advantage of these (the Level D 767 is a big example like that). Maybe it uses assignable keyboard shortcuts for many or all of its functions, so again assignable. Maybe its assorted panels are amenable to the "mouse macro" facilities in FSUIPC, so programmable that way -- as are, for instance, pretty much all of the parts of the PMDG 737 and 747 add-ons. I just don't know. You have to do the research yourself. And to do that you have to download stuff and read a little. Regards Pete

Have you looked for it inside the same ZIP in which FSUIPC itself is supplied? Naturally, the documentation is supplied with the product. Where else should it be? If you have downloaded the current user release of FSUIPC then you have the user guide, and an advanced user guide, and a history of changes going back many years. If you have not downloaded FSUIPC yet then obviously you have not got the documentation which comes with it. I am rather surprised that this does not seem obvious to you. Really? I thought the KE72 produced keystrokes, not read them? FSUIPC, like FS, can read keystrokes and assign them to FS functions. It can do this for joystick buttons too. It can do a lot more, but you need no more at present. FSUIPC iis most certainly not a hardware driver, it is an extension to FS. Sorry, I probably don't understand that question, but FSUIPC does NOT deal with any add-ons whatsoever, only with FS. You will need to examine the documentation of your add-on to see how best to drive it. Pete