Visual Basic - FSUIPC - Gauges

[xavierobre]

Hello,

This is my first post and I am complete new to this, so please a little help and lots of indulgence will be appreciated.

I would like to start developping gauges for MSFS. I have searched over the Internet and have found the SDK from MS but I have to admit that I know little about C or XML programming.

However, I am ok with Visual Basic.

I just found the SDK for FSUIPC and Visual Basic and I managed to create simple external applications calling FSUIPC (mainly to log the path of the aircraft). I am quite happy.

However, I do not know if it is possible to use a similar approach to create gauges.

I have read that gauges are dlls.

I know how to develop dlls with VB but I think that these dlls are ActiveX dlls. Is it the case with the gauges?

Did anybody already managed to develop some gauges with VB or do I have to start from scratch (ie buying "C/C++ for Dummies")?

Thanks & regards,

Xavier

[Pete Dowson]

Did anybody already managed to develop some gauges with VB or do I have to start from scratch (ie buying "C/C++ for Dummies")?

I hope you get a useful answer, but from what I know about gauges I really think you are most unlikely to be able to get VB created DLLs to interface correctly to FS's innards. Maybe I'm wrong. Let's hope so.

I wouldn't know where to begin with VB -- it's messy and complicated enough in C. Certainly not a good way to start with a new programming language.

Regards,

Pete

[xavierobre]

Thanks for the quick reply Pete

I have been working with VB since 4-5 years and I naturally turned to this language to try and develop something for FS...

I guess that reading your answer that there is no real other way but with C...

Any advice on which tools to use (editor, compiler, etc)?

Thanks & regards,

Xavier OBRE

[Pete Dowson]

Any advice on which tools to use (editor, compiler, etc)?

I use Microsoft C/C++ -- actually part of Visual Studio 2003 now, which includes VB and Java and C# and all sorts of other stuff I don't use. I upgraded at great expense from MSVC 6 because the optimisation the compiler now does is so much better, and the debugger is extraordinarily good -- so much so that I only very rarely now have to resort to Soft-Ice.

I changed to MSC years ago, in FS4 or FS5 time, because it was so difficult interfacing to MS programs with other folks' compilers. There seemed to be so many arcane rituals to go through.

Before MS I used Topspeed then Watcom, both of which produced pretty good code for their time. MS only really overtook them for good object code recently.

Before C was invented I used BCPL and before that Assembly Code, since 1963. :wink:

I have dabbled in Apple II Pascal, old mainframe Fortran and APL, but not enough to remember much of any.

Regards,

Pete

[xavierobre]

Hello Pete,

You said you are using Visual Studio 2003.

Is it the .Net platform?

Thanks again,

Xavier

[Pete Dowson]

You said you are using Visual Studio 2003.

Is it the .Net platform?

Sorry, yes, the package's full name is "Visual Studio .Net 2003", but I only use the native code C compiler and debugger in it (oh, the IDE too). I don't think anything I use can be classed ".Net" at all.

It was horrendously expensive considering how little of it I actually use, but it appears MS offer no cheaper choices for commercial applications these days. I couldn't afford it till the income from FSUIPC and wideFS registrations started coming.

But in the end it was worth it. It is far better than MSVC/C++ 7 (at least I think it was 7 -- may have been 6) which I was using before. The code produced by the compiler is unrecognisably better! And the deugger is superb too.

Regards,

Pete

[xavierobre]

Thanks again Pete!

Best regards,

Xavier

[n4gix]

Just to put a period on the thread here, Pete is quite correct. You cannot use VB to produce compiled gauge for FS's .dll system.

I too use MSVC++ .NET (although I use the v7.0 optimized compiler) for gauge building.

Your absolute best resource for learning gauge development is the Aircraft & Panel Design forum at avsim.com... Most of the "power developers" for FS gauges hang out there... ;)

[BrunoBL]

Pete,

I have dabbled in Apple II Pascal, old mainframe Fortran and APL,

Thanks for reminding me of the wonderful days of APL. I programmed in VS APL under VM/CMS (a mainframe OS quite common at the time) in the early 80's for a large financial company. I wonder if it is still used?

Best regards,

Bruno.

[rickalty]

While you can't use VB to write an MSFS style gauge, you can of course write your own gauge software in VB and use regular graphics programming to draw a needle etc onto a gauge face.

Take a look in the Avsim File Library at http://www.avsim.org and search for my FSPanel freeware application - a generic GA instrument panel for use (mainly) over WideFS. It's written entirely in VB.

Richard

[n4gix]

While you can't use VB to write an MSFS style gauge, you can of course write your own gauge software in VB and use regular graphics programming to draw a needle etc onto a gauge face.

Which, of course, is not what he wants to do. BTW, nice job on the 'generic panel!' ;)

[xavierobre]

Thanks all for your replies.

Your help is much appreciated.

Best regards,

Xavier