how to set keyboard links for PMDG's 737 with FSUIPC ?

[popolmarcel]

Hello everybody,

Sorry to have mailed Pete instead of writing in this forum, did'nt know...

My concern is to create keyboard links in FS 2004 for PDMG's 737 models with FSUIPC :

as you know some functions have no keyboard equivalent and can be activated only by mouse clic in the appropriate panels (for example APU, fuel pumps, air conditionning, ...).

For the build of a home cockpit, buttons of the cockpit have to be linked to a keyboard function via an I/O card (except for some joystick functions, you're right Pete).

Does someone know a way to link to keypresses with FSUIPC, some functions of the PMDG's models that can initially only be activated by a mouse clic (like the examples i have listed above)?

Key2mouse is not a solution since it needs the concerned panel to be active on the screen to work with a keypress, and for the purpose of a home build cockpit the panels don't have to be on the sreen (they are "in real" in front of the user).

Thanks for your answers.

JJ Scohy

[Pete Dowson]

Does someone know a way to link to keypresses with FSUIPC, some functions of the PMDG's models that can initially only be activated by a mouse clic (like the examples i have listed above)?

Key2mouse is not a solution since it needs the concerned panel to be active on the screen to work with a keypress, and for the purpose of a home build cockpit the panels don't have to be on the sreen (they are "in real" in front of the user).

If the panel is not on screen, there are no mouse hotspots to be detected by the panel code, and therefore no way to activate the function.

I am using the PMDG 737NG, but only for its flight and visual models. I have no panel and no PMDG DLL running. The cockpit functions are provided by Project Magenta (including pmSystems for APU, Fuel Pumps, Air Conditioning and so on), and the panels themselves are of course the hardware of the cockpit.

There is a chance that some of the relevant parts of the PMDG panels may actually communicate via FSUIPC offsets. I know that some areas (mainly the MCP values I believe) have been "hacked" and published somewhere on the Internet. Maybe areas you are interested in are covered in that way.

I'm afraid that I do not know any more and even if I did I couldn't publish it without PMDGs permission. They do not seem to favour cockpit builders using their programming and so do not publish details themselves.

If you cannot find adequate details I really see so solution for you going down the path you have chosen. Sorry. Possibly more appeals to PMDG might sway them one day -- I have tried several times to no avail.

Regards,

Pete