SDK questions

[Guest]

Hi all,

I first posted some questions to Pete who advised me to post them here, so here it goes...

They prompted by a reply i reiceved on the SDK forum of simflight. (I was told that what i was trying to do was simply imposible and could never be donw without FUIPC).

I would like, without FUIPC,

To know if and how to select a plane and to know the one the user is curently using. How to load a flt/pln flight plan and know the one curently loaded. And, send a message to the user, (on the main window, not on my gauge).

I simply find it hard to beleive that no gauge can do what i am trying to do.

Many thanks

Simon

[Pete Dowson]

I would like, without FUIPC,

To know if and how to select a plane and to know the one the user is curently using. How to load a flt/pln flight plan and know the one curently loaded. And, send a message to the user, (on the main window, not on my gauge). I simply find it hard to beleive that no gauge can do what i am trying to do.

Gauges can use FSUIPC. There's a special "module user" package provided in the SDK for this.

I know of no way at present to "select a plane" from a program. FSUIPC does find the name of the currently selected plane (and even the AIR file, in FS2002 at least, though that looks doubtful in FS9). The other things can be done through FSUIPC, at least in FS2000 and FS2002. I cannot guarantee their support in future versions, that remains to be seen.

The way FSUIPC does these things is by calling or intercepting or interfering with the innards of FS. Getting it to do these things has taken me many many hours of hacking into FS insides using Disassemblers like IDA and Debuggers like Soft-Ice. If there were easy methods provided in a nice easy interface by MS for these things I would not needed to have done this.

If you want to do these things in a gauge without using FSUIPC I think you too will be faced with the same sort of work -- and like me, you will have to do it all again on each new version of FS.

Microsoft do not build in all possible things into their ready-made interfaces for things like Gauges. The Gauges interface is meant for making aircraft gauges. There really aren't many real-life gauges that can do the things you want in a real aircraft, so they have not provided them. I don't think you can blame them for this, can you? .

Regards,

Pete

[Simon]

Hi,

Thanks for the info.

I just wanted a definitive answer so i would stop wasting my time looking for a 'Microsoft SDK' solution.

Now that i know it cannot be done i will stop looking into it.

With FS9 comming out soon i would be better off waiting before i start playing with Soft-Ice. I might not have the time to do it anyways.

But i might give it a look...

Many thanks.

Sims