Freeware keys?

[rickalty]

With FSUIPC4 now being integral with WideFS, will there still be freeware keys available to freeware developers wanting to connect to FSX vis FSUIPC4 ?

[Pete Dowson]

With FSUIPC4 now being integral with WideFS

Now that isn't quite true. You misunderstand I'm afraid.

A rather large amount of code in WideServer.DLL (and *only* in WideServer.DLL, not the Wideclient.EXE part of WideFS) was effectively unnecessary IF the DLL could be integrated into FSUIPC.DLL.

So that is what I did.

The way FSX works means, in any case, that simply placing a DLL into it (where?) will not get it loaded. It actually needs some rather complicated (for ordinary users) XML file updates as well in order to persuade FSX to load them and integrate them.

This is exactly why, for the first time in its 7 year history, FSUIPC comes in an Installer. That installer also creates the FSX Modules folder, which serves no other purpose than accommodating FSUIPC4 and any other Modules which FSUIPC4 is designed to load (PFCFSX.DLL being one such).

Just think of WideServer.DLL already being installed (but inactive) once you install FSUIPC4. Apart from that everything else is as it was in FS2004 and before.

The same applies to AutoSave.DLL and GPSout.DLL, though these now of course need an FSUIPC4 registration.

will there still be freeware keys available to freeware developers wanting to connect to FSX vis FSUIPC4 ?

They won't be needed. But on the other hand I'm afraid I cannot see how this question relates at all to WideFS. Care to clarify?

Regards,

Pete

[rickalty]

Guess I was (am?) confused.......

I see what you mean about having just integrated the wideserver DLL into FSUIPC, but I'm confused by :

will there still be freeware keys available to freeware developers wanting to connect to FSX vis FSUIPC4 ?

They won't be needed.

I have a couple of freeware apps in the library that access FS through FSUIPC, and for which I was given freeware keys, so that users of an unregistered FSUIPC 3.x can use them. How will new freeware apps (or old ones tweaked to run on FSX) connect through an unregistered FSUIPC 4.x ?

Richard

[Pete Dowson]

How will new freeware apps (or old ones tweaked to run on FSX) connect through an unregistered FSUIPC 4.x ?

They just will. Please don't worry. I hope you don't need to tweak them particularly either. ;-)

Pete

[Luke Kolin]

This is exactly why, for the first time in its 7 year history, FSUIPC comes in an Installer. That installer also creates the FSX Modules folder, which serves no other purpose than accommodating FSUIPC4 and any other Modules which FSUIPC4 is designed to load (PFCFSX.DLL being one such).

For those of us who have bundled FSUIPC.DLL with our applications, do you plan to document what the installer is doing? We much prefer being able to have our installers seamlessly detect wether to do an FSUIPC upgrade and making it all happen automagically.

I'd be happy to share any NSIS code I write with the community.

Cheers!

Luke

[Pete Dowson]

For those of us who have bundled FSUIPC.DLL with our applications, do you plan to document what the installer is doing? We much prefer being able to have our installers seamlessly detect wether to do an FSUIPC upgrade and making it all happen automagically.

It checks the version of FSX. It checks that the installed update to SimConnect will actually load one or other of the Versions of FSUIPC4 the Installer contains (yes, there can be more than one). For this it uses Manifest Probing. It then makes sure that SimConnect's XML file which tells it what to load, where to load if from, is correct for this version of FSUIPC. It creates an FSX Modules folder if there's not already one, and it puts the current version of FSUIPC4 in there, but only if there isn't already a later one. It may also install ancillary files, like read Me documents and so on.

All your installer would need to do is run my installer.

Pete

[rickalty]

For this it uses Manifest Probing.

The aliens did that to me ..............

[Luke Kolin]

All your installer would need to do is run my installer.

Does your installer have a "silent" mode?

Cheers!

Luke

[Pete Dowson]

Does your installer have a "silent" mode?

Not at present. I am open to suggestions.

For instance, if it cannot find FSX (because it is not installed correctly and therefore the Registry is wrong) it would ask the user to locate "FSX.EXE". If it cannot find or create the Modules folder or write the modules there, possibly because something is write protected, it would say so and request the user to rectify matters. The same goes for the DLL.XML file which needs to go into the same folder as the FSX.CFG file -- if it cannot edit or create that the user would need to do it, so there's a reference to documentation on how to do that.

Finally, if all goes well, it confirms that FSUIPC version X has been installed and asks the user to check the Read Me file. Confirming the actual version installed may be important as other dependent programs may need that information.

Normally, all being well, only the last part is seen.

I can suppress any or all of these and instead resturn some sort of error (via what, a little result file?), but you'd need to be able to deal with these things yourself.

If it is only success or otherwise you need to know and I suppress the last message, then maybe it would be okay for the others still to be handled by my part?

You tell me. I don't know wat you need to do.

Note that I cannot rely on other folks' installers doing any of this correctly. They don't even do the simplest things most of the time -- I have always asked for installers to NEVER overwrite a later version, but most inevitably do, and it has created a lot more support work for me over the years. :-(

Pete