How to send a keystroke to a third program with Lua

[Fritz]

Hello,

with Shift + F9, you can enable or disable an ENB Mod.I want to send this keystroke with Lua to this ENB mod when the hight of 4000ft is passed by.

I want to ensure that the ENB mod is activated below 4000ft and above disabled.

When the hight reaches 4000ft send Shift+F9 to the ENB Mod

Is that even possible?

If so, how do I program it? have no programming skills.

Cheers

Fritz

[Pete Dowson]

I've moved your support question into the Support forum. You placed it into User Contributions by mistake.

with Shift + F9, you can enable or disable an ENB Mod.I want to send this keystroke with Lua to this ENB mod when the hight of 4000ft is passed by.

I want to ensure that the ENB mod is activated below 4000ft and above disabled.

When the hight reaches 4000ft send Shift+F9 to the ENB Mod

What's an "ENB Mod"? Is it something in FS, or a program outside of FS, or what? It makes a difference because of keyboard focus.

Is that even possible?

If so, how do I program it? have no programming skills.

You need to read the altitude from the correct offset (do you mean altitude on the altimeter, or true altitude AMSL, or AGL?). You could do this in a loop reading the offset once a second or more frequently (using a timer event), reading it via the appropriate ipc.read function, then send the keypress -- via ipc.keypress if this "ENB Mod" is inside FS -- when that checks >= 4000 feet, and ... then, do what? Terminate? Or does it need to do it again if you descend and climb again?

I can help but as you see I woould need more information.

Regards

Pete

[Fritz]

...What's an "ENB Mod"? Is it something in FS, or a program outside of FS, or what? It makes a difference because of keyboard focus...

I already thought that this is an important point, however, difficult for me to answer. The ENB mod changes the display in FSX. There is a dll file must be copied together with an ini file into the FSX root directory. This Mod is frequently used in promotional videos for Scenerys which makes the presentation more realistic.

On the ground this looks well but in the air, this seems too much bright, particularly when using a Beamer.

For this reason I want to disable this mod in the air. Whether altimeter, or true altitude AMSL or AGL is the same. Which is best suited for it.

Would be great if we could manage it.

Regards

[alaxus]

Its looks to me like a hook into direct X, similar to what the screen warping software does.

Fritz can you assign this to a button press (keysend) in fsuipc, cause if you can a lua script should work. I currently have a button press assigned to my warping software, which runs outside of fs btw, through fsuipc using keysend shift +F4. I would think this Mod would work the same way.

here is some info

http://forum.avsim.net/topic/257462-enb-series-mod/

[Pete Dowson]

I already thought that this is an important point, however, difficult for me to answer. The ENB mod changes the display in FSX. There is a dll file must be copied together with an ini file into the FSX root directory. This Mod is frequently used in promotional videos for Scenerys which makes the presentation more realistic.

Ah, yes, I know it. I tried it but didn't like the results -- not so good on my 10 foot wide projected image.

As Alaxus says, see if just assinging a keystroke to a button works. If so we can make a Lua for it. If not it is probably looking for the actual keyboard keypress, which I am not hooking into (needs more provileges, like a driver, to do this), so I'm afraid it then wouldn't be feasible.

Regards

Pete

[Fritz]

I have assigned a joystick button to the keystroke Shift+F9 in FSUIPC.

Now I can enable or disable the ENB Mod with this joystick button.

The mod must be inside FS.

[Pete Dowson]

I have assigned a joystick button to the keystroke Shift+F9 in FSUIPC.

Now I can enable or disable the ENB Mod with this joystick button.

Okay. So this Lua script should work

done = false

function checkalt()
   alt = ipc.readSD[0x0574] * 3.28084  -- gets AMSL in metres, converts to feet
   if alt > 4000 then
	  if not done then
   	   ipc.keypress(120,1) -- send Shift+F9
	    done = true
	 end
   else
	   done = false -- makes sure sent when next climb above 4000
   end
end


event.timer(1000, "checkalt")[/CODE]

I don't know if you need some other key sent to change it back on descent, but you can see where to put it.

Place it in the Mdules folder, named, say, SetEMB.lua, and add

[Auto]

1=Lua SetEmb

to your FSUIPC INI file.

Regards

Pete

[Fritz]

In FSUIPC I entered:

[Auto]

1=SetEmb

I named the small program "SetEmb.lua" and placed it in the module directory.

I have monitored the offset 0574 . Unfortunately, the ENB Mod do not switched off or or if I passed 4000 Feet.

[Pete Dowson]

In FSUIPC I entered:

[Auto]

1=SetEmb

Why didn't you enter what i told you? It won't work the way you entered it.

Pete

[Fritz]

Had made ​​a mistake. :oops: Have now corrected the entry. It still does not work. Too bad.

[Pete Dowson]

Had made ​​a mistake. :oops: Have now corrected the entry. It still does not work. Too bad.

Is there an error mentioned in the log? Maybe there's a syntax error I missed? Enable FSUIPC's key and button logging, rerun the test, so we can see what is going on. The logic is okay, so it has to be something simple.

Regards

Pete

[Fritz]

The log-file says:

176359 *** LUA Error: C:\Microsoft Flight Simulator X\Modules\SetEmb.lua:4: attempt to index field 'readSD' (a function value)

177389 *** LUA Error: C:\Microsoft Flight Simulator X\Modules\SetEmb.lua:4: attempt to index field 'readSD' (a function value)

178372 *** LUA Error: C:\Microsoft Flight Simulator X\Modules\SetEmb.lua:4: attempt to index field 'readSD' (a function value)

Regards

[Pete Dowson]

The log-file says:

176359 *** LUA Error: C:\Microsoft Flight Simulator X\Modules\SetEmb.lua:4: attempt to index field 'readSD' (a function value)

OOOPS! I see the error. This

ipc.readSD[0x0574]

should be

ipc.readSD(0x0574)

I think I need new glasses! The square and curved brackets looks too similar to me on my screen!

Sorry.

Pete

[Fritz]

At the cruising altitude the mod was disabled and on the ground enabled.

Seems to work. Thanks for the help.

Kind regards