Inhibit dragging of panel windows in FSX

[aua668]

Hi,

I run a multi-monitor setup with three monitors showing the outside world and two touchscreen monitors showing the panels. With the move from FS9 to FSX I detected, that locking of screen positions via FSUIPC isn't possible anymore. This is extremely bad on touchscreens, where you easily move undocked windows in fullscreen mode with your fingers.

Therefore I came across a different solution for inhibiting the dragging of such panel windows, which works very well for my planes. I created a XML gauge which captures LeftDrag mouse commands which are typically produced when you are touching the screen and move your fingers a little bit. I installed this gauge in every panel window stretching the gauge over the complete coordinate range of the panel window (typically defined in the size_mm parameter. Of course right drags easily could be blocked too with this solution.

With this gauge in place I could operate all my other gauges as normal, but at places, where typically no clickspot was available, the dragging is now inhibited. So my touchscreen panels never move on my screen anymore. To implement this feature in your panel you just have to create a Folder "FixPanelPos" in your Gauges folder. In this folder create a file NoDrag.xml with the following content:

<Gauge Name="NoDrag" Version="1.0">
<Size X="10" Y="10"/>
<!--  Inhibit dragging of panel windows by reacting with dummy event (turn the sound on) -->
<Mouse>
  <Area Left="0" Top="0" Width="10" Height="10">
   <Click Kind="LeftDrag" Event="SOUND_ON"/>
  </Area>
</Mouse>
</Gauge>[/CODE]

In the panel window, which you want to protect, you just have to enter the gauge entry:

[CODE]gaugeXX=FixPanelPos!NoDrag, 0,0,1024,768[/CODE]

For XX take the next free number and adjust the size so that the gauge covers your panel window. That's all. I have chosen the SOUND_ON Event, as typically sound is on, so you wil see no action, if you drag with your fingers/mouse. Only the sound goes on, if you had turned it off. But you can choose any action you want. According to other users in this forum it's also possible to use this method to lock certain areas of complex gauges to avoid closing of windows by masking the LeftClick event.

For me this works perfectly and my touch screens are now my only input for my planes (beside my GoFlight panels). This is a completely unsupported version for my own purposes and no further documentation is available. But those people doing similar things know, how to implement this into to their planes. And as I found so many useful things here in this forum, I wanted to give back something to the community.

Rgds

Reinhard

[aua668]

Hi,

Using this technique with the Eaglesoft Citation X 2.0 didn't work for the electric panel on the left tilt. I had to change the "LeftDrag" to a "RightDrag". And by this also the ES C750 now works fine. Just for information if someone experiences a similar problem.

Rgds

Reinhard