For every Liverie a new profile?

[garack]

Hey is set up a profile with Binds in MSFS2020 for the Caravan208. Changed Liverie, and now the Profile is emtpy.

What ist that?

 

[Profile.Caravan208]
1=Cessna Grand Caravan Xbox Aviators Club Livery
[Axes.Caravan208]
RangeRepeatRate=10
[Buttons.Caravan208]
1=PB,18,C67007,1     -{SET_STARTER1_HELD}-
3=PB,17,C66241,0     -{TOGGLE_MASTER_BATTERY}-
4=UB,17,C67187,1     -{BATTERY1_SET}-
7=RB,26,C67052,1     -{ELECT_FUEL_PUMP1_SET}-
8=UB,26,C67052,2     -{ELECT_FUEL_PUMP1_SET}-
9=PB,27,C67052,0     -{ELECT_FUEL_PUMP1_SET}-
10=UB,27,C67052,2     -{ELECT_FUEL_PUMP1_SET}-
12=RB,31,C67007,0     -{SET_STARTER1_HELD}-
13=UB,31,C67006,0     -{SET_STARTER_ALL_HELD}-
14=UB,18,C67007,0     -{SET_STARTER1_HELD}-
15=PB,15,C67175,0     -{ALTERNATOR_ON}-
16=UB,15,C67174,0     -{ALTERNATOR_OFF}-
 

that was the profile now i am on another liverie and nothing is in the .ini or comes up:

 

btw. how can i Change between profiles quickly? i can only do it once with the checkmark. The UI is really 1990 but there must be a way to change between profiles?

[John Dowson]

8 hours ago, garack said:

Hey is set up a profile with Binds in MSFS2020 for the Caravan208. Changed Liverie, and now the Profile is emtpy.

What ist that?

[Profile.Caravan208]
1=Cessna Grand Caravan Xbox Aviators Club Livery

You need to (manually) change the profile entry to a substring match for the aircraft fir which you want to use the profie, so something like:

Quote

[Profile.Caravan208]
1=Cessna Grand Caravan

Please see the User manual.

8 hours ago, garack said:

btw. how can i Change between profiles quickly?

You do not need to change profiles, let alone quickly. Profiles are loaded automatically, based on the loaded aircraft, once configured for that aircraft.
You only need to create or assign an aircraft to an existing profile once. You will need to select the check box for profile assignment when assigning for buttons or keys, as all aircraft also use the general assignments for these (unless overridden by a profile assignment) so you have the choice of where to save such assignments, but if you have selected axes to be profile specific, all axes will be profile specific for that aircraft and no general axes profile is used. This is why you have the option of importing current general axes assignments into your profile specific axes assignments when you create a new profile.

.John

 

[Gabe_62]

Can we assume therefore that any aircraft beginning with "Cessna Grand Caravan" imported thereafter, will be auto-assigned the same settings ?

....Or does each new livery imported need to be edited to remove the livery description element ?

 

 

[John Dowson]

7 hours ago, Gabe_62 said:

Can we assume therefore that any aircraft beginning with "Cessna Grand Caravan" imported thereafter, will be auto-assigned the same settings ?

Sort of...but its a substring match, so will match any aircraft containing the string "Cessna Grand Caravan" - can be at the start of the string but diesn't have to.
As I said, please see the User manual!

John

[Scotfleiger]

Hi John

I would like to reopen this discussion on matching loaded aircraft to specific profiles in MSFS2020. We are working at the moment on a LINDA module for the FlyByWire A320 Neo. We have found that different liveries for this aircraft are stored separately but linked to the loaded aircraft by a [VARIATION] entry in the livery aircraft.cfg pointing to the base-container (= "..\FlyByWire_A320_Neo").

FSUIPC, as described in the User Guide, uses a name match. This wrongly assigns the FBW livery to the Asobo A320 as follows:

[Profile.A320]
1=Airbus A320 Neo Asobo
2=British Airways OperatorLand468 FBW

not to:

[Profile.A320NX]
1=Airbus A320 Neo FlyByWire

While you suggest users should manually edit the FSUIPC7.INI Profile entries, the increasing number of add-on liveries will make this a major task prone to errors. It would be better if the base aircraft model (ie. base-container)  could be used to match the profiles using the Air File? What are your thoughts?

Edited January 13, 2022 by Scotfleiger
referenced airfile

[Pete Dowson]

3 hours ago, Scotfleiger said:

FSUIPC, as described in the User Guide, uses a name match. This wrongly assigns the FBW livery to the Asobo A320 as follows:

[Profile.A320]
1=Airbus A320 Neo Asobo
2=British Airways OperatorLand468 FBW

Sorry, I don't follow you. The names used are from the title= lines in the Aircraft.CFG, the ones used in the sim's selection list. You are saying that some substring of 
British Airways OperatorLand468 FBW
matches 
Airbus A320 Neo Asobo

Now, how do you think that can be? Please explain.

Is the title not used for selection in MSFS?

Pete

 

 

[Scotfleiger]

Hi Pete

I am not sure how FSUIPC matches the 2 samples to place them under the same profile. Loading the Asobo A320 and FBW A320 gives 2 different paths to the AIR FILE as defined by 0x3C00. When the OperatorLand468 BA FBW livery it the AIR FILE is the same as for the FBW A320. This I believe is the match that should define the Profile group for MSFS2020/FSUIPC7.

MS/Asobo has changed how and where add-on liveries are stored. In the past with FSX and P3D the aircraft's own aircraft.cfg had to be edited to include extra liveries. With MSFS, the extra livery is installed in the \community directory. In the aircraft.cfg file for the BA FBW livery there is a pointer to the base aircraft in a [VARIATION] block.

For example:

Asobo A320 Neo with standard livery

• AirFile (0x3C00) = ....\official\onestore\asobo-aircraft-a320-neo\simobjects\airplanes\Asobo_A320_NEO\aircraft.cfg
• Aircraft (0x3D00) = Airbus A320 Neo Asobo

Asobo A320 Neo with OperatorLand468 BA livery

• AirFile (0x3C00) = ....\official\onestore\asobo-aircraft-a320-neo\simobjects\airplanes\Asobo_A320_NEO\aircraft.cfg
• Aircraft (0x3D00) = British Airways OperatorLand468

FBW A320 with standard livery

• AirFile (0x3C00) = ....\community\flybywire-aircraft-a320-neo\simobjects\airplanes\FlyByWire_A320_NEO\aircraft.cfg
• Aircraft (0x3D00) = Airbus A320neo FlyByWire

FBW A320 with OperatorLand468 BA livery

• AirFile (0x3C00) = ....\community\flybywire-aircraft-a320-neo\simobjects\airplanes\FlyByWire_A320_NEO\aircraft.cfg
• Aircraft (0x3D00) = Airbus A320neo OperatorLand FBW

The AirFile is common to each aircraft while the Aircraft Name reflects the livery name. The aircraft name that is derived from the aircraft.cfg Title= entry is the same as that in FSUIPC7.ini profiles. I suggest it should be the AirFile name (before \aircraft.cfg) that should used. This is what LINDA has always used for identifying the aircraft loaded to use the corresponding module.

I hope that makes sense.

[Pete Dowson]

Seems very strange to me. Which name is used in the selection to load the aircraft?  Will users be aware of the Air file name so they can edit the Profile sections correctly should they wish?

 I think I’ll have to leave it to John — he’s away till Monday. I assume he’s doing something different with profile matching in FSUIPC7, otherwise I can’t see how those profiles end up classified the way you describe.

Pete

 

[Scotfleiger]

That is a good idea. There is no rush.

[Scotfleiger]

Further testing and reading the advanced manual reveals that the selection of the aircraft Hvar file is also impacted by community liveries not including the matching string. This means additional .hvar files need to be recreated for each additional livery file whose name does not include the aircraft sub-string (eg. A32NX FBW).

[John Dowson]

On 1/13/2022 at 11:44 AM, Scotfleiger said:

This wrongly assigns the FBW livery to the Asobo A320 as follows:

[Profile.A320]
1=Airbus A320 Neo Asobo
2=British Airways OperatorLand468 FBW

not to:

[Profile.A320NX]
1=Airbus A320 Neo FlyByWire

I don't see how this can be.... Loading the default FBW I  see the following aircraft name:
       134000 Aircraft="Airbus A320neo FlyByWire Xmas"
This will load the A320NX profile, NOT the A320 profile.
If you think the wrong profile is being loaded, can you show me the Aircraft title, as logged by FSUIPC.

When you load an aircraft with a new livery that is not currently assigned to any profile, it is up to the user to select the profile for the new livery (or create a new one) - this is not done automatically. Therefore it must have been the user' choice to assign the 'British Airways OperatorLand468 FBW' to the A320 profile, and not the A320NX profile.

On 1/13/2022 at 3:41 PM, Scotfleiger said:

For example:

Asobo A320 Neo with standard livery

• AirFile (0x3C00) = ....\official\onestore\asobo-aircraft-a320-neo\simobjects\airplanes\Asobo_A320_NEO\aircraft.cfg
• Aircraft (0x3D00) = Airbus A320 Neo Asobo

Asobo A320 Neo with OperatorLand468 BA livery

• AirFile (0x3C00) = ....\official\onestore\asobo-aircraft-a320-neo\simobjects\airplanes\Asobo_A320_NEO\aircraft.cfg
• Aircraft (0x3D00) = British Airways OperatorLand468

FBW A320 with standard livery

• AirFile (0x3C00) = ....\community\flybywire-aircraft-a320-neo\simobjects\airplanes\FlyByWire_A320_NEO\aircraft.cfg
• Aircraft (0x3D00) = Airbus A320neo FlyByWire

FBW A320 with OperatorLand468 BA livery

• AirFile (0x3C00) = ....\community\flybywire-aircraft-a320-neo\simobjects\airplanes\FlyByWire_A320_NEO\aircraft.cfg
• Aircraft (0x3D00) = Airbus A320neo OperatorLand FBW

For this, then you need:

On 1/13/2022 at 11:44 AM, Scotfleiger said:

[Profile.A320]
1=Airbus A320 Neo Asobo
2=British Airways OperatorLand468

[Profile.A320NX]
1=Airbus A320 Neo FlyByWire
2=Airbus A320neo OperatorLand FBW

 

On 1/13/2022 at 3:41 PM, Scotfleiger said:

I suggest it should be the AirFile name (before \aircraft.cfg) that should used. This is what LINDA has always used for identifying the aircraft loaded to use the corresponding module.

That is a possibility. However, I am concerned if this will be possible with all aircraft due to the encryption sometimes used with deluxe and add-on aircraft. I will have a think about this and maybe look into this. A main issue changing to this would also be that it would invalidate all current profile assignments. I guess I could handle this by determining the FSUIPC version and re-writing the profile sections, but would be a bit of a pain. Let me think about this.

On 1/13/2022 at 4:06 PM, Pete Dowson said:

I assume he’s doing something different with profile matching in FSUIPC7, otherwise I can’t see how those profiles end up classified the way you describe.

No, nothing has changed in this area.

On 1/16/2022 at 11:29 PM, Scotfleiger said:

Further testing and reading the advanced manual reveals that the selection of the aircraft Hvar file is also impacted by community liveries not including the matching string. This means additional .hvar files need to be recreated for each additional livery file whose name does not include the aircraft sub-string (eg. A32NX FBW).

Yes - hvar file names must also match in the same way. However, If I do decide to change the way profiles are matched, this would not change the way hvar files are matched. The hvar files are loaded by the WASM which (currently) has no knowledge of the aircraft.cfg file, its location or access to FSUIPC offset information. I could also look into this but would be separate from the profile issue.

I also have other changes planned which I think are far more useful to the general community, so I cannot give you any timescales when I will look into this at the moment.

John

[joeherwig]

Well as i percieve it, an aircraft.cfg contains everything to decide whether to choose the Asobo or the FBW profile for instance.

The Asobo is clearly identified via the

base_container = "..\Asobo_A320_NEO"

[VERSION]
major = 1
minor = 0

[VARIATION]
base_container = "..\Asobo_A320_NEO"

[FLTSIM.0]
title = "Airbus A320 Neo Asiana airlines" ; Variation name
model = "MAIN" ; model folder

while everything for the FBW is mentioned as "

base_container = "..\FlyByWire_A320_NEO"

[VERSION]
major = 1
minor = 0

[VARIATION]
base_container = "..\FlyByWire_A320_NEO"

;===================== FLTSIM =====================

[FLTSIM.0]
title = "Airbus A320 NX ANA All Nippon Airways JA219A SoccerYCA " ; Variation name
model = "JA219A" ; model folder

But as you can see matching on the title does either not work without matching it manually.That is something Andrew and i would like to avoid to lower the entry hurdle to work more with FSUIPC and LINDA.
I'm member of the german Flight Simulation Club FSC e.V and i notice quite often that our members struggle with all that ini, offset thingies etc. and require lots of support.

So why not making it easier for the users - and us as well. 🙂
Anyway... The mappings for the Asobo A320 and for the FBW A320 are in wide areas simply incompatible.
So focussing on the base container (or what Andrew mentioned as airfile) would make it imho ways easier.

Some more examples based on liveries i downloaded from flightsim.to.
You wanna guess based on the title (i assume Aircraft 0x3D00) , which plane they are for?

• title = "Airbus A320 Neo Qantas2016 8K" ; Variation name for FlyByWire_A320_NEO
• title = "Airbus A320 Neo (FBW) Lufthansa (Dirty)" ; Variation name for FlyByWire_A320_NEO

  title = "Regierungsflieger" ; Variation name for FlyByWire_A320_NEO (automatically converted livery)

  title = "Regierungsflieger" ; Variation name for Asobo_A320_NEO

  title = "Airbus A320 Neo FEDEX Airlines" ; Variation name for Asobo_A320_NEO

  title = "FWB Delta Airlines N325US Dirty" ; Variation name for FlyByWire_A320_NEO

  title = "Airbus A320 Neo Vistara Airlines" ; Variation name for Asobo_A320_NEO

  title = "Airbus A320Neo Spirit Airlines" ; Variation name for FlyByWire_A320_NEO

  title = "Airbus A320 Neo Aegean Neo" ; Variation name for Asobo_A320_NEO

  title = "Airbus ACJ320neo" ; Variation name for Asobo_A320_NEO

  title = "Airbus A32NXneo Flytiger Airlines VA HK0987" ; Variation name for FlyByWire_A320_NEO

  title = "a320-livery-VUELING EC-MNZ_a32nx" ; Variation name for FlyByWire_A320_NEO

  title = "FWB Air Canada C-GUIF" ; Variation name for FlyByWire_A320_NEO

  title = "Airbus A320Neo LUFTHANSA" ; Variation name for FlyByWire_A320_NEO

So if there is an option somehow to refer to the base container / airfile instead of the livery title, it would imho make sense to take that instead of the wierd titles.

A lot of livery painters seem to be unaware which effect a title not sticking to a naming convention will cause for the users. So if we're able to make FSUIPC / LINDA / Modules more resilient against those errors, everybody would benefit from it.

We with less support effort, and the users with easier to use systems. Right?

Hopefully i didn't get it wrong.

Joe

 

[John Dowson]

4 hours ago, joeherwig said:

So why not making it easier for the users - and us as well. 🙂

I did say I would look into this. I just have other things that are of higher priority at the moment. I have a backlog of requests pending, as well as planned improvements on how to access lvars, hvars and calculator code. The current profile mechanism has been around for 10+ years and so I'm sure it can wait another few months before I get around to looking into this.

John

 

[Scotfleiger]

Hi John,

Sorry for the delay but I got tied up with other matters. Thank you for your considered reply. My understanding was at fault regarding FSUIPC profiles. I had forgotten it is the user who originally allocates a new aircraft to a specific profile. 

I await you having time to consider the the options for improving the .Hvar assignment to a specific aircraft. At present, only the default FBW A32NX (both Airbus and Xmas liveries) that can call up the A32NX.hvar events. The available variations can not which limits user choice. We appreciate all your hard work.

[John Dowson]

4 minutes ago, Scotfleiger said:

I await you having time to consider the the options for improving the .Hvar assignment to a specific aircraft. At present, only the default FBW A32NX (both Airbus and Xmas liveries) that can call up the A32NX.hvar events. The available variations can not which limits user choice.

I am not considering an option for improving the hvar assignment (at the moment), just the profile assignment. I thought that this was the main update that you are requesting.

An update for hvars is possible, but this is more work as the WASM has no access to FSUIPC offsets, and so no knowledge of the air file location. I can, of course, request this, but there are also other issues related to the timing of when various events are received which complicates things somewhat.

But this does not restrict you from using hvar files with the other liveries. You just need to copy the hvar file and give it a substring match (or just the complete aircraft name) for the aircraft with the livery loaded.

For the example you gave:

Quote

Asobo A320 Neo with standard livery

• AirFile (0x3C00) = ....\official\onestore\asobo-aircraft-a320-neo\simobjects\airplanes\Asobo_A320_NEO\aircraft.cfg
• Aircraft (0x3D00) = Airbus A320 Neo Asobo

Asobo A320 Neo with OperatorLand468 BA livery

• AirFile (0x3C00) = ....\official\onestore\asobo-aircraft-a320-neo\simobjects\airplanes\Asobo_A320_NEO\aircraft.cfg
• Aircraft (0x3D00) = British Airways OperatorLand468

FBW A320 with standard livery

• AirFile (0x3C00) = ....\community\flybywire-aircraft-a320-neo\simobjects\airplanes\FlyByWire_A320_NEO\aircraft.cfg
• Aircraft (0x3D00) = Airbus A320neo FlyByWire

FBW A320 with OperatorLand468 BA livery

• AirFile (0x3C00) = ....\community\flybywire-aircraft-a320-neo\simobjects\airplanes\FlyByWire_A320_NEO\aircraft.cfg
• Aircraft (0x3D00) = Airbus A320neo OperatorLand FBW

You would need one hvar file for the FBW A320: A320neo.hvar
And 2 for the Asobo  A320: A320 Neo Asobo.hvar, OperatorLand468.hvar

I would think it is also possible to just use one hvar file, and use appropriately named links/shortcuts for the other names that point to the original file, although i haven't tried this.

I can look into using the air folder name to also match on hvar file names, but not sure when I can do this at the moment. I will add it to my feature request list to be looked into.

John

[Scotfleiger]

Hi John, thanks for your reply. I understand the need to create hvar files to match alternative liveries and am using this myself. In the longer term changes to WASM would cope with the growing number of MSFS community liveries that use alternative names. The aircraft.cfg base model entry would be accessible to WASM independent of FSUIPC and offsets.

PS. the additional hvar functions you provided in the trial build (7.2.15d) are working well and should be incorporated in the baseline when time allows.

[John Dowson]

2 hours ago, Scotfleiger said:

PS. the additional hvar functions you provided in the trial build (7.2.15d) are working well and should be incorporated in the baseline when time allows.

Do you mean 7.2.15b? Don't think I have got as far as d yet...

Anyway, that will be in the next release, hopefully in the next few days. Just looking at using the air folder name for profiles (not for hvar access!) as I thought this should be relatively straightforward... but there are some complications due to the different timings when receiving the aircraft name and the air file location and the various different actions that are done on each (e.g. starting lua autos). Hopefully I have fixed this now, so could you try the attached version, v7.2.15c. To use this new feature, you need to add the following to the [General] section of your FSUIPC7.ini file:
    UseAirLocForProfiles=Yes

I suggest that once you have done this, keep your existing profiles and load each aircraft (for which you have a profile), then go into one of the assignments panels and check for profiles and select your existing profile for that a/c, then click 'Ok'. This should add the air file folder to your profile section. Once you have done this, you can then remove the other aircraft names from the profile if you so wish.

John

FSUIPC7.exe

[Scotfleiger]

It was my dyslexia KO. I will try update and report.

[John Dowson]

There was one change in that version that I'm not sure of, although it seemed ok in my tests. However, I've decided to revert that in the attached version, v7.2.15d.
In this version I have also added code to stop the WAPI when going back into the MSFS menu system. Not sure why that wasn't done before....

 

FSUIPC7.exe

[John Dowson]

I think I'll look into updating the WASM to allow hvar files to be loaded in the same way (and via an ini parameter). May as well get this out of the way before I look into other things... I'll post the updated WASM here when done.

[John Dowson]

 Please try the attached. To use the air file folder for hvar matching, you need to set the following ini parameter in your FSUIPC_WASM.ini (better to set this in the ini file in the WASM local storage area, not in the one under your Community\fsuipc-lvar-module folder):
    UseAirLocForHvars=Yes

John

FSUIPC7.exe

FSUIPC7_WASM.wasm

layout.json

[John Dowson]

Btw, this will only work if the folder names for the various liveries share a common base (which hopefully should be the case...) that you can use for the hvar file name. So, for example, for the FBW A320 I have the following folders:
    _FlyByWire_A320_NEO-LIVERY-XMAS
    FlyByWire_A320_NEO
    FlyByWire_A320_NEO-LIVERY

A hvar file named FlyByWire_A320_NEO.hvar would match all 3.

John

[Scotfleiger]

Hi John

Thank you for the updates. I have tried 7.2.15e with the revised .wasm and json files. Using the FBW A32NX British Airways livery from OperatorLand468 I can using the FSUIPC7 panel to list the Hvars matching the Airfile:

[START] Current Aircraft: British Airways OperatorLand468 FBW
[START] Air file: SimObjects\Airplanes\FlyByWire_A320_NEO\aircraft.CFG

The only issue spotted is that the numbered lines and Hvar references are not sorted. See attached.

[John Dowson]

33 minutes ago, Scotfleiger said:

The only issue spotted is that the numbered lines and Hvar references are not sorted. See attached.

That must have always been the case...although I thought they were sorted alphabetically in the main window, but checking the code, that is just for lvars.  The WAPI getHvarList function returns an unordered map, which is why there is no order. I can change this the next time I update the WAPI if you like, but not for the next release.

You can check the FSUIPC7.log file if you want them sorted by id, as they should also be logged there but in id order.

John

[Scotfleiger]

Hi John

The entry/index numbers are correctly matched to the hvar name as accessed by the getHvarList function. It is just the display order that has gone awry. (I have been having similar issues with the order in work I am doing on LINDA.

PS. The fsuipc7.log list is in the expected ordered.