Long Shot: Can FSUIPC allow me to activate the blue mouseover highlighting when CIS is in Lock mode?

[GregWoodsLancs]

Background...
I'm building a G1000, but it will primarily be used in VR.
I noticed the other day that in my car audio, the physical click switches to change radio channel are also sensitive to my finger being near them, showing a preview of the radio station which would be selected if I actually clicked the button.
This got me thinking that this would be awesome for hardware controllers like the G1000 when in VR. 

Instead of blindly counting my way along the soft keys, I could reach out and lightly touch a key and have it show light up with the the blue "neon" highlighting (when Cockpit Interaction Mode is "Lock). I get visual feedback in the sim without mixed reality, and I then know which button to click!

The hardware side is technically easy, and cheap. There are loads of 8-16 channel capacitative touch boards available for pennies.

The sticking point is likely to be interfacing with MSFS... And for interfacing, FSUIPC is the only place to go 🙂

My thinking is that everything is an offset somewhere!
Do these offsets exist?
Could they exist?
How would I go about working them out?

Any "input" appreciated!

[John Dowson]

39 minutes ago, GregWoodsLancs said:

My thinking is that everything is an offset somewhere!

No - only a subset of simulator variables are held in offsets.

I have never used or looked into using VR with MSFS (or any other sim). FSUIPC doesn't really support VR use - it supports physical controllers, and provides data for other 3rd-party apps (FSUIPC clients). There is no way that FSUIPC can detect a 'light touch' in VR, and also no way for it to highlight anything or show any further information (tooltips?). Basically, FSUIPC doesn't do anything with "visuals'.

Look into MSFS's tooltip options, and I believe there are also some 3rd-party mods in this area. Otherwise, try posting in the MSFS/Asobo forums for advice, in the VR forums.

Sorry I can't be of more assistance.

John

[GregWoodsLancs]

6 hours ago, John Dowson said:

No - only a subset of simulator variables are held in offsets.

I have never used or looked into using VR with MSFS (or any other sim). FSUIPC doesn't really support VR use - it supports physical controllers, and provides data for other 3rd-party apps (FSUIPC clients). There is no way that FSUIPC can detect a 'light touch' in VR, and also no way for it to highlight anything or show any further information (tooltips?). Basically, FSUIPC doesn't do anything with "visuals'.

Look into MSFS's tooltip options, and I believe there are also some 3rd-party mods in this area. Otherwise, try posting in the MSFS/Asobo forums for advice, in the VR forums.

Sorry I can't be of more assistance.

John

Thanks so much for the reply. You answered my question. 

Just for clarity, the request regarding FSUIPC had nothing to do with VR specifically. I would be using a physical hardware controller to detect a physical light touch on a physical button. This would produce a joystick input. But then that joystick input needs hooking up to whatever MSFS internal event handler causes the glowing highlighting thing to work. But if nothing in MSFS / SimConnect / FSUIPC / Offsets etc etc exposes that highlighting interface, then as you said, I need to look elsewhere.

Thanks again though... ruling options out is part of the process 🙂

Edited October 24 by GregWoodsLancs

[John Dowson]

8 hours ago, GregWoodsLancs said:

I would be using a physical hardware controller to detect a physical light touch on a physical button.

Ah...that is even more difficult! I don't know how you would detect a light touch on a physical button using windows. FSUIPC uses the HID Joystick API, and can only detect button presses and releases. And, as you say, there is no SimConnect interface to control the highlighting.

The latter part may be possible in a WASM module using one of the other available SDKs, but I don't know if its even possible for a light-touch (on a physical button)  to be detected in windows!

Regards,

John

[GregWoodsLancs]

As far as Windows goes, the "light touch" would be a normal joystick input. So each physical button presents itself as 2 HID buttons, one activates for a click, the other for a touch. Windows doesn't know any of this, it just sees 2 separate "buttons". I know how to do that side of things with a microcontroller... It the MSFS side I'm fairly clueless about. But yes, it looks like exploring the other SDK options is the direction I need to go in.

[John Dowson]

59 minutes ago, GregWoodsLancs said:

So each physical button presents itself as 2 HID buttons, one activates for a click, the other for a touch. Windows doesn't know any of this, it just sees 2 separate "buttons".

Ok - that makes sense.

[GregWoodsLancs]

I got a reply from the MSFS Developer forums about the blue highlighting. 

https://devsupport.flightsimulator.com/t/is-there-any-way-to-trigger-the-mouseover-blue-highlighting-of-cockpit-controls/10443/2

It's a long learning curve ahead... with other projects in front of the queue at the moment (and a day job), so whether anything come of this is debatable, but the research is always interesting, and I'm always happy to make ideas public... maybe someone else could run with it... Although I sudpect for my VR use-case, mixed reality will make this idea irrelevant in a year or two,

 

[John Dowson]

1 hour ago, GregWoodsLancs said:

I got a reply from the MSFS Developer forums about the blue highlighting. 

https://devsupport.flightsimulator.com/t/is-there-any-way-to-trigger-the-mouseover-blue-highlighting-of-cockpit-controls/10443/2

It's a long learning curve ahead...

Ok, thanks for the update.
That is a template used in the model, i.e. in the aircraft itself. I have no experience or knowledge in model/gauge programming and wouldn't know where to start with this...so yes, a long learning curve indeed!