Simviation Forums

I constantly have the problem when I'm trying to install a plane and it comes to the gauges that with atleast half of them there are gauges with the same name but differnet file sizes. Since I don't want to ruin other planes I have I don't overwrite until the instructions tell me. So I' wondering if I can just make seperate subfolders inside the Gauges folder called -insert plane name here- and put the gauges in there. How is this done, and is it easy to do Thanks for anyone who replies.

Gauge sizes are NOT saved when you place gauges in your GAUGES folder. The size that any gauge appears at on a panel is recorded ONLY in the panel.cfg file for the panel, so the same gauge can be used many times at different sizes in many panels.

Having said that, long experience has shown that it is VERY UNWISE to allow any gauge that you already have in your GAUGES folder to be over-written and replaced by a new version. This is especially true for DEFAULT GAUGES such as the GPS.

So go ahead and copy all gauges into your main GAUGES folder but click on 'do not overwrite' whenever you are asked that question during the process.

Yes! The changes would need to be made in the PANEL.cfg.

Here is an example from my F-14 Tomcat for the 2D panel...

Code: Select all

[Window00]
file=tomheadup.bmp
windowsize_ratio=1.000
position=4
size_mm=800,600
window_pos=0.0,0.0
window_size=1.000,1.000
visible=1
ident=0

gauge00=Tomcat/f14toggle!Panel.toggle.30,488,504,40,33
gauge01=Tomcat/fsd_rf4.sadi!FSD_RF4.SAdi,545,415,67,67
gauge02=Tomcat/fsd_rf4.hsi!FSD_RF4.Hsi,541,488,101,100

And for the VC

Code: Select all

[VCockpit01]
size_mm=512,512
pixel_size=512,512
texture=$F14b
background_color=1,1,1
visible=0

gauge01=TomcatVC/fsd_rf4.vsi!FSD_RF4.Vsi,256,128,128,128
gauge02=TomcatVC/fsd_rf4.sadi!FSD_RF4.SAdi,0,0,128,128
gauge03=TomcatVC/fsd_rf4.hsi!FSD_RF4.Hsi,128,0,128,128

TOMCAT and TOMCATVC are directories within the GAUGES directory.

If there is more to it, then I don't know about it.

Gauge sizes are NOT saved when you place gauges in your GAUGES folder. The size that any gauge appears at on a panel is recorded ONLY in the panel.cfg file for the panel, so the same gauge can be used many times at different sizes in many panels.

He said FILE sizes.

Agreed.  Do not overwrite gauges you already have.  It is better to use the ones you currently have.  Too many times I have overwritten gauges and they end up ruining something else.

He said FILE sizes.

If the file size is different than that of the one already there that is pretty good proof there is something different about that gauge, could be improved or something removed.
If you want to overwrite the guages to check it out to be sure it works ok and doesn't screw anything up, make a backup of your entire "gauges folder", then go ahead and overwrite. Worse that could happen you'll find that the gauge is faulty. If that is the case just replace with your back up of the originals (if you don't want to backup the entire folder then just backup the gauge(s) about to be overwritten).

I allow overwritting almost everytime(after backing up), 8-10 it will be a improvement most times if the file size is smaller than the one wanting to overwrite I'll leave it be.

I saw this tip somewher and it works for me, put the gauges for the plane into the panel folder of the plane you are trying to install. then it's easy to remove the entire plane if you don't like it and you don't screw anything else.

HTH
OrderMaster