Panel Modifications???

[Simviation2003]

Hello fellow aviators,

In CfgEdit, can I copy say a GPS window from one aircraft and open another aircraft, delete it's GPS panel and paste/add the new one???

The reason I ask, is that the aircraft I usally fly has a funny looking GPS, (quite ugly looking actually) which is very hard to function whilst in the air, I would like to replace the window/GPS with the other, more easier better looking..

Any advice would be most appreciated.

SV2003

[Hagar]

You can do this in Notepad. Try my tute & see if it works for you. http://www.simviation.com/lair/AddGPS.htm

[Simviation2003]

Thanks hagar

I will give it a go!!!

SV2003

[RollerBall]

You can't copy from...to in CFGEdit but I find it's the best free app to use for panel design/modification

If you want to have a pop-up GPS (which I'm sure you do) it's dead easy to get exactly the right size and position (which, strangely, many designers of uploaded panels don't seem to have discovered as they have pop-up avionics and GPSs that are far too big and obscure all sorts of other stuff, including the button you need to click on to close em!)

[Hagar]

Roger. To resize any pop-up window try my windowsize_ratio= tweak. Works like a charm.
Note: NOT the usual window_size_ratio=
I discovered this is a corrupt command back in the early days of CFS1.

[Simviation2003]

Thanks both of you,

Hope you are still monitoring this topic, I also would like to ask how do I rectify the ERROR message that appears at the start up of CFGEDIT.

The error relates to two SimIcons that are outside the defualt area of window 1.
A Scan of the cfg. shows gauges no.43 & 44 but no matter what I do, I can't locate these gauges to remove them.
I backed up the cfg. and manually deleted the gauges out of the PANEL .cfg which led to all sorts of problems.

To your knowledge, is there any way of correcting this problem when you can't locate the gauges???
For the record, theres no gauges showing in magneta.

Thanks

SV2003

[Hagar]

This is the one problem with using CfgEdit for FS2002 panels. It was designed for FS98/FS2000 & can't read the latest FS2002-style XML gauges. The simicons are XML gauges, hence your problem. It's easy enough to get round this by manually editing Panel.cfg in Notepad. You can use gauges it can read to to position the icons if necessary.

[Simviation2003]

Yeah Thanks Hagar,

But I don't quite get what you mean!

If I edit the PANEL cfg. in notepad, what am I actually editing. Do I delete the XML Simcon Gauges and save?
Or do I reposition them to a position where I can see them on the screen, e.g the same position as the AH or DI?
Sorry to be a pain, but I would appreciate some more guidence on this issue.

Regards

SV2003

[Hagar]

Assuming you're modifying an existing panel, take a back-up copy of Panel.cfg before you start. Then modify the panel to your heart's content in CfgEdit. It will save the changes without those sim icons. Providing you didn't wish to move them you can open Panel.cfg in Notepad & copy/paste them from the original. Add the entries to the end of the list of gauges under [Window00]. Make sure the gauge numbers run in sequence & change them if necessary. These are the icon entries from the default beech_king_air_350 panel. The numbers at the end of each line define their position on the panel, horizontally & vertically.

gauge52=SimIcons!Kneeboard Icon, 407, 5
gauge53=SimIcons!ATC Icon, 422, 5
gauge54=SimIcons!Compass Icon, 623, 5
gauge55=SimIcons!ECU Icon, 609, 5
gauge56=SimIcons!Map Icon, 437, 5
gauge57=SimIcons!Avionics Icon, 581, 5
gauge58=SimIcons!GPS Icon, 595, 5

If you wish to move the icons, use other gauges to position them in CfgEdit. Save the panel then open Panel.cfg in Notepad & change the appropriate gauge names to replace them with whatever gauges you wish. You must use the exact name of the gauge. Again, the easiest method is to copy/paste these from an existing Panel.cfg. It's quite easy once you understand the principle. Once you're familiar with manual editing it's possible to create a complete panel using Notepad alone.

Hope this helps.

If you're serious about designing panels it might be worth paying for FS Panel Studio, the commercial version of CfgEdit. This is fully FS2002-compatible. I don't know if it's been tested in FS2004 yet but it should also be fine for that without being updated. I find CfgEdit does all I need.

[Simviation2003]

Thanks Hagar,

This is a real help, I shall see how I go with it.

One more question about panels;

How do the designers get their bitmaps, do they download them from somewhere, or do they create them fom scratch using a program?

SV2003

[Hagar]

I'm sure you will soon figure it out. It gets easier with experience. I don't design panels from scratch myself. There's various ways to create the BMP. It depends how handy you are with the graphics editor you have. M$ Paint will do if you have nothing better. The important thing is the ability to use the features & save in the correct format. Having quality graphics editing software like Adobe Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro is all very well but no good at all if you don't know how to use it. This also involves a modicum of artistic talent which is why it doesn't suit me.

One method is to find a suitable good quality photo of the real panel & resize/tweak/manipulate the image to your own requirements. You could also modify an existing panel BMP.