Panels made easy?

[mosquito0371]

Is there a way to make panels with out knowing how to program? I'm a young commercial pilot with out a lot of computer skills and would like to create panels that are like the aircraft I'm flying. Can anyone give me some tips on programs that put everything to gether for you?

[Hagar]

You might like to try CfgEdit from the Panel Design section here. It was intended for FS2000 & cannot read the latest XML gauges introduced with FS2002 & also used in FS9. Apart from that it's the best freeware panel design application out there. This is not really a problem providing you stick to gauges in the conventional GAU format. They can always be swapped for the later type by manually editing Panel.cfg in Notepad when it's finished. Creating the panel is a simple matter of selecting a gauge from your Gauges folder & positioning/resizing it to fit the background BMP.

My advice would be to have a go at modifying an existing panel first. Open it in CFgEdit & get used to the program. Also look at Panel.cfg in Notepad to see how it's all configured. It's not difficult once you get the hang of it. You will need to point the CfgEdit FS2000 "Options/Mode & Root Directory" option to your FS9 root directory folder before using it with FS9.

[willg]

If your a beginner It might be easier to edit exisiting panels rather than start from scratch, e.g, a Piper panel will be very similar to a Cessna panel, so you could just edit that until you feel it resembles the aircraft you want.

[_526th_Fireman]

Mosquito..................GET CFGEdit!!!!!!

GREAT free program and works fine with FS9, but as Hagar said, won't Display the bmp of the XML gauge. If you select an XML gauge, it will be drawn as a lavender? colored box in CFGEdit. But the gauge will display on the panel in flight.
It's just a matter of sizing the gauge on the panel in CFGEdit, but that's an easy work around.

There are so many things you can do with this program that i consider a MUST HAVE for any flight simmer.

[mosquito0371]

Thanks I will try this out and see what kind of results that I get. Can anyone give me tips on how to adjust my simmulator to fly a little smoother like a real plane, instead of being really touchy and really hard to control.

[GA_Pilot]

I edit all my panels by trial and error, till I get it right, but there is a payware program called FS Panel Studio, which will work with XML gauges. I plan on getting it soon  ;D

[MattNW]

Thanks I will try this out and see what kind of results that I get. Can anyone give me tips on how to adjust my simmulator to fly a little smoother like a real plane, instead of being really touchy and really hard to control.

Touchiness is usually due to the controls you are using. If it's a joystick you are compressing the control movement of (in a real airplane) a couple feet into an inch or so and that is almost obviously going to be touchy.

Some controllers are also touchier than others. I had a Logitech FF stick that was almost uncontrolable. I had to turn down all my sensitivity settings and still fought the thing all the time when flying. Later I purchased a Saitek X-45 and found that much better (paid less for it too).

You'll have to play around with your sensitivity settings and maybe consider a better controller setup. If you go with a new stick however don't go the bargain route. Get something good. Best of all (if you can afford it) is a Yoke and Rudder setup. A good yoke/rudder will almost certainly resolve your touchiness issue but you are going to pay some $$ for it.

For the panels you might want to look into FS Panel Studio. It isn't the best but I've had fairly good luck with it. It isn't free however. Forget what I paid for it but I've been using it since FS 2002.