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(1) Is there any way to set hot keys to display the 2D instrument panel views such as the CDU and MCP?

I've been told to look in the manual but I did not find anything about this.

(2) Regarding the SimIcons, is this configurable so we can show what ever panels we want to pop-up?

Thank you...

I thought I answered those questions for you here: http://www.captainsim.org/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1405818021/33#33

Yes, I guess you did Mark...sorry...I got mixed up with some of my questions.

I may have worded my question poorly. When I said SimIcons, I'm referring to this object in the lower left corner of the sim screen:

Editing the panel.cfg file, [Window03], can I replace some of the existing panels, for example, the Radio panel with say, the over head panel? I don't think the panel.cfg file is the right one since I don't see EFB or CDU, etc?

Thank you again...

rfresh777 wrote on Dec 5^th, 2014 at 4:32am:

For resizing the Simicons panel, change the size_mm=120,160 of [Window01] AND the size of gauge00=Captain_Sim.x777.tools!icons,0,0,120,160 to match, like this:

[Window01]
size_mm=120,160
background_color=0,0,0
window_pos=0.000,0.75
type=special
visible=1
render_3d_window=0
zorder=99
ident=11101
gauge00=Captain_Sim.x777.tools!icons,0,0,120,160

But as a consequence of resizing it (I tried 50% larger and used 180,240 as the size), the bottom of the gauge was missing, so you need to either (1) change the location in window_pos=0.000,0.75, or (2) comment out the window_pos= line by adding a forward slash (or deleting it) AND then replace it with position=6 (6 places it in the lower left side of the screen (where it is located using the window_pos= entry, but with the difference being that the position= entry will make the entire gauge visible). Positions are as follows:

0 = upper-left corner
1 = upper-middle side
2 = upper-right corner
3 = middle-left side
4 = middle
5 = middle-right side
6 = lower-left corner
7 = lower-middle side
8 = lower-right corner

To add other icon to the Simicons panel, you lengthen it's size, i.e. size_mm=120,160, by increasing the last set of digits. So if I wanted to add something else to it, I would add another gauge at the bottom, i.e. gauge01=gauge name, coords, size.

The coords would have to start at 0,160, and the size can be up to 120 wide, and however deep you make it. So if I change 160 to 200, then the depth will be 40.

You could change the Simicon panel IF you edit the Captain_Sim.x777.tools!icons gauge. You would probably be better off to replace it with a Simicons panel of your own. :-/

Are we able to move the items around on the SimIcons Panel?

For example, I'd like to have the MCP icon in the upper right corner. Is there a file I can edit to move it there?

Also, can I replace an existing panel display with another one? For example, I don't use the ATC icon spot, so could I replace it with, say, displaying the over head panel? That would be more useful to me. And it would be nice if I could replace the icon image in that spot too 8-)

Thank you...

Quote:

For example, I'd like to have the MCP icon in the upper right corner. Is there a file I can edit to move it there?

It's possible that you can, but you will need to edit the FSX\SimObjects\Airplanes\CS_B777-200ER_GE\panel\Captain_Sim.x777.tools\icons.spb file, and I don't know what program you would need to use to do it. I can open the icons.spb file in notepad, but I see a lot of strange charaters like this:

¬ë {×oî» |I®Y ÍÙ ªhÿÿÿÿ^‰¬½Ð^
H Ä W…Âÿÿÿÿÿ ”‚à¢OµL‚²ñ‹m ’V Å ¥ÓÿÞÉN¸OÜ›) Š´ÿÿÿÿ‰Î€7|¦

and I have no idea what they are, or what they do. But there is some lines in there that are perfectly readable too, like this:

External Power Available (%((L:E_GRD_POWER_ON))%{if}On%{else}Off%{end})

So the question is this. Are the SPB files C, C+, C++, or what other programming language? And I do not know the answer to that question. :(

.spb are binary files so that's why you see all those strange characters in a text editor. Any programming language can write binary data so we don't really know or care for that matter if it was done with c# or c++, etc.

But I think this is an icon resource file of some kind that SimIcons reads so it knows how to load its data into its panel.

I was hoping there was some kind of config file that would allow me to move the icons around the panel matrix.

The location of the icons/clickspots seem to programmed into the icons.spb file itself. If they were individual "gauges", like the default simicons are, then it would be very easy to shuffle them to your liking. :(

I did some more digging, starting off where Mark has kindly pointer me in the direction to look.

The .spb file extension is a saved game file created by Microsoft ESP, a software toolkit used for flight and vehicle simulation.

It saves the state of a flight simulator mission, including the state of mission "triggers" and "actions" and is saved with a .FLT file as part of a game save.

Microsoft ESP missions are originally created in an XML format, but are saved in a binary SPB format to speed reading in the data when FSX starts up.

I had to use an FSX SDK tool to reverse engineer it back into an .xml file. But I'm not sure of all the xml tags so I don't know if this is the file I need to edit or not. I will have to keep researching this it looks like.

In any event, here is a link to download the xml file since it won't post here for security reasons.

http://www.SimChecklist.net/icons.xml

OK...all the edits I needed to make were in that icons.xml file.

I moved some of the icons around to different positions within the matrix, to better suit my liking.

I also removed the icons I have no need for such as ATC, etc. So they are gone.

I wanted to replace one of the cells with the 2d panel of the overhead but the 2d overhead panel is not flat, its an angled view so I decided to skip it and just use my Opus camera overhead view.

If anyone else is interested in how to do this, just PM me.

Thanks for pointing me in the right direction Mark.

Here's my new SimIcons panel now. Note that I made a new icon called 'COM' to better reflect calling up the COM Radio panel.

You can change the Overhead view by editing the InitialXyz=0.50, -0.37, -0.47 and InitialPbh=-52.0, 0, 0 in the [CameraDefinition.002] of the aircraft.cfg

[CameraDefinition.002]
Title = "Overhead"
Guid = {93EA964A-D1F4-4AD0-9E94-37ED9EB79079}
Origin = Virtual Cockpit
MomentumEffect = YES
SnapPbhAdjust = Swivel
SnapPbhReturn = False
PanPbhAdjust = Swivel
PanPbhReturn = False
Track = None
ShowAxis = YES
AllowZoom = TRUE
InitialZoom = .5
SmoothZoomTime = 2.0
ZoomPanScalar = 1.0
ShowWeather = Yes
XyzAdjust = TRUE
ShowLensFlare=FALSE
Category = Cockpit
PitchPanRate=20
HeadingPanRate=60
InitialXyz=0.50, -0.37, -0.47 <- X, Y & Z location of the "eyepoint" in the view
InitialPbh=-52.0, 0, 0 <- Pitch, Bank & Heading angle of the view

So if you change where the point of view (eyepoint) is & angled it so that the view was flat, then you could make a simicon for the overhead panel.

Well by gosh...I think I will give that a try...thanks Mark.

Update: I got the values edited to give me the head-on view I wanted for the 2d overhead panel.

Now I'm searching for the overhead panel ident value so I can plug that into the SimIcons .xml file to actually pop-up the 2d overhead panel when I click in one of the matrix cells.

I'm still looking for it...

rfresh777 wrote on Dec 9^th, 2014 at 1:00am:

There is no panel Ident for the OH panel. You will need to create it yourself.

The Panel Idents are as follows:

ident=11101 <- Simicons
ident=11102 <- Animations
ident=11103 <- EFB
ident=11104 <- DSP
ident=11105 <- EFIS
ident=11106 <- CDU
ident=11107 <- MCP
ident=11108 <- COM

ident=11006 <- Loader (777F)
ident=11007 <- Loader2 (777F)

ident=11011-11017 <- The 2D Displays (6 of)

ident=11117 <- 2D Standby ADI, SPD & ALT gauges

So anything along those lines will suit as longs as you don't use one that already is in use (which I why I listed the two from the 777F).

CAPTAIN SIM FORUM
777 Captain (32-bit) >> 777 Captain (32bit) - General >> Hot keys to display instrument panels https://www.captainsim.org/forum/csf.pl?num=1417658894 Message started by rfresh777 on Dec 4^th, 2014 at 2:08am