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GSX with MSFS

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freddie:
will GSX come to MSFS ?? as i think MSFS2020 need GSX ground services i love it in FSX and i miss it  :-\

virtuali:
Of course it will, and we are working on it for quite some time, but we can't say right now when.

bmaising:
hi Umberto, did you got any update from Asobo about the menu implementation inside MSFS?

virtuali:

--- Quote from: bmaising on January 14, 2022, 06:30:18 pm ---hi Umberto, did you got any update from Asobo about the menu implementation inside MSFS?
--- End quote ---

Yes, and it's not very good news, since they said they have no plans to restore that missing functionality from FSX, not at least the way it was in FSX/P3D, with a specific Simconnect call that made the menu appear programmatically.

That's unfortunate, but there are ways to overcome it, either using the new HTML/JS method like several other addons in the tool bar use or, in the worse case, using a custom menu that works by placing an extra window on top of the screen, which is also used by many other add-ons.

The first method is better, because it would work in VR and it's more integrated in the sim, but the biggest problem with it is that is completely undocumented so, every knowledge of it is based on looking at the source code of the default menus AND there have been several breaking changes between updates (it was undocumented, so Asobo didn't feel bound to any kind of backward compatibility), which resulted in many "toolbar addons" stop working, especially after SU5. It has been officially confirmed that documentation work on HTML/JS HAS now started, so we think this will be the route we'll use.

Another issue we still have with the SDK, is another missing feature from Simconnect that always worked since FSX and it's not working in MSFS, is the ability to temporarily block keyboard/mouse/joystick events from reaching the sim, which is required for all things in the GSX editor ( airplane or scenery customization editor or the Quick Pushback ). In previous versions of the SDK, it was documented to be working but, after our report about not really working, they said they don't like the fact an add-on could "steal" keypressess or joystick buttons from the sim, so they changed the documentation recently, removing the feature ( and managed to add a bug in the *documentation* itself too! ) and they wanted to introduced a completely new method to do the same thing in a more reliable way.

Lack of such feature is not affecting GSX only.

Take for example a feature available in some of the best airplane add-ons out there: the ability to momentarily "steal" the PC keyboard to use it as an input for the MCDU, so you can just type something instead of having to click on the buttons. This can't be done right now, because it would require to prevent the sim from getting the keyboard events for as long the "keyboard input" mode is active in the airplane. While reverting to mouse only and VC events might not be a huge loss for a typical MCDU, latest-gen airplanes like the A380 or the A350, which have a FULL SIZE real keyboard as one of their standard input methods, they could benefit a lot from this feature.

So, clearly, something should be done to allow this, and that's was the last we heard from Asobo, they would like to redesign the whole system, to allow add-ons to do that without risking having multiple add-ons stealing events at the same time, causing problems.

So, these are the two main issues we are still missing from the SDK, with the 2nd one being the worse, since Asobo hasn't provided with any kind of ETA for the "new way" to "steal keys", only a generic intention to fix the problem.

But it's not as if we could release GSX tomorrow, if those features would magically appear today. We think a proper GSX for MSFS should feature proper MSFS models with proper MSFS textures, new animations using all MSFS features and proper LOD optimization, and these will take some time, while we wait for the SDK to get where we need to.

Captain Kevin:
My brain hurts trying to read all that, so I'm just going to say that I agree.

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