Am I stupid?

[Didrik]

I might be putting the 'stupid-sign' on my forehead by asking this question but when I've made a very easy "add-on" via SimConnect and I would like to use it with FS. How do I do? Let's say I've made a file which tells FS to apply left brakes on the push of Alt+Shift+<- (left arrow), where to put this file to make it work?

Best Regards
Didrik

[Michael Carter]

Just buy FSUIPC and forget about having to do any writing. Commands like that are all in FSUIPC for assignment to switches, buttons, and knobs.

And pedals, and throttles, and...;)

[Mike.Powell]

I might be putting the 'stupid-sign' on my forehead ...?

Best Regards
Didrik

I think at one point or another we all have a stupid sign on our foreheads. However, this is not such a time for you. (Later, maybe, :roll: but not now.) SimConnect is a complex interface, and takes some time to learn.


Using SimConnect requires writing a program that links to the SimConnect DLL. SimConnect acts as a "server" to the user program "client". Step one is to open a connection port with SimConnect. Step two is to tell SimConnect what variables and flight sim event you will be interested in. Step three is actually requesting or setting values of these variables, and examining or triggering the events. The final step is closing the connection when you shut down your application.

This sounds worse than it is. If you're used to writing programs that simply call functions, SimConnect will seem overly complicated. SimConnect is based on message passing. Your program doesn't make a function call to immediately read a sim variable or trigger landing gear movement. Your program sends a message to SimConnect asking it to act on your behalf, and perhaps return a message on completion. Your program has to do some set up work to get the messaging system initialized, then things just zip along.

The advantages of the messaging system are that your program can be doing other things while SimConnect triggers flight sim events (like lowering the gear), and collects flight sim variable values for you. It also means that multiple client programs can run concurrently talking with flight simulator.

I think the best way to learn about SimConnect is to work through some of the coding examples in the SDK. For example look at the Throttle Control code on this page: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc526983.aspx#WorkingSamples

[Didrik]

Thanks a lot :)