Instrument switcher panel

Working on a instrument project or just finished a project? Show it to others!

Moderators: russ, Ralph

Post Reply
Message
Author
User avatar
WillemijnL
Posts: 107
Joined: Sat Jan 30, 2016 1:14 pm

Instrument switcher panel

#1 Post by WillemijnL »

I am creating a generic panel that shows only a couple of instruments at a time. This way you can have more instruments on a small screen then will fit when they are all visible at the same time. Instruments are linked to one or more groups and a group are linked to a button in the buttonbar. Pressing a button will show the linked instrument group and hide the other groups. You can add as many instruments as you like. For me, this way I can add multiple instruments to a 7 inch touch screen showing one instrument at a time. For the curious people: to display the sections of the HotStart TBM-900 overhead panel (to create when this panel is finished) on my 7 inch screen one at a time to save space.

A preview with 4 screenshots showing Bendix/King instruments:
Instrument switcher panel v0.2.png
The buttons are created with a text button class from a toolbox I am working on. The buttons are highly customizable (colors, borders, etc) and have three states: normal, active and pressed. The active state can be switched on and off in your code. The active state in the prevew has a white border. The buttons don't use any images.

Next things to do is adding a configuration reader (config is hard coded now) and writing a manual describing how to configure the panel.

User avatar
cgytm
Posts: 13
Joined: Sun Mar 10, 2019 1:39 pm

Re: Instrument switcher panel

#2 Post by cgytm »

Really interesting.
Normand Choinière, Québec, Canada, French speaking.

Pkaser
Posts: 61
Joined: Mon Jul 15, 2019 7:15 pm

Re: Instrument switcher panel

#3 Post by Pkaser »

Nice!

User avatar
WillemijnL
Posts: 107
Joined: Sat Jan 30, 2016 1:14 pm

Re: Instrument switcher panel

#4 Post by WillemijnL »

Some update. The panel seems to work now, but still testing. There were a couple of challenges. What configuration file to use, so everyone is able to change the configuration quit easily? How to create multiple configuration files for multiple panels? Or how to deal with panel updates without loosing your configuration files? All have a solution now. I still have to write a manual, describing how to add panels, how to create/update configuration files and how to deal with panel updates.

How the panel works:
1. Create a panel (Panels+ button) as usual and select the Instrument Switcher Panel instead of the Blank panel.
2. Remove every default instrument from the panel you don't want.
3. Add the instruments you want as usual.
4. Modify the configuration file or create a new one (and add the new file name in the user properties) as described in the manual.

A configuration file contains:
- Default button settings (size, colors, shape, font)
- Each button (group assignment, position, label, optional custom settings)
- Each instrument (instrument id, group assignment)

When you click/press a button, all instruments of the same group become visible. The other instruments will be hidden.

If you want to create another panel, repeat above steps and create a new configuration file for that panel.
Configuration files may be placed outside the Air Manager directories when you fill in two folder path user properties.

There will be a bonus to make life easy: a buttonbar calculator which will calculate each button position based on some input parameters and generate corresponding configuration lines you can copy. The calculator is just an html file you can start in your browser.

Post Reply