Confused by Panel Information Dialog

Let Sim Innovations know about your Air Manager experience and let us know about your dream feature addition

Moderators: russ, Ralph

Post Reply
Message
Author
Tetrachromat
Posts: 236
Joined: Sun Feb 14, 2021 6:55 pm

Confused by Panel Information Dialog

#1 Post by Tetrachromat »

Hello, happy to join this community.

I'm a new user of Air manager (4.0). I started on developing / modifing instruments and creating custom panels for my home cockpit.

In the Create/Edit tab when I create a new panel and open the 'Panel Information' dialog, I get confused about the structure:
- Panel level (Panel icon)
. Aircraft Model level (Airplane icon)
_ Layout level (Window icon)
> Instrument (Gauge icon)

I understand that you have multiple instruments per layout, and also that you may have multiple layouts per aircraft. But why having multiple aircrafts per panel?

Then after creating the layout(s) and adding instruments to them, I can't edit the layout. I need to add them in the 'Home' tab to edit. Why not editing layouts in the Create/Edit tab?

Also when adding the layouts to the 'Home' tab, the layouts receive the name entered at the Panel level, not the name entered at the layout level in the 'Panel Information' dialog.

So may be one of the more experienced user here, can explain the 'use case' for that structure.

Paul

User avatar
Sling
Posts: 5237
Joined: Mon Sep 11, 2017 2:37 pm
Contact:

Re: Confused by Panel Information Dialog

#2 Post by Sling »

Hi Paul and welcome to the forum.

Yes the panel creation can take a bit of getting used to. I guess the first thing to say is just because the features or structure is there you do not have to use it if it doesn’t fit your needs. It allows lots of configuration as you have seen.

I made this video shortly after these features were introduced to Air Manager. May I suggest you watch this and if you still have specific questions after then I’d be happy to try and answer them for you.

The key to this is to use the create/edit panel creation features along side the GUI layout features in the home tab. What I normally do is create the panel in the Home tab and then create the structure in create/edit tab. Once the structure is setup you can import the panel, change any settings and user properties and any panel scripting. as I show in the video it’s easy to swap between the 2 environments.

On the queries.

why having multiple aircrafts per panel? Some aircraft have many different variants with different panels/instruments. PA28 is a good example.

Then after creating the layout(s) and adding instruments to them, I can't edit the layout. I need to add them in the 'Home' tab to edit. Why not editing layouts in the Create/Edit tab? Your guess is as good as mine. I think this part should be combined. However you can edit the panels here but it’s not very user friendly without the graphical views.

Also when adding the layouts to the 'Home' tab, the layouts receive the name entered at the Panel level, not the name entered at the layout level in the 'Panel Information' dialog. I agree about the panel naming. It’s something I asked to be changed a little while back. For me it should include the aircraft (2nd level) and layout name (3rd level) only.

Tony


Tetrachromat
Posts: 236
Joined: Sun Feb 14, 2021 6:55 pm

Re: Confused by Panel Information Dialog

#3 Post by Tetrachromat »

Hi Tony

Thank you for the video. It was enlightening. I can see the workflow now.

I thought creating panels is performed in the Create/Edit tab.

Learned that panels should be created in the 'Home' tab. The panels section is used only for creating panel collections (like libraries), e.g for backup/exporting/uploading.

I think the confusion is mainly related to the inconsistent terminology. Air Manager uses the term 'layout' what I consider a 'panel', but is not using that term throughout the user interface consistently. In the 'Home' tab it refers to 'panels' but we actually add 'layouts'.

I come from a FS9/FSX background where the term 'panel' was used for what Air manager calls 'layout'.

And yes I agree the naming of the 'layout' when adding to the 'Home' tab should be changed to something what you suggest. I would prefer someting like "<layout name> <aircraft name> (<collection name>)".

I also learned from your video, that 'layouts' are always copies of the ones added from the libraries. You cannot edit a layout in a library. And when you add a layout to your 'Home' tab it is just a copy. Changes will not go trough back to the library. It would be nice to have something like a 'link'.

I need to think about my workflow, how to manage all those copies. probably requires some manual tasks after each dev session.

Paul

Post Reply