Version 1.18 of Flightplan Visualizer released

[pellelil 59]

For version 1.18 of Flightplan Visualizer (FV) I had something entirely different planed, and I have been working hard on adding an entirely new set of features, where I am still a long way from being able to release anything, as it contains a lot of new data, forms, and functionality, where I also will have to do a lot of "investigation" and testing - at least I know how to spend my time throughout the long, cold, and dark winter nights

 

Those future plans were pushed a bit in the background (for another release), and in stead version 1.18 became all about the support for MSFS, and support for multiple simulators. As written in a previous post, FV have not been made for a particular simulator, however it relies on the output from (Pete Dowson's) MakeRunways, and the flight-plans generated by AIG (intended for FSX/P3D). Recently released version 5 of MakeRunways can now scan installed MSFS scenery, hence FV is now able to visualize MSFS airports. Also FV was not written to be used with different simulators at the same time (having different data available for different simulators). However this have now changed with version 1.18. Version 1.18 have just been released, and it can be downloaded from AVSIM using this link:

https://library.avsim.net/esearch.php?CatID=msfs20util&DLID=219760

 

In order to learn how to use FV with multiple simulators I suggest you watch the tutorial-video released for version 1.18:

 

Here below is a short list of the changes in Version 1.18 (a lot have changed below the surface for future releases, but more on this at a later time):

• GREATLY improved the search-legs feature (by a factor of +50).
• In the past the application was forced to 32 bit. This is no longer the case, hence if needed its able to allocate more memory than before. I have never heard of anyone getting an "out of memory" exception, buy anyway.
• In the settings form, the field for entering the path to where to look for the Make Runways -files, have been replaced with a (MRU) combo-box, remembering the last 5 paths entered. So now you don't need to remember these paths each time you want to change it (e.g. if you switch between a set of files generated for P3D and another generated for MSFS). Remark that when this path is changed, FV will automatically restart when saving the settings, as the MkRwy-data are only loaded at startup.
• Added new command-line argument /MkRwy="G:\FS\MakeRunways". If this argument is set, FV will try to locate the files generated by Pete Dowson's MakeRunway in the specified folder, no matter the value of the MkRwy-path set in the settings-form.
• Added new command-line argument /FilePrefix=XXX. If this prefix is set (in the short-cut starting FV) it will look for files in the UserData-folder using this prefix and an underscore (e.g. open "XXX_UserAirportInfo.xml" in stead of "UserAirportInfo.xml"). If FV is started with this argument it will be displayed in the caption of the main-form to notify the user "which prefix is in use".
• Added new command-line argument /ForceReprocessFlightplans which forces all flightplans  to be reprocessed on startup (e.g. process all airport redirection according to loaded redirection file).
• Added new command-line argument /? or /help. Using either of these, or having specified a wrong command-line argument will show a small example of the correct way to use these arguments.
• Added a new "Auto-activation prefixes" entry field to the "Edit owned aircraft" form where you can now enter a comma separated list of prefixes for which each aircraft should set to active. If entered, the aircraft will automatically be set active when FV have been started with the /FilePrefix argument set to the entered value (e.g. P3D). If one or more prefixes have been entered into this field, and FV have been started with another prefix, those aircraft will be set to not-active.
• Added new setting to reprocess all loaded flightplans on startup if FV was started with another /FilePrefix argument than used the previous time FV was started (e.g. if you switch between two different simulators).
• Improved how pseudo-airports tries to look-up airport data from the bundled airport-database. So there is now a higher chance that: name, country/state, and time-zone will be populated with useful data for the pseudo airports.
• In previous versions when opening the airport-info form, the checkbox "Exclude small/grass/dirt" (runways) was always checked, meaning you had to uncheck this checkbox before being able to see any runway-information for small airports. In this version a new setting have been added where you can chose if this checkbox should default to being: Checked, Unchecked or (default) Automatic. if choosing "Automatic", this checkbox will default to un-checked for airports only having few/small runways.
• Redesigned the settings-form so things are less "cluttered", and it will be more easy for me to add additional items in the future.
• The Search Airport form now contains fields that lets you specify min/max criteria for rwy-length and airport elevation, and min/max distance to a specified airport (e.g. find all airports within 20-50 Nm of XXXX). Also you can specify required rwy-type (e.g. "All Hard", "Have Soft" ...).
• Added an "Edit" menu-item to the context menu in the Search Airport form, which opens the Airport Info form, and returns back to the Search Airport form (e.g. see details for a few found airports before chooing one of them).
• If Transition Altitude (TA) is not known for a particular airport, the program will now try to estimate TA based on nearby airports in the same country, where those nearby are weighted more than those further away (its not perfect, but "better" than 0). An estimated TA will be postfixed by a asterisk to mark that it is estimated.
• Minor (internal) changes to the automatic version-check.
• Fixed: Issue importing some AigFP flightplans where airports were being redirected (e.g. "AIG_AviaTrafficCompany_Winter_2019-2020v2").
• Fixed: Using the context menu in the list-view showing all owned aircraft, the changes were sometimes not saved.
• Fixed: In the conversion-form when converting weight/volume into US-Gal, the calculation was wrong (converting from US-Gal was not an issue).
• Fixed: In the leg-info report the value of Transition Altitude was in some cases used in stead of the length of the longest runway.
• Fixed: Leg-info report only contained taxi-out time for all airports. Now it only contains the taxi-out time for the departure airport, but both departure- and destination airports contains a taxi-in time.
• Fixed: In some cases an airport that was currently being edited, could be edited in another window at the same time (opening multiple Airport Info forms).
• Data: The bundled airport-database had a MAJOR face-lift. Various data were corrected, and it have more than doubled in number of airports/helipads contained within the database.
• Data: Improved detection of aircraft-type "IAI 1126 Galaxy" (as "Gulfstream G200"). Thanks to Bruce Nicholson for notifying me of the issue when importing a particular AIG flight-plan.

 

- Flightplans: All new/updated flightplans have been added to the installer, and all obsolete/defunct have been marked/removed. A total of 787 active flightplans are bundled with the installer.

[GunterMaus83 1]

Oh, danke für diese ausführliche Anleitung mit Updates. Ich brauchte es, also hast du mir sehr geholfen.