Peter Dowson has announced the beta version of his latest updates to FSUIPC, version 3.536. Peter says, "This version of FSUIPC embodies some major new facilities which have been on my list for a long time and which have finally made it. Because they are rather extensive in nature I have already developed some draft documentation, and you will find this in the PDF file included with the DLL."
Here is a summary of the differences between the current release 3.53 and the interim Beta version 3.536 here provided.
The first three listed below are covered extensively in the PDF:
1. Extensive axis assignment facilities have been added, allowing a range of things to be done with joystick axes.
2. The flaps calibration facilities now allow specific calibration for each detente on a proper flaps axis implementation.
3. The spoiler/speed brake calibration facility allows a specific zone to be calibrated for the Arm detente.
4. Additional FSUIPC controls are added to send Key Presses to FS, for use in some of the facilities above but also to make it easier than programming the WM_KEYDOWN/KEYUP sequences needed by the IPC facilities at offset 3200. These new controls are available in FSUIPC's on-line drop downs, but, more importantly, they can be easily sent via offset 3110 from external programs, including across WideFS links.
The controls are:
1070 Key Press and Release
1071 Key Press/Hold
1072 Key Release
The parameter for this gives both the keycode and the shift codes -- both as listed in the Advanced User's guide for FSUIPC. The parameter must hold the shift code in bits 8-15 and the keycode in bits 0-7. In other words, the value is:
Keycode + (256 * Shift code)
A shift code of zero is the same as 8 (i.e. no shifts).
To make it easier in the FSUIPC dialogue drop-downs, these values can be entered as "Keycode+Shiftcode" -- i.e. literally with the '+' as a separator. Examples of this occur in the Axis Calibration section of the PDF.
5. FSUIPC now delays the initial setting of the "touchdown V/S" value at offset 030C until it sees the simulator as "ready to fly". Hopefully this will remove invalid spurious values appearing at that offset initially.
6. A delay of five seconds is now imposed on the checking of access accreditation for aircraft Gauges when a new aircraft is loaded. This will hopefully remove any problems whereby the same correctly accredited gauge, installed in two aircraft, is spuriously rejected by FSUIPC when changing from one to the other of those aircraft.
