P3D

Preview 2024.1, updates, and spring feedback form results

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Welcome back to this week’s blog post. Last time, we played catch-up and let you know about the spring 2024 feedback form we posted. This week I want to cover a few things, so this post may be a little longer than normal. We are going to cover preview builds, Talking flight monitor updates, project priorities, project restructuring, a new partnership, and results from the spring 2024 feedback form. So, let’s get started!

Preview builds

It has been a little over a year since we posted a preview build. Since then, Talking flight monitor has been going through growing pains in the form of a complete conversion from dotnet 4.8 to dotnet 8.0. We also started converting the windows and dialogs in Talking flight monitor over to a newer, more accessible user interface library. The conversion is going well. However, many people have been anxious, wanting to know when the next preview would be posted. We then posted a poll late last week, asking whether or not we should bring back the preview builds before the conversion was complete. The pole indicated that 99.9% of the respondents wanted the preview builds to return, even if the conversion wasn’t complete. In response to this interest, we brought back the preview builds. Preview 2024.1.503 is available for downloaded, and can be found on this website under the preview releases link. Make sure you read the entire release notes before downloading and using. By using the preview builds, you agree that Talking flight monitor and all of its associates, developers, and partners aren’t responsible for damage caused by the preview. The preview will be released around the 15th of each month.

Updates

After the preview release, the only updates are that the PMDG 737 overhead/anti-ice panel and the main area of the overhead panel are complete.

Project priorities

The BVI pilots communities have been talking about Talking flight monitor project priorities over the past week or so. It has come to our attention that a projected feature, ‘flows and checklists’ be implemented as soon as possible. This is because many of the community members feel that they would lose access to a first officer feature (provided by another developer) if we don’t act fast. Our official position is that we need to finish the PMDG 737 panels before attempting to create flows and checklists for it. Among other things, we are in the middle of a conversion/restructuring project at this time and might find it difficult to respond to the request quickly.

Project restructuring and new partnership

While we go through the conversion process, we will also go through and implement a modular approach to Talking flight monitor development. This means that when portions of source code can be isolated from the rest of the codebase, it should then be isolated and packaged so it can be reused in other projects. Doing this will make the software faster and more reliable. It also gives users the ability to download components or modules they are interested in using. For example, why force everyone to download Talking flight monitor with PMDG 747/777 support when they will never use it? So, while we work through the conversion process and other items on the table, we will work on the modular design for the project. This modular redesign will not require a redesign of what is already finished or planned, so no worries there.
On the restructuring side of things, I recently started a software development company that focuses on supporting other software developers in their journey of becoming a professional software developer, student, or other professional in the field. It develops accessible software tools for those students/professionals so they can independently complete their work tasks. Inspiragon (my company) and Talking flight monitor agreed to a partnership. The terms of the agreement are Inspiragon will provide me at no cost as a three-quarter time contractor to work on Talking flight monitor. It will also cover Talking flight monitor’s development related expenses, if any, in exchange for revenue on paid addons. This also means that Talking flight monitor’s website will change throughout the rest of this year. Inspiragon will add a new feature request form, a new contact form, and potentially a new bug tracker. This way, there is no need to create an account on GitHub. Just fill out the form and submit it, and you are done. Now, coming out of this partnership is the requirement that Talking flight monitor develop paid addons to be sold on Inspiragon’s website. So, at some point in the future, we will start working on those paid addons. At this point, I don’t know much about the paid addons, other than they will be on a monthly or yearly subscription rate. When the time comes, we will release more details. You can visit Inspiragon’s website at www.inspiragon.com. At the time of writing, the website is nearly empty. It is just getting started. Bare with us as we go through growing pains together.

Spring 2024 feedback form results

In the spring 2024 feedback form, we got some interesting results. Some we were expecting, others were a surprise. To start, Most participants use P3D. However, most of them also voted for us to drop support for it. Next, everyone used payware aircraft and voted to consolidate features, preserve the state of the trim toggle, and convert the automatic detection of aircraft into a manual selection process. Finally, most of the participants voted to have the left and right bracket (command keys) separated from the TFM virtual keyboard while providing a way to turn them on and off without affecting the TFM keyboard. There may be follow up polls or feedback forms throughout the year to further narrow down the interest of the communities that use Talking flight monitor.
This has been a long post, so I will end it now. Keep watching YouTube for new videos, the website for new content, and the TFM communities for support in your flying adventures. Until next time…

Post surgery update/P3D support

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In last month’s blog post, we covered the heartbeat of Talking flight monitor and what it will take to address existing bugs and to do an in-place upgrade of the entire system. This week, we will update everyone on my surgery and provide some important news about supporting P3D and Navigraph.

 

Surgery update

 

Surgery went well. The doctor wants me off my feet for at least four weeks. This means I can do light weight activities inside. He put a limit on how long I can be on my feet, including how long I can sit at a desk during the day. As a result, I had limited time with my laptop, until my wife found a workaround. Now, I can “sit at my desk” as long as possible. This still means limited times because sitting on the couch with my feet up on my desk chair stresses out my back after a while. At least it is as many times during the day as I want. Doing flights is easy because I can be at my desk until autopilot takes over, then move to the couch. I will keep everyone updated on the next stage of recovery with the next blog post.

 

Navigraph support

 

Talking flight monitor is now added to the Navigraph HUB. Anyone with a subscription should be able to add the current cycle. This is only for the source builds though. If you would like to build from source to test bleeding edge code, follow the directions found at Building TFM from source. We are currently adding support for the database, so no new features will arrive until this is finished and tested.

 

P3D support

 

P3D 6 was released sometime last month. Some significant changes were made to improve the P3D framework and scenery. However, these changes broke support for the PMDG line of aircraft. In other words, PMDG aircraft do not work in P3d6. PMDG announced that after trying to add support for P3D 6, they had deeper problems than just changing some installer files. In the same announcement, they stated that revisiting this problem wouldn’t happen until the 777 and 747 were added to MSFS. This puts the timeframe sometime in mid or late 2024. As reported in the announcement, PMDG most likely won’t continue support for P3D if the changes require too many resources or too much time. Since MSFS arrived on the scene, the market share for P3D 4 and later has significantly declined. Even though more addons and scenery exist for P3D than MSFS, more addons are being altered or newly developed for MSFS. This brings us to Talking flight monitor’s placement in the market.

Talking flight monitor strives to support as many simulators as possible. However, we are also limited in time and resources. Since market value of P3D is declining in favor of MSFS, and PMDG doesn’t support P3d 6, we are not supporting P3D 6 nor continuing new development on P3D 5. Any new development in Talking flight monitor will be focused on MSFS. Keep the following in mind.

 

  • When features are identical in both simulators, we will support P3D5 and earlier.
  • If Talking flight monitor works in P3D6, it is at your own risk.
  • As long as the PMDG SDKs are the same or close to the same, we will support the P3D versions.
  • When the PMDG SDKs are drastically different, the MSFS versions take priority.
  • Navigraph support is independent of a simulator, so works in both P3D and MSFS.
  • We will not support Aerosoft products.
  • We do not support FS2Crew or similar products.
  • We do not support the PMDG DC6, TS4xxx, or similar aircraft.
  • Support for Osobo aircraft requires an evaluation.

Again, we will do our best to keep P3D5 and earlier support going. However, we can’t make promises to the effect. We hope everyone understands our decision to back off on P3D support. In the event PMDG does support P3D 6, we will reassess the situation.