FlightGear Newsletter June 2014: Difference between revisions

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FlightGear Newsletter June 2014 (view source)

Revision as of 20:43, 30 June 2014

443 bytes added ,  30 June 2014
Canvas cleanup/restructuring - more to come...
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(Canvas cleanup/restructuring - more to come...)
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{{Newsletter-cover-header|Development news}}<br/>
{{Newsletter-cover-header|Development news}}<br/>
{{Newsletter-cover-item|FlightGear 3.2 - Feature Freeze}}<br/>
{{Newsletter-cover-item|FlightGear 3.2 - Feature Freeze}}<br/>
{{Newsletter-cover-item|Canvas GUI: MessageBox Support}}<br/>
{{Newsletter-cover-item|Canvas GUI: Layouting, Widgets and MessageBoxes}}<br/>
{{Newsletter-cover-item|Preview: Aircraft Center - get it on the fly}}<br/>
{{Newsletter-cover-item|Logo proposal}}<br/><br/>
{{Newsletter-cover-item|Logo proposal}}<br/><br/>
{{Newsletter-cover-header|Addons and mods}}<br/>
{{Newsletter-cover-header|Addons and mods}}<br/>
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On June 17, we entered our scheduled feature freeze state for the next release. Please use the remaining weeks to improve the existing features, harden and cleanup the code, edit the [[Next Changelog|ChangeLog]], improve the Manual, document the undocumented etc. etc. The release branches will be created on July 17th to have the release ready by Aug. 17th.
On June 17, we entered our scheduled feature freeze state for the next release. Please use the remaining weeks to improve the existing features, harden and cleanup the code, edit the [[Next Changelog|ChangeLog]], improve the Manual, document the undocumented etc. etc. The release branches will be created on July 17th to have the release ready by Aug. 17th.


{{Template:Newsletter-article-start|{{{1|Canvas GUI: MessageBox Support}}}|By [[User:TheTom|TheTom]]}}
{{Template:Newsletter-article-start|{{{1|Canvas GUI: Layouting, Widgets and MessageBoxes}}}|By [[User:TheTom|TheTom]]}}
Thanks to Tom's and James' recent work on the upcoming [[Aircraft Center]] for downloading and switching between aircraft without having to exit FlightGear, beginning with FlightGear 3.2, FlightGear's [[Canvas]]-based GUI will contain support for so called [[Canvas MessageBox|Message Boxes]]:
Thanks to Tom's and James' recent work on the upcoming [[Aircraft Center]] for downloading and switching between aircraft without having to exit FlightGear, beginning with FlightGear 3.2, FlightGear's [[Canvas]]-based GUI will contain support for so called [[Canvas MessageBox|Message Boxes]]:
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[[File:Canvas GUI Demo Dialog.png|300px|thumb|Screen shot showing a simple [[Canvas GUI]] dialog with a handful of [[Canvas Widgets|Button Widgets]].]]
For an example see [[Howto:Creating a Canvas GUI dialog file]].
<div style="clear:both;"></div>
{{Template:Newsletter-article-start|{{{1|Preview: Aircraft Center - get it on the fly}}}|By [[User:TheTom|TheTom]] and [[User:Zakalawe|Zakalawe]]}}
[[File:Aircraft-center-prototype.png|270px|thumb|Canvas dialog showing the prototype for an [[Aircraft Center]] for directly installing/managing aircraft from within FlightGear, an upcoming feature scheduled for FlightGear 3.2, currently being developed by TheTom and Zakalawe]]
The "built-in" GUI/launcher is one of the longest-standing feature requests - but it's not just about the GUI (which is rather straightforward in comparison), but about the simulator never having  been developed with this requirement, i.e. run-time reinitialization, in mind - thus, things like "fgrun" (and a plethora of other external launchers) were developed, which acted as a front-end on top of FG, so that FG itself wouldn't need to be changed - i.e. kind of a "remote control" using command line arguments. So it's there for a reason - fgrun uses the FLTK GUI library, which while relatively simple, is much more powerful than our legacy GUI engine, PUI.
Still, people have been asking for this for years, and it's thanks to pretty much a single person, Zakalawe, that switching aircraft is going to become possible pretty soon - he handled all the ugly work of cleaning up the simulator internals to make this happen - it's not exactly glamorous work, you gotta touch a ton of places, and you inevitably introduce a ton of regressions along the way.
And yes, even the legacy FG GUI is entirely based on XML and configurable through just editiing XML files - but the collection of "widgets" (GUI controls like buttons, checkboxes, labels etc) is extremely small and very inflexible.
This is something that is currently being addressed by TheTom and Zakalawe, who've both been working on a new Canvas GUI, and a new Canvas GUI dialog called "Aircraft Center", which -while still experimental- is intended to eventually allow end-users to easily download/install aircraft right within the simulator, and also switch between aircraft at run-time without having to exit/restart the simulator.
Thus, adopting Canvas is going to address a number of long-standing issues, but it's obviously a process that only just got started, and it will not happen overnight - 2-3 release cycles are not far-fetched, that's how long the whole migration could very well take, unless there are more people interested in helping.


{{Newsletter-article-start|Logo proposal|By [[User:Aepcam|Aepcam]]}}
{{Newsletter-article-start|Logo proposal|By [[User:Aepcam|Aepcam]]}}
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As long as you use the MapStructure framework, all layers can be easily used in dialogs AND instruments<br><br>Coding-wise, there isn't too much involved these days, all the details are covered in the MapStructure article.
As long as you use the MapStructure framework, all layers can be easily used in dialogs AND instruments<br><br>Coding-wise, there isn't too much involved these days, all the details are covered in the MapStructure article.


{{Newsletter-article-start|GUI Launcher|By [[User:Hooray|Hooray]]}}
[[File:Aircraft-center-prototype.png|270px|thumb|Canvas dialog showing the prototype for an [[Aircraft Center]] for directly installing/managing aircraft from within FlightGear, an upcoming feature scheduled for FlightGear 3.2, currently being developed by TheTom and Zakalawe]]
The "built-in" GUI/launcher is one of the longest-standing feature requests - but it's not just about the GUI (which is rather straightforward in comparison), but about the simulator never having  been developed with this requirement, i.e. run-time reinitialization, in mind - thus, things like "fgrun" (and a plethora of other external launchers) were developed, which acted as a front-end on top of FG, so that FG itself wouldn't need to be changed - i.e. kind of a "remote control" using command line arguments. So it's there for a reason - fgrun uses the FLTK GUI library, which while relatively simple, is much more powerful than our legacy GUI engine, PUI.
Still, people have been asking for this for years, and it's thanks to pretty much a single person, Zakalawe, that switching aircraft is going to become possible pretty soon - he handled all the ugly work of cleaning up the simulator internals to make this happen - it's not exactly glamorous work, you gotta touch a ton of places, and you inevitably introduce a ton of regressions along the way.
And yes, even the legacy FG GUI is entirely based on XML and configurable through just editiing XML files - but the collection of "widgets" (GUI controls like buttons, checkboxes, labels etc) is extremely small and very inflexible.
This is something that is currently being addressed by TheTom and Zakalawe, who've both been working on a new Canvas GUI, and a new Canvas GUI dialog called "Aircraft Center", which -while still experimental- is intended to eventually allow end-users to easily download/install aircraft right within the simulator, and also switch between aircraft at run-time without having to exit/restart the simulator.
Thus, adopting Canvas is going to address a number of long-standing issues, but it's obviously a process that only just got started, and it will not happen overnight - 2-3 release cycles are not far-fetched, that's how long the whole migration could very well take, unless there are more people interested in helping.


{{Newsletter-article-start|Damage and disintegration|By [[User:Algernon|Algernon]]|FlightGear addons and mods}}
{{Newsletter-article-start|Damage and disintegration|By [[User:Algernon|Algernon]]|FlightGear addons and mods}}
TheTom
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