FlightGear Newsletter July 2012

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Welcome to the FlightGear Newsletter!
Please help us write the next edition!
Enjoy reading the latest edition!


We would like to emphasize that the monthly newsletter can not live without the contributions of FlightGear users and developers. Everyone with a wiki account (free to register) can edit the newsletter and every contribution is welcome. So if you know about any FlightGear related news or projects such as for example updated scenery or aircraft, please do feel invited to add such news to the newsletter.

Development news

Adopting the new Canvas 2D rendering system

As of July 2012, FlightGear core developers agreed to adopt Tom's new Canvas 2D rendering system which is purely property-driven and handles all 2D drawing via the FlightGear property tree. Initially, the idea will be to replace the current GUI toolkit (PUI/PLIB, which has shown many limitations over time) and use a purely Canvas-based implementation instead, which will be mostly implemented in scripting space using Nasal and merely use the Canvas system as its rendering backend. The implementation details are covered at Canvas Widgets. This step will make it eventually possible for end users to easily customize the FlightGear GUI and its appearance by creating custom GUI styles (themes/skins), but also by creating completely new GUI widgets using an SVG editor like Inkscape.

Future plans include reimplementing the current HUD and 2D panel systems using the Canvas system. In addition, the canvas system will provide an opportunity to increasingly unify the 2D rendering backend in FlightGear in the months to come: Unifying the 2D rendering backend via canvas. Furthermore, the canvas system provides a novel way to abstract away the creation of fully interactive and dynamic moving map displays and GUI widgets for charting using so called Canvas Maps.

Mailing list digest

(by far the easiest option to populate the newsletter with contents is copying/pasting stuff from the forum and the mailing list or the git logs)

Forum digest

Git digest

Getting involved as a programmer

Please see Howto:Start core development

Interview with a contributor (NAME)

In each edition we have an interview with a contributor. Suggestions for possible questions are available on interview questions, you are invited to come up with new questions and interview ideas obviously! Anyone is free to write an interview (with him-/herself or others) for next month's newsletter! If you'd like to help interview a contributor or get interviewed, please do consider adding yourself to the list of interview volunteers! To keep this going and less awkward, we are currently trying to come up with the convention that former interviewees become next month's interviewers.

  • How long have you been involved in FlightGear?
  • What are your major interests in FlightGear?
  • What project are you working on right now?
  • What do you plan on doing in the future?
  • Are you happy with the way the FlightGear project is going?
  • What do you enjoy most about developing for FlightGear?
  • Are there any "hidden features" you have worked on in FlightGear that new users may miss?
  • What advice can you give to new developers who want to get started on their first aircraft/new feature/Nasal script?

More questions are being collected here: Interview questions.

Stay tuned for next month's interview, featuring FlightGear contributor XXXXXXXX

Snapshot releases

Every now and then, easy-to-install development snapshots are created (usually, twice montlhy). These snapshos depict a recent state of the development version of FlightGear. By using them users can test out features that will be included in the upcoming release. Testers are encouraged to file bugs at the issue tracker.

The snapshot can be download via the links at the bottom of this page: http://www.flightgear.org/download/. Updates and feedback can be found at the forum.

Nasal for newbies

New software tools and projects

FlightGear addons and mods

In the hangar

All the way back in May 2011, we addopted a new status-rating system for aircraft. So far, only a few have actually been rated, as can be seen in the list 'hockenberry' set up at Google Docs. If you're an aircraft developer and your aircraft is/are not on the list, please consider rating their status. All you'll need to know/do is described at Formalizing Aircraft Status. If you'd just like to get started contributing to FlightGear, this would also seem like an excellent way to get started.

Comunity news

FlightGear

New aircraft

Updated aircraft

Liveries

Scenery corner

Tools

FlightGear made it again. For the first time in flight simulators history, it's never been that easy to contribute to scenery! If you have already copy/pasted once in your life, then you are able to contribute to FG scenery! A direct copy/paste of new objects lines (STG format) in a webform now allows you to update scenery objects all over the world for all FG users using Terrasync. Add your email address to be informed of the progress of the update. Import should happen soon (let's say between 24 and 72 hours, but it depends on the poor scenery maintainer(s) workload!).

Want to try it in production? Click here then choose mass import, or via the scenemodels website menu (Contribute => Mass shared object position insertion).

Please note:

  • You must only import new objects, not the whole STG file you're working on!
  • Don't add models not present in the FG scenemodels database, nor (yet) OBJECT_SIGN nor OBJECT_STATIC.
  • Don't add forest or other items linked to the landcover. Those items have to be generated based on the landcover, not on objects! The only trees accepted will be those located on airport boundaries, for example.
  • The data you're asking for import should be based for elevation on the terrain shipped with FlightGear/Terrasync, and not on a terrain you could have downloaded or compiled yourself. Else, your objects could appear floating or sunk in the terrain...
  • Finally, the import is limited to 100 lines per submission (let's think about the poor scenery maintainer(s)...)
  • The import is quite sensitive about the data in entry, which goes through quite a lot of checkings, including humans, before insertion.

Next step is the import script for 3D models. It's on its way, finished to approximately 90%. Be patient, it's quite a complex tool to achieve.

Mapserver

Mapserver showing update and deletion links.

Some mapserver news here, as we have not been talking about this very useful tool for a while. Mapserver has been going through updates this month, one of the most useful being the possibility to view details on a object and to edit/delete it directly from the map. This has never been so easy to update/delete a shared object directly from the map (see the screenshot). Note that you need to have a sufficient zoom factor (>=16) to see the red arrows appear, then you can click on them. Special thanks to Martin, Julien and Gijs for updating and testing this tool. To use it, please have a look here.

Airports

Aircraft of the month

Airport of the month

Screenshot of the month

Suggested flights

Aircraft reviews

Wiki updates

New articles

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New aircraft articles

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Most popular newsletters

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Community news

FlightGear on YouTube

FlightGear 2.8 Night with Rembrandt

New tutorials and screencasts

Forum news

Multiplayer

Two more multiplayer servers have been setup:

  • mpserver15.flightgear.org (North Point, Hong Kong)
Courtesy of Hazuki Amamiya
  • mpserver16.flightgear.org (Dallas, TX, USA)
Courtesy of Rob Dosogne (truthsolo)
Also hosts a new Server Status page.

Virtual airlines

FlightGear events

Useful links

And finally ...

Contributing

One of the regular thoughts expressed on the FlightGear forums is "I'd like to contribute but I don't know how to program, and I don't have the time". Unfortunately, there is a common mis-conception that contributing requires programming and lots of free time. In fact, there are a huge range of ways to contribute to the project without needing to write code or spending days working on something.

For ideas on starting to contribute to FlightGear, you may want to check out: Volunteer.

Call for volunteers

  • The OpenRadar project is looking for a new maintainer.
  • The FGFSPM (FlightGear Package Manager) is looking for a new maintainer.

Did you know