FlightGear Newsletter October 2012

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

Note to all contributors: Please also copy your newsletter additions to the changelog of the upcoming release: Changelog_3.0.0.

FGRadar: Standalone ATC client

Since mid-summer, forum user "Icecode GL" has been working on a free and open-source stand-alone ATC client written in C++, totally from scratch with the help of the GTKmm GUI toolkit (http://www.gtkmm.org/en/) and the Cairo 2D graphics library ( http://www.cairographics.org/). He has started this as a project to learn from and take some practice while developing it at the same time, as well as satisfying his needs of a complete and more professional ATC client for FlightGear.

FGRadar is a free, open-source and stand-alone air traffic control (ATC) client for FlightGear. It uses GTKmm (GTK+ port for C++) and Cairo to perform drawing operations.

If someone wants to join the project, give ideas, requests or opinions, feel free to do so. The repository is here: https://gitorious.org/fgradar

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)

Getting involved as a programmer

Please see Howto:Start core development

Release ChangeLog

This section lists changes committed this month that will be available in the next release, these will be copied to the release changelog shortly before a release (for each month), so that we hopefully get a comprehensive list of new features.

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.

Translators required

	The FlightGear Wiki still needs help for translating it into various languages. If you are interested in making the FlightGear Wiki multi-language then start at Help:Translate.
	Das FlightGear Wiki benötigt immer noch Hilfe bei der Übersetzung in verschiedene Sprachen. Wenn Du Interesse daran hast, das FlightGear Wiki Mehrsprachig zu machen, dann fang doch mit Help:Übersetzen an.
	De FlightGear Wiki kan nog steed hulp gebruiken bij het vertalen van artikelen. Als je interesse hebt om de wiki meertalig te maken, raden we je aan om een kijkje te nemen bij Help:Vertalen.
	La FlightGear wiki todavía necesita ayuda para traducirla a varios lenguajes. Si estás interesado en hacer la FlightGear wiki multilingüe, entonces comienza en Help:Traducir.

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.

Liveries

This month the livery database reached several milestones:

• the 800th livery was added.
• the 100th author submitted a livery.
• a livery for the 100th aircraft was commited.

A big "thank you" to all painters!

The upload form has been extended with several functionalities, the most important ones being:

• Thumbnails are to be uploaded independently of the livery package. This allows the database to automatically check if it has the right size and format.
• You can select a type of contribution: livery, paintkit or missing thumbnail. Based on your selection, the appropriate fields are displayed.
• Liveries that lack a thumbnail now have an "upload thumbnail" link on their page. There are still 41 liveries without thumbnails, please help us bring this back to 0!

Wiki updates

New articles

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New aircraft articles

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Most popular newsletters

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Community news

Virtual airlines

Easy-GO 2.0 So since last post I think we finally found an identity; a virtual airline, sure, but that exists already, although we hope we made a good one. But as this has gone along it has become clear that the most popular ideas were the organized flights and epic screenshots sections. We've arranged accordingly and now the organized flights, epic screenshots, and VA pages have been given equal importance. In the end, you don't join a VA, you join a site for screenshots, group flights, an effective "friends" list, and a VA. None of these categories are mandatory so if you just like taking screenshots or making liveries you're just as welcome as the next person. So we're not trying to make yet another VA with the same old standards; we're trying to make a site that you can make what you want out of it. So we have: Flight club, screenshot gallery, traditional VA, Charter VA and an open opportunity to submit whatever livery you would like to create. If any one of those sounds interesting to share then you might as well join :) easygova.freeforums.org/

Josh

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

To learn more about how the project works, please see this short essay written by Thorsten.

Call for volunteers

• The FGRadar project (standalone ATC client) is looking for people to join the project, give ideas, requests or opinions.
• The Flightgear On Android team is looking for testers
• The Target4Today team is looking for volunteers to help improving FlightGear's combat support
• The OpenRadar project is looking for a new maintainer.
• The FGFSPM (FlightGear Package Manager) is looking for a new maintainer.