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Re: Thrustmaster Airbus Throttle Units

Postby SurferTim » Mon May 02, 2022 1:30 pm

One joystick device is no problem. It is duplicate device names. The OP has 2 Airbus throttles (same name) and wants the 1st throttle to control engines 1&2, and the 2nd throttle to control engines 3&4.
The limitation is the device name. It appears that is the only way to determine the joystick driver. Multiple devices with the same name load the same xml file.
If the device number (ie js0, js1,js2, etc) was available to the joystick xml files, multiple joysticks with duplicate names would be easy.
Otherwise, the only solution for FG I can see is to modify the joystick device names in your OS.
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Re: Thrustmaster Airbus Throttle Units

Postby Gijs » Mon May 02, 2022 2:45 pm

You can force FlightGear to load a specific .xml file for a specific joystick number*. See the wiki: https://wiki.flightgear.org/Input_devic ... on_Windows

* this could be a bit tricky as I'm not sure if the number assignment is fixed between sessions...
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Re: Thrustmaster Airbus Throttle Units

Postby SurferTim » Mon May 02, 2022 2:57 pm

@Gijs: That may be great for Windows (if it works), but what about Linux and Macs?
One thing I've found about the FG wiki is most articles are obsolete. Most "solutions" don't work now.
With Debian, I guess I can use a udev/rules.d rule to assign new names. I've used that for wlan name assignments.

Edit: In the wiki to which you posted a link, just a few lines down, this does not work. Tested and failed.
"Joystick support via .fgfsrc entries"
I think it may be because the app fgjs fails. It does fine until the buttons, then repeats itself over and over.
Q: Do you want to assign button10 to brakes? (y/n)
A: y
Q: Do you want to assign button10 to left brake? (y/n)
A: n
Q: Do you want to assign button10 to left brake? (y/n)
A: n
Q: Do you want to assign button10 to left brake? (y/n)
A: y
Q: Do you want to assign button10 to right brake? (y/n)
A: n
Q: Do you want to assign button10 to right brake? (y/n)
A: n
...and on
If you press 'y', then only the last entry (only button 10) ends up in the xml file. No fgjfsrc.js file is generated.
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Re: Thrustmaster Airbus Throttle Units

Postby ERK » Tue May 03, 2022 12:26 pm

Dear Moderator and all who have tried to get my 4 x Engine throttles configured, I'm afraid I will have to call it a day, before my last few grey hairs wither. Until the consortium of coders can solve this problem - namely selection of four throttles using FGFS using the GUI - I'll call it quits and stick with the "all throttles" slider on the joystick. I look forward to it being solved in the next FGFS upgrade.
I've toyed with Thrustmaster S.T.A.R.T. but that is also complicated for an 86yo amateur.
Please buy my next Kindle book for charity - out mid May - called "Flight Simulators - Windows 11 Edition" by Robert Rycroft. FGFS will have a favourable chapter.
Thank you all for helping. For now, over & out, 10/4, or as Aussies say, "Cheers & beers & don't crash your gears." Or your FS aircraft, or worse still, your real aircraft.
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Re: Thrustmaster Airbus Throttle Units

Postby ERK » Thu May 05, 2022 7:44 pm

Update; some really good news. With the kind assistance of "The Eagle," the Thrustmaster Airbus gear is now working with both throttle quadrants, configured to give independant throttle control for all four engines. It works wonderfully with the jet Boeing 707, and prop Lockheed Super Constellation. This has been accomplished by "The Eagle" using the GUI Joystick Configurator and reworked XML files. There's still some ongoing work to see if reverse thrust can be configured for any applicable plane. Hopefully before long the details will be shown in this Forum, and in my forthcoming book.
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Re: Thrustmaster Airbus Throttle Units

Postby tdammers » Fri May 06, 2022 4:36 pm

Reverse thrust works fine, see the configuration I linked earlier. I have it configured for all the types I fly regularly: Citation-II, E-Jet, DHC-6, A320, CRJ700, 777, and it works fine on all of them.

The tricky part is that the thrust axis on the device is one continuous scale from -1 to +1, where -1 is full reverse, +1 is full forward, and the "idle" position is somewhere around the -0.5 mark. The device also sends a button event when entering and leaving the reverse thrust zone (this is *not* physically connected to the thrust reverser levers, those only actuate a mechanical lock). You can use this virtual button to test for reverser deployment, but you still need to map the thrust levers themselves.

The challenge with this is that just because the thrust lever is in the reverse range doesn't mean the reversers are actually enabled (e.g., you might be in the air, and the aircraft may inhibit reverser deployment when there's no WOW), so if you just map the negative range to positive thrust plus reversers selected, this will lead to forward thrust being applied when reverse thrust is inhibited but you physically selected reversers. So what I do is I have aircraft-specific code to check for actual reverser *deployment*, and I switch thrust lever mappings based on that.
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Re: Thrustmaster Airbus Throttle Units

Postby ERK » Tue May 10, 2022 9:54 pm

Thanks tdammers,
I appreciate your contribution. As reverse thrust in FGFS isn't vital for me, I'll pass on this one. My real concern was to help novices get flying with Airbus gear like mine. FGFS may be free, but I think it suits professionals rather than amateurs. I've tried, in my soon to be published, "Flight Simulators - Windows 11 Edition" to suggest that Airbus gear was specifically designed by Thrustmaster, to work with MFS2020 for the A320. It is great with that, but not so with FGFS. What's your opinion?
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Re: Thrustmaster Airbus Throttle Units

Postby tdammers » Wed May 11, 2022 3:35 pm

I think it works beautifully with the FG A320, but you have to configure it right, which, due to how FG works, realistically requires editing XML configurations.

It's not great UX for a casual user, which may be where your "suits professionals" assessment is coming from, but IMO, it's not so much about how serious you are about FLYING - it's simply a consequence of the typical DIY attitude that tends to come with open source projects. As is often the case, you are not just ALLOWED to modify and tinker; in order to make full use of the software, it is practically REQUIRED, and the realistic answer to the UX problems new users face is not that the software needs to be fixed, but that you need to learn how to use it, and that involves tinkering.
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Re: Thrustmaster Airbus Throttle Units

Postby ERK » Thu May 12, 2022 9:23 am

Thanks tdammers
I think you have it in a nutshell. I have never been a coder, and my "tinkering" often gets me into trouble with "open source" stuff. I was ok with FSX! Once I publish my book, which i hope will help folk with TCA gear, I'll just fly MFS2020 in my spare time and stay with writing novels. Good idea would you say?
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Re: Thrustmaster Airbus Throttle Units

Postby ERK » Wed May 25, 2022 3:55 pm

Thank you all on the Forum especially The Eagle. My third edition book, "Flight Simulators Windows 11 Edition QEII Jubilee" by Robert Rycroft is now published on Amazon Kindle. It should be available world wide. UK price £9.99.
It contained the chapter on FlightGear using throttles on 4 engines. The proceeds all go to charity, so please be generous.
Unless anyone wishes to comment on the book, or the moderator decides to close this thread, that's it from me for now.
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Re: Thrustmaster Airbus Throttle Units  

Postby TheEagle » Wed May 25, 2022 4:49 pm

@ERK: closing the thread is not a mod's job … please do that yourself, since you are the thread author ! ;) Just click the small green checkmark at the top right of any post.
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