Thorsten wrote:Sorry, I can't read that into the message. Why can't the in-sim triggered Qt launcher /not/ be optional like the rest of the launcher? It's not like the aircraft center would somehow be crucial functionality necessary to use the sim.
Of course, it already is optional - as is the AircraftCenter - but, please see the full discussion - the whole point was to expose package manager functionality via the GUI.
Originally, that is how the AircraftCenter got created - meanwhile, this is being re-implemented via the Qt5 GUI. And there's also been talk about possibly extending Torsten's web-based Phi UI accordingly.
But the main consensus was that people wanted to establish the package manager as the main mechanism for end-users to "manage" (=download/install, update, remove) aircraft using the notion of 3rd party hangars.
In other words, if the AircraftCenter stops being developed/maintained in favor of a Qt5 (or possibly HTML5)-based version, those people who cannot use a browser/qt5-based equivalent, would obviously be left out of the loop.
Obviously, you don't have to use any package manager functionality at all - and most of us (using git/svn) are unlikely to use it anyway. But it is a rather significant move still, because of the declared goal to establish the package manager as the main mechanism for aircraft deployment for end-users:
http://wiki.flightgear.org/FlightGear_Package_Manager
http://wiki.flightgear.org/FlightGear_P ... ite_note-2
James Turner wrote:Tthe goal here is to almost get rid of a centralised aircraft repo anyway, and have a decentralised development system with the only central point being the aircraft package manager for end users. Then 99% of people never care where the aircraft is stored while it’s developed
The goal is that no one except people working on an individual aircraft should care where it’s developed at all (on GitHub, in a private SVN repo, stored as sheets of paper in a filing cabinet). SCM systems are not distribution/release systems, we’ve simply been using them in that fashion by accident
Equally, reset/re-init functionality is primarily exposed via the AircraftCenter/launcher currently.
You may say, that it is us broken at the moment - but let's assume, it will get fixed, would you want it to be tied to a Qt5 dependency ?
All this is is obviously in stark contrast to Curt's original statement from Feb/2015:
http://sourceforge.net/p/flightgear/mai ... /33451055/
Curt wrote:As we move forward with FlightGear development and future versions, we will be expanding the "in app" aircraft center. This dialog inside flightgear lets you select, download, and switch to any of the aircraft in the library.