I had an idea, but I need a bit of direction to continue. I wanted to do something like a custom cockpit, but using my laptop as my external. Trouble is, I can't run another copy of FG because the laptop is not up to par (it's an old MacBook, 2GHz Core 2 Duo, 64MB integrated Intel GMA 950). I looked at FGPanel, but I'm not completely sure how that would work, and I didn't see if that could send information to the master FG process as well.
What I am after is basically a virtual panel that could receive data to display (gauges, lights, switch positions) and send data to the sim (mostly switches, dials, etc and not control inputs). The catch is that I wanted this in a web browser, which my laptop can actually run.
While searching, I found the wiki articles on the networking options. After looking at those I feel like this is possible, but I'm not sure how to get FG and the external browser to talk to each other. Does anyone have a suggestion of where to start there? I don't know Nasal (yet...) but I have a feeling that would be an option. I'm also thinking that the native or generic protocol might be good, but I'm not sure what the data is looking like coming out of FG. I know with the generic protocol I can set up an XML document, so that might be the best.
Also, if anyone has some insight on setting up the listeners on the web end, I'd love to hear some ideas. This is a bit outside FG's scope, but can't hurt to ask.
I'm taking this on as a web development project to learn new skills. Since I do web development, it'd be a fun project to try and pick up some new skills. Also, this could turn into a very platform-agnostic way to have a cheap cockpit.