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FG Flier - Yes, another GUI Launcher!

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FG Flier - Yes, another GUI Launcher!

Postby Bummer » Sat Oct 02, 2010 4:40 am

Reinventing the wheel? Eh, maybe ... but in all fairness, no 'casual' user will want to compile anything or pass along a ton of command line arguments, and I didn't find FGo until I came here to post this, lol. Plus, isn't that what Linux is about ... choices? =o)

So, in a bout of boredom and frustration, I spent the past couple days making this:

FG Flier: https://sourceforge.net/projects/fgflier/

Image
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From the README:

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This program was designed on Ubuntu 10.04 LTS, with Python 2.6.5 and
wxPython 2.8. If you're using this program, you're probably
on Linux, and thus already have python. BUT, you will have
to have the wxWidgets toolkit installed.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I never could get FGRun to compile correctly from the source. And although
the 'download_and_compile.sh' would compile FGRun right, it wouldn't
download or compile FlightGear correctly, and I kept ending up with
various errors.

Now, I could have spend some time on forums (although none of the responses
to the issues I searched for worked for me), trying to figure out what
the issue is and how to resolve it ... but then I thought: Why?

You shouldn't have to compile anything from another source to run a game. It
shouldn't be that complicated. Also I found the FlightGear launcher
tools to either be overly-complicated, or lacking in some area. So,
I decided to make something that is (in my opinion) as simple as possible.
I have included far more options than I ever use, but seem to be (again,
in my opinion) enough to cover any casual user's needs.

The default setup for this program assumes you have installed FlightGear from
the repositories (either Ubuntu or PlayDeb). It was designed for, and
tested on, FlightGear v2.0, however it *may* work with earlier versions.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I'm not sure if I'll be able to keep up on any bug fixes or feature requests, as it works just the way I want it to, but if I get enough support/suggestions I may stay on top of things. I just thought I'd throw it up on Sourceforge and let everyone give it a shot.
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Re: FG Flier - Yes, another GUI Launcher!

Postby Chrison » Sat Oct 02, 2010 1:38 pm

Dowloaded it... tried it... looks VERY interesting... BUT...

Doesn't work! :( I had to change some of the paths in data/modules/base.py to match my system setup in order to get it to load properly. But, then, nothing appeared in the "Airports" and "Rwy" lists. I checked and double-checked that I had the fg_scenery directory defined properly (and I did), and I also tried clicking the "Refresh" button numerous times... nothing. I tried manually typing "--airport=KSFO --aircraft=c172p" into the field below the "Airports" and "Rwy" lists, but nothing and when I click the "Fly!" key I get an error message saying I need to add "--airport=" and "aircraft=".

Btw, I'm running Fedora 12 not Ubuntu, and wxPython is version 2.8.11.0.

Any thoughts or suggestions?

Thanks!

Regards,

Chris
"Even if you win the rat race, you're still a rat!" (Jackie Gleason)
My final approach announcement: "Seats up... Trays locked... Articles stowed... Seat belts on... And may God have mercy on your souls!"
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Re: FG Flier - Yes, another GUI Launcher!

Postby Bummer » Sat Oct 02, 2010 6:26 pm

Hmmm ...

Not sure what the difference would be on Fedora (I don't know anything about that OS). It searches the fg_scenery/Airports directory to get all that information ... if that's something different on your system, you can change line 9 in ./data/modules/air.py. The small field below the Airports and Rwys lists is a search field for airports ... have you tried adding --airport= and --runway= in the 'Extra Params' field at the bottom?
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Re: FG Flier - Yes, another GUI Launcher!

Postby Chrison » Sat Oct 02, 2010 8:07 pm

Thanks for those tips. I'll give them a try and report back here on the results.

Thanks for your help!

Regards,

Chris
Last edited by Gijs on Sun Oct 03, 2010 9:15 am, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: No useless quoting please.
"Even if you win the rat race, you're still a rat!" (Jackie Gleason)
My final approach announcement: "Seats up... Trays locked... Articles stowed... Seat belts on... And may God have mercy on your souls!"
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Re: FG Flier - Yes, another GUI Launcher!

Postby Chrison » Sat Oct 02, 2010 10:30 pm

I discovered that I had a permissions problem, so I moved things to a directory where I definately have full permissions. I still have the same problem (nothing in the airports or rwy fields), but now I'm getting this error message when I hit the refresh button for the airports section:

Code: Select all
[chrison@localhost ~/fg_flier]$ ./fg_flier.py
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/home/chrison/fg_flier/data/modules/general.py", line 171, in RefreshPorts
    self.apts = air.ports(self.main.paths_tab.fg_scenery_path.Items)
  File "/home/chrison/fg_flier/data/modules/air.py", line 13, in ports
    if f.split('.')[1] == 'threshold':
IndexError: list index out of range


Btw, when I put --airport=eddf --runway=25R into the extra params field, I get this in the output tab:

Code: Select all
Option '--airport=' needs a parameter
Option '--runway=' needs a parameter


So, I have made a bit of progress, but it's still not working.
Last edited by Gijs on Sun Oct 03, 2010 9:15 am, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: No useless quoting please.
"Even if you win the rat race, you're still a rat!" (Jackie Gleason)
My final approach announcement: "Seats up... Trays locked... Articles stowed... Seat belts on... And may God have mercy on your souls!"
Chrison
 
Posts: 431
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Location: North America (Full-time RV'er)
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Re: FG Flier - Yes, another GUI Launcher!

Postby Bummer » Sat Oct 02, 2010 11:02 pm

OH, duh, it was still trying to pass a blank argument. Ok, I added some 'if's and 'try's in a few places and uploaded v0.1.1 to sourceforge. See how that works for ya.
Last edited by Gijs on Sun Oct 03, 2010 9:15 am, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: No useless quoting please.
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Re: FG Flier - Yes, another GUI Launcher!

Postby Chrison » Sun Oct 03, 2010 1:47 am

Will do, once I finish this PHNL -> KLAX flight.

Thanks, again, for your help!

Regards,

Chris
Last edited by Gijs on Sun Oct 03, 2010 9:16 am, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: No useless quoting please.
"Even if you win the rat race, you're still a rat!" (Jackie Gleason)
My final approach announcement: "Seats up... Trays locked... Articles stowed... Seat belts on... And may God have mercy on your souls!"
Chrison
 
Posts: 431
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Location: North America (Full-time RV'er)
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Re: FG Flier - Yes, another GUI Launcher!

Postby Chrison » Sun Oct 03, 2010 2:02 pm

Whatever you changed, that fixed it... version 0.1.1 works... WOO HOO!!! Thanks!

So, now that it's running, some comments and quick impressions (because I didn't really test it for a long time)...

I like the "look and feel" of FG Flier over FGRun... it's a little less "cluttered" so it doesn't "feel" quite as complicated or confusing. But, there's a couple of things about it I don't like, too...

- When I first ran it, there was a really long pause before the window appeared. At first, I thought this was because I was still having problems. But, then, I discovered it was because I have alot of scenery on my hard drive and FG Flier was merely chugging away loading the airport list. It would be nice if the window appeared and there was a visual clue that it was loading airports (e.g. a pop-up dialog or something).

- Where's the "Exit" button???

- When you click on the "Fly!" button there's another long pause before FlightGear starts loading. Again, some sort of visual cue that FG Flier is loading FlightGear would be handy.

Other than that, though, it's pretty neat! You've done well, and it's nice to have a good alternative wizard for those folks who don't care for FGRun.

Thanks, again...

Regards,

Chris
"Even if you win the rat race, you're still a rat!" (Jackie Gleason)
My final approach announcement: "Seats up... Trays locked... Articles stowed... Seat belts on... And may God have mercy on your souls!"
Chrison
 
Posts: 431
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Re: FG Flier - Yes, another GUI Launcher!

Postby Bummer » Sun Oct 03, 2010 6:56 pm

Chrison wrote:- When I first ran it, there was a really long pause before the window appeared. At first, I thought this was because I was still having problems. But, then, I discovered it was because I have alot of scenery on my hard drive and FG Flier was merely chugging away loading the airport list. It would be nice if the window appeared and there was a visual clue that it was loading airports (e.g. a pop-up dialog or something).


Ah, yes ... I hadn't really considered that. It didn't take long for mine to load (3-5 seconds), but then I only have 11 squares of Scenery downloaded (3 of which is Hawaii) ... not even the entire US.

Chrison wrote:- Where's the "Exit" button???


The 'X' in the corner of the title bar =oP
I didn't even think about an exit button, to be honest. I just assumed closing it via the window manager's method was easy enough.

Chrison wrote:- When you click on the "Fly!" button there's another long pause before FlightGear starts loading. Again, some sort of visual cue that FG Flier is loading FlightGear would be handy.


That one's odd ... how long of a pause? I'm seeing the FlightGear window come up in less than a second, might be something I have to look into.

Chrison wrote:Other than that, though, it's pretty neat! You've done well, and it's nice to have a good alternative wizard for those folks who don't care for FGRun.


Thanks! I'll see what I can do about the pauses (notification, progress indicator, etc etc) this evening or tomorrow.
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Re: FG Flier - Yes, another GUI Launcher!

Postby Hooray » Sun Oct 03, 2010 8:58 pm

This looks pretty useful, you may want to add this to the FG newsletter: http://wiki.flightgear.org/index.php/Fl ... tober_2010
You can even upload screen shots, you can also start a new wiki page for your project - just check out some of the other project specific pages (fgrun, atlas).
Please don't send support requests by PM, instead post your questions on the forum so that all users can contribute and benefit
Thanks & all the best,
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Re: FG Flier - Yes, another GUI Launcher!

Postby Sealbhach » Sun Oct 03, 2010 9:05 pm

I'm a happy fgo user but I had a look at this and it work for me and is quite nice to use.

One thing that fgo has is that you can search for names of airports, whereas with FG Flier we need to have the ICAO code already.

Also, it's difficult to work out what the Extra Params box is for. I assume it's for --fog-nicest, scenarios etc.... It would be good if you could add a selection of scenarios, a drop-down list like fgo has.

.

.
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Re: FG Flier - Yes, another GUI Launcher!

Postby Bummer » Sun Oct 03, 2010 9:35 pm

Hooray wrote:This looks pretty useful, you may want to add this to the FG newsletter: http://wiki.flightgear.org/index.php/Fl ... tober_2010
You can even upload screen shots, you can also start a new wiki page for your project - just check out some of the other project specific pages (fgrun, atlas).


Thanks for that info! I might do that!

Sealbhach wrote:One thing that fgo has is that you can search for names of airports, whereas with FG Flier we need to have the ICAO code already.

Also, it's difficult to work out what the Extra Params box is for. I assume it's for --fog-nicest, scenarios etc.... It would be good if you could add a selection of scenarios, a drop-down list like fgo has.


Yes, the 'Extra Params' field is for passing arguments for options I don't have included in the app. Enter them just as you would to the command line (ex: "--com1=119.9 --com2=122.95 --nav1=270:110.4 --nav2=115:117.6" to set up your nav and coms). I kindof figured it was self-explanatory ... but everything is when you make the app, ha. I threw an example in there to try and make it's use a bit clearer.

Searching for names of airports I almost miss from when I used FGRun on Windows (since it actually came with the install), but I always used websites for airport lookups and flight planning anyways (airnav, runwayfinder, skyvector, etc), so it wasn't a priority. Plus I wasn't sure how to pull that information, and I wanted to use as little space as possible. The only reasons used aircraft descriptions was that, for some, it's hard to figure out what the ID alone means, and that information was right there in the *-set.xml files. The scenario's are something else I never used, so again it wasn't a priority (or even necessary, for me) to include. So ... those two things are features I may, or may not, implement. For now I just want to make sure people can run the thing without too many issues or confusion, lol.

Meanwhile ... I've uploaded v0.2 to sourceforge. Changes:
-Pressing 'Fly' now displays the 'Output' tab, so you can see what it's trying to do.
-'Output' tab now updates correctly.
-Added Popup window with progress dialog when it loads/refreshes Aircraft and Airports.

**EDIT**
Note: You do NOT have to remove an old version when updating (unless otherwise specified) ... just overwrite what you currently have. Doing this will keep your saved settings, airport/aircraft lists, etc.
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Re: FG Flier - Yes, another GUI Launcher!

Postby Chrison » Sun Oct 03, 2010 10:14 pm

Bummer wrote:Meanwhile ... I've uploaded v0.2 to sourceforge. Changes:
-Pressing 'Fly' now displays the 'Output' tab, so you can see what it's trying to do.

That was one I thought of but didn't mention earlier because I didn't want to be seen as being picky. ;) That's a neat new feature!

Bummer wrote:-'Output' tab now updates correctly.


I hadn't notice that it wasn't updating properly.

Bummer wrote:-Added Popup window with progress dialog when it loads/refreshes Aircraft and Airports.


This one is VERY helpful!

Btw, FG does take a bit longer to load for me than most folks, probably because I downloaded the entire world scenery (I have troubles with terrasync). :D

Thanks for the updates! MUCH appreciated!

Regards,

Chris
"Even if you win the rat race, you're still a rat!" (Jackie Gleason)
My final approach announcement: "Seats up... Trays locked... Articles stowed... Seat belts on... And may God have mercy on your souls!"
Chrison
 
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Re: FG Flier - Yes, another GUI Launcher!

Postby Chrison » Sun Oct 03, 2010 10:18 pm

By the way...

Bummer wrote:
Chrison wrote:- Where's the "Exit" button???


The 'X' in the corner of the title bar =oP
I didn't even think about an exit button, to be honest. I just assumed closing it via the window manager's method was easy enough.


LOL! Yeah, the "X" certainly does work, but isn't all that "elegant." It's NBD (no big deal), but an "Exit" button would be more elegant.
"Even if you win the rat race, you're still a rat!" (Jackie Gleason)
My final approach announcement: "Seats up... Trays locked... Articles stowed... Seat belts on... And may God have mercy on your souls!"
Chrison
 
Posts: 431
Joined: Tue Mar 16, 2010 7:33 pm
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Callsign: Chrison, AVA0066

Re: FG Flier - Yes, another GUI Launcher!

Postby Bummer » Sun Oct 03, 2010 11:05 pm

Chrison wrote:I hadn't notice that it wasn't updating properly.


Probably because you couldn't switch to that tab until you closed FlightGear, hehe. It didn't update real-time (although it should have ... in theory ...), it just dropped the entire output into there after you stopped FlightGear. Now it displays as FlightGear spits it out.
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