msfs-popout-panel-manager/Welcome file.md

MSFS Pop Out Panel Manager

MSFS Pop Out Panel Manager is an utility application for MSFS 2020 which help to save and position pop out panels such as PDF and MFD to be used by applications such as Sim Innovations Air Manager's overlay. This is a proof of concept application since I do not use Air Manager. I kept seeing people want an application like this in flightsimulator.com so I just create it. I welcome feedback and help to improve the accuracy and usefulness of this utility.

Pop Out Panel annoyance

In MSFS, by holding Right-Alt + Left Clicking selected instrumentation panels, these panels will pop out as floating windows that can be moved to a different monitor. Predefined toolbar menu windows such as ATC, Checklist, VFR Map, etc can also be popped out. For the MSFS predefined toolbar menu windows, they are easier to save and reposition in the each start of a flight using 3rd party windows position utility because these windows have a title for the pop out window. But panels such as PFD and MFD on G1000 or the FMS panel on G3000 do not have windows title. This makes remember there last used position more difficult and very annoying to resize and readjust their positions on every flight to be used by Air Manager.

Concept

The concept to determine the untitled panels is pretty simple:

• User will pop out the untitled panel
• This utility will take a screenshot of each panel
• The screenshot image will be fed into OCR using Tesseract
• The OCR text (mostly 'gibberish') will be compared to a predefined set of keyword text that is defined by the user. These comparison text can be customized and additional panel type and profile can be added by the user for more plane configuration.
• By being able to identify the untitled panel, this solves the problem of not able to easily reposition these panel in subsequent flight.

Workflow

:

1. User pops out the untitled panels such as MFD or PFD on G1000
2. User selects Analyze for the types of panel just got popped out
3. User positions these panels in addition to any predefined toolbar menu windows to their liking
4. User saves the position
5. In next flight, user pops out the untitled panels
6. User selects Analyze
7. The windows will reposition themselves to their saved position.

In addition,

• Profiles can be added for each plane configuration
• Customizable

which focuses on touch inputs to make your flying more enjoyable! It is designed for an iPad and Android tablet plus Arduino's input controls in mind to provide a simple DIY cockpit for all the casual sim fans out there. This application can also be used in any modern browser on PC or tablet with all features enabled. The initial release includes features such as:

Files

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Create files and folders

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Synchronization

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There are two types of synchronization and they can complement each other:

• The workspace synchronization will sync all your files, folders and settings automatically. This will allow you to fetch your workspace on any other device.

  To start syncing your workspace, just sign in with Google in the menu.

• The file synchronization will keep one file of the workspace synced with one or multiple files in Google Drive, Dropbox or GitHub.

  Before starting to sync files, you must link an account in the Synchronize sub-menu.

Open a file

You can open a file from Google Drive, Dropbox or GitHub by opening the Synchronize sub-menu and clicking Open from. Once opened in the workspace, any modification in the file will be automatically synced.

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Synchronize a file

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If you just have modified your file and you want to force syncing, click the Synchronize now button in the navigation bar.

Note: The Synchronize now button is disabled if you have no file to synchronize.

Manage file synchronization

Since one file can be synced with multiple locations, you can list and manage synchronized locations by clicking File synchronization in the Synchronize sub-menu. This allows you to list and remove synchronized locations that are linked to your file.

Publication

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Before starting to publish, you must link an account in the Publish sub-menu.

Publish a File

You can publish your file by opening the Publish sub-menu and by clicking Publish to. For some locations, you can choose between the following formats:

• Markdown: publish the Markdown text on a website that can interpret it (GitHub for instance),
• HTML: publish the file converted to HTML via a Handlebars template (on a blog for example).

Update a publication

After publishing, StackEdit keeps your file linked to that publication which makes it easy for you to re-publish it. Once you have modified your file and you want to update your publication, click on the Publish now button in the navigation bar.

Note: The Publish now button is disabled if your file has not been published yet.

Manage file publication

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Markdown extensions

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ProTip: You can disable any Markdown extension in the File properties dialog.

SmartyPants

SmartyPants converts ASCII punctuation characters into "smart" typographic punctuation HTML entities. For example:

	ASCII	HTML
Single backticks	'Isn't this fun?'	'Isn't this fun?'
Quotes	"Isn't this fun?"	"Isn't this fun?"
Dashes	-- is en-dash, --- is em-dash	-- is en-dash, --- is em-dash

KaTeX

You can render LaTeX mathematical expressions using KaTeX:

The Gamma function satisfying \Gamma(n) = (n-1)!\quad\forall n\in\mathbb N is via the Euler integral

$$ \Gamma(z) = \int_0^\infty t^{z-1}e^{-t}dt,.

You can find more information about LaTeX mathematical expressions here.

UML diagrams

You can render UML diagrams using Mermaid. For example, this will produce a sequence diagram:

sequenceDiagram
Alice ->> Bob: Hello Bob, how are you?
Bob-->>John: How about you John?
Bob--x Alice: I am good thanks!
Bob-x John: I am good thanks!
Note right of John: Bob thinks a long<br/>long time, so long<br/>that the text does<br/>not fit on a row.

Bob-->Alice: Checking with John...
Alice->John: Yes... John, how are you?

And this will produce a flow chart:

graph LR
A[Square Rect] -- Link text --> B((Circle))
A --> C(Round Rect)
B --> D{Rhombus}
C --> D