All Targets missing on any non-US Regional Settings

[Eric Bocaneanu 906549]

Guys,

 

Just so no one else will spend 7 hours+ trying to make this work, if you are outside of US don't bother. vSTARS was never designed to actually run on any non-US setup operating systems. Or to put it another way, it will only accept "," (comma) as decimal point when running on a normal computer but inside the software doesn't understand "," and only "." (point) is expected. But unless you change the base OSs settings there is no way to input a point instead of a comma.

 

@Ross. Please accept this as a bug report as well. There is no bug report email address on the software page.

 

Also, none of the fixes are accepted by the SCT->XML converter, but I'll check farther to see the reason for that.

[Ross Carlson]

Guys,

 

Just so no one else will spend 7 hours+ trying to make this work, if you are outside of US don't bother. vSTARS was never designed to actually run on any non-US setup operating systems. Or to put it another way, it will only accept "," (comma) as decimal point when running on a normal computer but inside the software doesn't understand "," and only "." (point) is expected. But unless you change the base OSs settings there is no way to input a point instead of a comma.

 

@Ross. Please accept this as a bug report as well. There is no bug report email address on the software page.

 

This is not a bug, since (like you said) vSTARS was not designed to run on non-US systems.

 

That being said, if I can correct the issue, I will. Can you be more specific about the problem you're running into?

 

Also, none of the fixes are accepted by the SCT->XML converter, but I'll check farther to see the reason for that.

 

What do you mean when you say they aren't "accepted" ?

[Eric Bocaneanu 906549]

Well, being an official VATSIM client, VATSIM being a worldwide organisation, before approval betatesting should have ensured that it works in every kind of situation in the scope it is released. That is what betatesting is for. Even in EuroScope when it was first released, although it was a very European feature set we very rigorously verified that is would work in the US too. Anyway, rant mode off.

 

The issue is that vSTARS is using a dot "." for a decimal point and not the regional setting settings. If on Windows 7 go to: Control Panel\Clock, Language, and Region\Region and Language and change to anything other then US. try German for example. It will change the Decimal Symbol to ",". Now when you setup the Facility Editor and try to enter a coordinate system for radar location it will give error if you enter it with decimal point and requests decimal comma. But after that is accepted the radar location calculations are now wrong and no planes will be shown.

 

There are a few possible fixes. A simple one is to enter locations in a full degree minute second format which would avoid using decimals. A more proper one would be to use the systems regional settings for the decimal. We encountered that in ES a long time ago as well.

 

As for the fix problem. As I said I am still reading the manuals so I wouldn't want to declare as a problem something that might just be a user error. Right now no fixes are read in, but I have fix errors for the boundaries somehow. Although there are other sections that are read in past the FIX section. I think it thinks they are fixes because they have space inside the name. But that works properly in other clients. Will test farther and come back.

 

Error on line 1588: Unknown fix name: IASI (CTR IASI CONTROL ZONE N047.21.07.150 E027.32.52.558 N047.21.28.000 E027.35.31.999)

[Ross Carlson]

vSTARS should be using regional settings to p[Mod - Happy Thoughts] the coordinates you enter in the facility editor. I [Mod - Happy Thoughts]ume you are referring to system volumes. Please confirm if that [Mod - Happy Thoughts]umption is correct.

 

As for the fix issue, please post a link to the sector file you are having trouble with.

[Harold Rutila 974112]

Well, being an official VATSIM client, VATSIM being a worldwide organisation, before approval betatesting should have ensured that it works in every kind of situation in the scope it is released. That is what betatesting is for. Even in EuroScope when it was first released, although it was a very European feature set we very rigorously verified that is would work in the US too. Anyway, rant mode off.

If you left that part out and went for the actual solution first, your thread would have come off a lot less rudely. How is Ross supposed to know what the settings in Europe are? Geez.

[Brian Pryor 810138]

From what i've read it was designed to fill a niche of a client simulating the STARS systems, not be a wide role client.

 

There are two clients, VRC and Euroscope which fill the more general/wide spread role.

[Ross Carlson]

How is Ross supposed to know what the settings in Europe are? Geez.

 

I appreciate the support, but I would imagine Eric would answer your question simply by saying: "Through beta testing."

 

Where perhaps Eric and I aren't on the same page (and the reason why I ignored the scolding) is that he feels the scope of the software is (or should be) global. The fact is that I never intended for vSTARS to be used outside the US, since it so deliberately and faithfully simulates a radar system used only in the US. I certainly don't claim that it can't or shouldn't be used outside the US, but given that the US is my target audience, that's where it was tested.

 

I certainly don't expect everyone to agree with my decision to focus the beta testing in the US, and those that disagree are obviously entitled to do so. By contrast, I would not have admonished Gergely had he not tested Euroscope on systems in the US. To each their own.

 

I have sent Eric a test build of vSTARS that should resolve the issue. I'm not going to spend dozens of hours trying to get vSTARS to work on non-US systems, but if I can solve the issue relatively quickly, I will, even though non-US users are not the target audience. The reason for that is that if someone outside the US wants to try vSTARS and see how it's done in some TRACONs on this side of the pond, more power to them.

[David Zhong]

Don't forget that not every VATUSA controller necessarily uses the US regional settings on their computer - some may be from other parts of the world, etc.

[Ross Carlson]

Don't forget that not every VATUSA controller necessarily uses the US regional settings on their computer - some may be from other parts of the world, etc.

 

That is true, but such users are as much in the minority as those that want to use the software to control non-US facilities.

 

In any event, I'm confident the issue will be resolved. I had the same issue with VAT-Spy and it was resolved easily.

[Ross Carlson]

Eric, did the build I sent you correct the issue?

[Tim Roden 987596]

There are still some Issues with Euroscope that don't work well with U.S. based programs. That I have addressed with the developer. VRC is still the product for a general audience. vStars is very specific. It is not a general use client.

[Gene Cao 1100087]

VRC is still the product for a general audience. vStars is very specific. It is not a general use client.

 

Thats exactly how I see vSTARS. Even though it is targeted at TRACON in the US, that is not to say all US controllers controlling APP should use this. This is aimed at those that want a highly realistic simulation of actual procedures. I would compare this to say flying a default FSX aircraft, to trying to go down the PMDG NGX style of product. Very specific and requires a lot of rigorous practice. However, both work completely fine for the network.

[Eric Bocaneanu 906549]

Please excuse the very long delay in replying. Had no idea the topic still in active discussion. I had switched to US regional settings to test vSTARs when I figured out the issue. Someone brought it to my attention and when I logged on I noticed the updated build in my PMs. I have downloaded it and will test it and come back with an answer this week.

 

Thanks Ross,

--eric