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A progress update towards XSquawkBox 1.3.3


Christopher Collins
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Christopher Collins
Posted
Posted

Just to keep the anxious users in the loop:

 

I am currently working on a 1.3.3 release - there's been a handful of bugs found in xplanemp, some of which are old but were hidden by the original behavior of xplanemp, as well as a few spots I can improve legacy CSL handling, so I'm currently grinding away at those bugs before I cut a new release.

 

There's no fixed release date yet as the larger bugs require confirmation first, and may still require substantial work.

 

The things that have been fixed:

  • Model matching got a major overhaul and generally behaves a lot better.
  • Flight Plan ICAO codes will no longer override the code specified by the client if it reduces the quality of the model match substantially.
  • Legacy CSLs are now rendered with a slightly better trilinear filter.
  • The shipping ICAO type codes and Related types tables have been updated

 

The things that should be fixed but are still pending confirmation of the fix:

  • A (reliable) failure to load a texture should not result in a runaway condition that eats all of your texture memory.
  • GL Error "leaks" from other parts of xplanemp or other plugins (or even X-Plane itself) should no-longer cause failures in texture loading.

 

The things I intend to release but are still being tested for reliability or require UI changes or adjustments required before they can be released to final (may not make 1.3.3):

  • Mipmap levels for Legacy CSLs will be restricted to prevent texture bleed from non-adjacent areas of the aircraft. This may result in a minor quality reduction when the aircraft is small in your view, but will hopefully prevent obvious surfaces from having the wrong colour(s) present.
  • Anisotropic filtering for Legacy CSLs

 

Stuff I have to fix before 1.3.3 can come out:

  • Fix the preferences code (actually fixed, but not in the stable release branch - I need to merge my fixes back still)
  • Make xplanemp release textures no longer used after a timeout or when the free texture count exceeds a high watermark
  • We currently require two separate lists of ICAO codes in differing formats (but with the same information) - we should only require one.

XSquawkBox - Developer/Maintainer

 

Please post any support related questions to the XSquawkBox support forum rather than private messaging me, thanks.

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Camden Bruno
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I apologize in advance if these comments have already been addressed, as I have not been following closely with XSquawkBox updates. However, is there any chance for:

 

1. Updated equipment suffix selections (they are out of date)

2. An audible sound of some sort when a private message is received/callsign is mentioned in text chat - there is a plugin for this here, however, most users do not know about it and it'd be great if it was part of the program itself.

 

Thanks,

Cam B.
VATSIM Supervisor

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Christopher Collins
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1. Updated equipment suffix selections (they are out of date)

2. An audible sound of some sort when a private message is received/callsign is mentioned in text chat - there is a plugin for this here, however, most users do not know about it and it'd be great if it was part of the program itself.

 

I can look into 1 - I'm at a disadvantage there as I live in an country that uses ICAO flightplans for real world ops, so I never see the US equipment suffix system - if there's an official reference for them available online that'll help.

 

2 isn't happening in the 1.3 family - it requires significant changes as there's no portable way for me to make an aural alert right now, and I'd have to redo the way XSB handles sound to do it.

XSquawkBox - Developer/Maintainer

 

Please post any support related questions to the XSquawkBox support forum rather than private messaging me, thanks.

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1275389
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I can look into 1 - I'm at a disadvantage there as I live in an country that uses ICAO flightplans for real world ops, so I never see the US equipment suffix system - if there's an official reference for them available online that'll help.

https://flightaware.com/about/faq_aircraft_flight_plan_suffix.rvt

Also, the only available prefix should be H/ or nothing. T/ ans B/ are not used.

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Camden Bruno
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Josh's resource is great. As he stated, the prefixes T/ and B/ are no longer used. Suffix /F should be replaced with /L, etc.

 

Thanks so much!

Cam B.
VATSIM Supervisor

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Bradley Grafelman
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Also, the only available prefix should be H/ or nothing.

What about numbers, e.g. "6/C172/G" for a flight of six Skyhawks?

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Christopher Collins
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Also, the only available prefix should be H/ or nothing.

What about numbers, e.g. "6/C172/G" for a flight of six Skyhawks?

 

I'm probably not fixing that in 1.3.3 - I'm trying to avoid having to redo large parts of the UI in what should be a patch release - To fix that, I'd have to redesign the flightplan form or put in a lot of dropdown items for all reasonable formation sizes. (strange FAA-ian flightplans. ).

 

(I've already updated the suffixes to match the Dec 2015 AIM, and removed the obsolete prefixes too).

XSquawkBox - Developer/Maintainer

 

Please post any support related questions to the XSquawkBox support forum rather than private messaging me, thanks.

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Tom Stian Bjerk 853618
Posted
Posted

Hello

 

I have one issue with 1.3.2 that you maybe could take a look at for 1.3.3.

 

I have bind my 'Q' key for showing who's online.

 

The problem is when I enter text that include a 'Q' it will just toggle the Show Who's Online. And not enter the Q in the chat.

This is working in 1.3.1.

 

Edit: Tested with XP 10 and XP 11

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Christopher Collins
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A quick progress update:

 

Most of my critical list has been dealt with - however - we just found a fairly significant/strange bug with the Next-gen (OBJ8) CSL support which I'm trying to sort out before I cut a 1.3.3 build.

 

I have bind my 'Q' key for showing who's online.

 

The problem is when I enter text that include a 'Q' it will just toggle the Show Who's Online. And not enter the Q in the chat.

 

Not going to be fixed in 1.3.x - this is another "needs a major overhaul" issue - XSB does it's own command/event processing using keyboard sniffing due to reasons of Legacy. I want to rip that and integrate it into the command system so you can bind it the same way you bind everything else. Too big a change to roll into 1.3.3. For now, don't use alpha-numeric keys for XSB binds.

XSquawkBox - Developer/Maintainer

 

Please post any support related questions to the XSquawkBox support forum rather than private messaging me, thanks.

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Duncan White
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Hi Christopher,

 

Can you fix the Audio Settings so they save to the preferences file ?

 

Or is that already done ?

 

ie

 

Fix the preferences code (actually fixed, but not in the stable release branch - I need to merge my fixes back still)

 

Duncan

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