ESTimers - timers plugin for euroscope

[Olaf Langelaar]

Hello all,

For use in my local VACC I have made a simple euroscope plugin to add some timers to use to apply wake turbulence separation between starting aircraft. After releasing and testing it locally within the Dutch VACC I think it's good to go to share with everybody.

These timers are drawn inside your euroscope screen, it includes timers for 1, 2 and 3 minutes. Left mouse button will start or restart any of the timers independently. Right mouse button will reset any of the timers.
A sound will be played and the relevant timer will be shown in red when a timer has finished.

Download:
Version 2.2 of the plugin is downloadable as a .zip. Click me

Installation: Load the ESTimers.dll into your euroscope plugin and give it permission to draw on your euroscope radar screen, see the image below.
Important: ensure that the .dll and .wav remain together in the same folder.

FAQ
Q:  "Failed to load plugin DLL"
A: Download the latest x86 c++ 2019 redistributable from microsoft. https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/the-latest-supported-visual-c-downloads-2647da03-1eea-4433-9aff-95f26a218cc0
Q: I hate the alarm sound
A: Replace alarm.wav with your favorite sound. Meowing cats for example.

 

Questions, feedback or other comments? I'll be happy to hear!

Olaf

Edited September 8, 2021 at 08:16 PM by Olaf Langelaar
Update download link to v2.2

[Itay Fishman]

Hello, first of all thank you very much!
One question, is there a way to change the timer from 1 minute to 1:30 minutes and 2 minutes to 2:30 minutes?

Edited August 16, 2021 at 07:16 PM by Itay Fishman

[Olaf Langelaar]

On 8/16/2021 at 9:11 PM, Itay Fishman said:

Hello, first of all thank you very much!
One question, is there a way to change the timer from 1 minute to 1:30 minutes and 2 minutes to 2:30 minutes?

Hello Itay! Thanks for the input, I will add that to the improvements for the next version, it should be relatively simple to make them configurable. This initial version only has these fixed times because that's what we use in our VACC 🙂

[Thimo Koolen]

Thank you for your work on this Olaf! Much better than SMTimer, which is always on top, whichever application is open. This is only on top of ES!

[Olaf Langelaar]

I have released version 2.0. In this version the timers are made configurable. You can either edit the settings or use the commands ".timer1", ".timer2", ".timer3" followed by the desired time. For example ".timer3 210" will set the third timer to be 3minutes 30 seconds as shown in the picture below. These commands will also save to the settings file.
 

The settings in the plugins settings text file to make the above screenshot are

Euroscope timers plugin:timer1:90
Euroscope timers plugin:timer2:120
Euroscope timers plugin:timer3:210

This version also fixes a bug where the timers can go off screen if the plugin settings contain an X and Y beyond the border of your screen.

Thank you for the suggestion @Itay Fishman

Download can be found HERE.

 

Any bugs or other improvements I'd love to hear it as always.

Edited September 6, 2021 at 07:34 PM by Olaf Langelaar

[Bernardo Reis]

Thanks for the update!
Is it possible to have the timer persistent per ASR?

If I'm doing topdown, I might start the chrono in the ground view and then go back to the area radar ASR, which will not beep when the time is over. I will need to go to the ground ASR for that to happen.

[Olaf Langelaar]

8 hours ago, Bernardo Reis said:

Thanks for the update!
Is it possible to have the timer persistent per ASR?

If I'm doing topdown, I might start the chrono in the ground view and then go back to the area radar ASR, which will not beep when the time is over. I will need to go to the ground ASR for that to happen.

Hello Bernardo. Thank you for the report! I'm used to a proxy instance so I hadn't run into this issue yet. I have changed some things around and ESTimers should now correctly stay on your screen when you change ASR files.

 

V2.2 - Maintain timer state throughout radarscreens

DOWNLOAD

[Bernardo Reis]

3 hours ago, Olaf Langelaar said:

Hello Bernardo. Thank you for the report! I'm used to a proxy instance so I hadn't run into this issue yet. I have changed some things around and ESTimers should now correctly stay on your screen when you change ASR files.

 

V2.2 - Maintain timer state throughout radarscreens

DOWNLOAD

Works perfectly! Many thanks!

[Itay Fishman]

On 9/6/2021 at 10:33 PM, Olaf Langelaar said:

I have released version 2.0. In this version the timers are made configurable. You can either edit the settings or use the commands ".timer1", ".timer2", ".timer3" followed by the desired time. For example ".timer3 210" will set the third timer to be 3minutes 30 seconds as shown in the picture below. These commands will also save to the settings file.
 

The settings in the plugins settings text file to make the above screenshot are

Euroscope timers plugin:timer1:90
Euroscope timers plugin:timer2:120
Euroscope timers plugin:timer3:210

This version also fixes a bug where the timers can go off screen if the plugin settings contain an X and Y beyond the border of your screen.

Thank you for the suggestion @Itay Fishman

Download can be found HERE.

 

Any bugs or other improvements I'd love to hear it as always.

Thank you!

 

[Itay Fishman]

Think I may have found a bug. When in the approach ASR the font of the plugin is as it should be (per the picture you have shared), however in the ground ASR the font is different and much bigger.

On 9/6/2021 at 10:33 PM, Olaf Langelaar said:

 

[Olaf Langelaar]

13 hours ago, Itay Fishman said:

Think I may have found a bug. When in the approach ASR the font of the plugin is as it should be (per the picture you have shared), however in the ground ASR the font is different and much bigger.

 

 

Hi Itay, thanks for the report, and the screenshots make it easier to find out what's going on. I think I can see what I need to do.

Can you just confirm for me - If you unload the other plugins that are used in your ground view, do the timers show correctly? 

Olaf

[Itay Fishman]

Hi Olaf, I have unloaded the plugins used and the font is still bigger. In addition I have found 2 more bugs (Hope the amount of bug reports don't bother you).
1. During EuroScope startup the plugin shows the font bigger and only after a few seconds it shows the correct font size.
2. When using the Vector Tool the plugin shows a bigger font in the Approach ASR and a smaller font in the ground ASR.

All of the bugs I mentioned now and before can be seen better in this video:

https://1drv.ms/u/s!AvbRSEXX4ZnK9lsLISloaHFLmIyF?e=RhvLzD (It's a download link to the short video since it didn't let me upload it).

Edited September 12, 2021 at 03:41 PM by Itay Fishman

[Itay Fishman]

16 hours ago, Itay Fishman said:

Hi Olaf, I have unloaded the plugins used and the font is still bigger. In addition I have found 2 more bugs (Hope the amount of bug reports don't bother you).
1. During EuroScope startup the plugin shows the font bigger and only after a few seconds it shows the correct font size.
2. When using the Vector Tool the plugin shows a bigger font in the Approach ASR and a smaller font in the ground ASR.

All of the bugs I mentioned now and before can be seen better in this video:

https://1drv.ms/u/s!AvbRSEXX4ZnK9lsLISloaHFLmIyF?e=RhvLzD (It's a download link to the short video since it didn't let me upload it).

I have played with the ASR settings and found that if this command (DisplayTypeNeedRadarContent:) is set to 0 the font will be bigger and if set to 1 the font is in its normal size.

[Matisse VanWezer]

Hasn't the font issue got anything to do with the Euroscope beta versions? Can you check if the font is still too big on the normal ES v3.2?

The font does some weird things on vSMR and the UAC plugin too when switching between latest beta and last stable.

 

(sorry for posting pics of unrelated plugins) 

Stable

Some beta

[Mark-Julius Pikat]

Thank you for the great plugin!

Is there a chance you can add more timers? For example, if timer4/timer5 are present in Plugins.txt, I'd display two extra ones.

[Mark-Julius Pikat]

I can also confirm* that it doesn't fit the font. I'd prefer see seconds instead of minutes (maybe add this kind of option, too)

Edited November 16, 2021 at 11:22 PM by Mark-Julius Pikat
Typo

[Olaf Langelaar]

On 11/16/2021 at 7:50 AM, Mark-Julius Pikat said:

Thank you for the great plugin!

Is there a chance you can add more timers? For example, if timer4/timer5 are present in Plugins.txt, I'd display two extra ones.

 

11 hours ago, Mark-Julius Pikat said:

I can also confirm* that it doesn't fit the font. I'd prefer see seconds instead of minutes (maybe add this kind of option, too)

Hi Mark!

Even more timers should be a possibility, up to the infinite, though it will look funny when it becomes that wide 😛 I will see to add it as a feature. A toggle for minutes/seconds should be possible too - I will give it some thought how to best make the timers that customizable with some settings

I haven't been able to reproduce the issue with the fonts yet on my own euroscope. By any chance, are you using GNG for your sector files, and can you let me know which one that is? I can download it and see if I can reproduce the problem.

Olaf

Edited November 17, 2021 at 10:27 AM by Olaf Langelaar

[Mark-Julius Pikat]

5 hours ago, Olaf Langelaar said:

Even more timers should be a possibility, up to the infinite, though it will look funny when it becomes that wide 😛 I will see to add it as a feature. A toggle for minutes/seconds should be possible too - I will give it some thought how to best make the timers that customizable with some settings

Thanks!

5 hours ago, Olaf Langelaar said:

I haven't been able to reproduce the issue with the fonts yet on my own euroscope. By any chance, are you using GNG for your sector files, and can you let me know which one that is? I can download it and see if I can reproduce the problem.

Yes, we use GNG and the latest package (with your plugin) is still not live, but I think I will drop one tonight