VRC 1.2.1 Released

[Ross Carlson]

Hello all,

 

I'm pleased to announce that we have finished beta testing VRC 1.2.1 and it is now considered stable and is available for download. This release is primarily a bug fix release, though it does have a few minor enhancements. I'll list the bug fixes first:

 

* The $type() alias function now works properly again.

* If you had two or more flight strips for the same aircraft in your bay, right-clicking and pushing one of them to another controller wouldn't always push the right one, so the annotations might not be sent correctly.

* Fixed the METAR p[Mod - Happy Thoughts]r to recognize certain visibility formats.

* When opening chat windows or other tool windows, VRC now checks to be sure the saved position for the window is still valid and visible on one of your monitors, in case your monitor arrangement has changed.

* The mouse location is now displayed on secondary scopes.

* Aircraft no longer trigger a conflict alert when below the radar floor. (See below for a detailed description of how the radar floor and filters have changed.)

* The text traffic pointout mouse combo command now works even with realistic tags mode enabled.

* Fixed "Invalid ICAO" errors when using ATISMaker in auto mode in certain circomestances.

* All Voice ATIS stations now have a two-character ID in the CL.

* Fixed a bug where the text of a sticky note would not be updated immediately after editing it.

* Fixed the alias p[Mod - Happy Thoughts]r so it will not lock up VRC when a self-referential alias is created.

* Observers can no longer send pointouts or .contactme messages.

* Fixed error when saving voice ATIS recording: "Error saving voice ATIS recording: could not delete previous recording"

* The .visrange command now gives a confirmation that your visibility range has been changed, and causes a prompt to save your profile when exiting VRC.

* Fixed a bug where pressing the ESC key while viewing your list of color profiles would cause a new profile to be added.

 

Now for the enhancements:

 

* You can now toggle the display of targets and datatags separately for aircraft above your airspace ceiling versus aircraft below your airspace floor. (More on this below.)

* VRC no longer prompts you to save your profile if all you have done is added/removed weather stations with F2. This is because Center and Approach controllers will often toggle stations on and off for satellite fields, but they don't want these changes saved in their profile.

* The .mon command can now accept a callsign as a parameter, instead of just the sector ID from the CL.

* The oceanic tracks list now displays the TMI for each track.

* The flight plan editor window now has a "Plot" button next to the route, which will plot the route on your primary scope.

* All scopes now show the status of their Filters (on/off) in the title bar for quick reference.

* You can now specify separate plotting colors for eastbound and westbound oceanic tracks.

* Inactive tracks are now shown in "grayed-out" state in the list, for easier identification.

* Clicking on the incoming chat log window will now clear the blue "message waiting" highlight for any unread messages. This behavior can be disabled in general settings.

* Weather buttons can now be removed from the button bar by alt-clicking them.

* Quicklook can now be enabled on a per-scope basis. The status of quicklook is shown in the title bar.

* The history trails in the Park Air radar mode have been modified to function similar to the STARS mode.

* Diagrams are no longer sorted alphabetically in the Diagrams window. They now appear in the same order they appear in the sector file.

* There is now an option that allows you to ignore flight strips pushed to you from other controllers.

* The sector file formatting requirements have been added to the VRC user manual.

* The appearance of targets in the STARS radar mode has been tweaked to be more realistic.

 

Note that the radar floor and filters (airspace floor/ceiling) have changed significantly in this version. This was done to maximize the realism of the radar floor, and to allow the filters to be more flexible.

 

In version 1.2, aircraft that were below your radar floor were simply hidden from the scope. VRC still "knew about" them, and they could even cause conflict alerts. You were able to set a separate radar floor for each scope.

 

With version 1.2.1, there is only one radar floor (set via general settings on the Airspace tab) and VRC essentially ignores position updates that it receives from any aircraft below that floor. This means that if you are tracking an aircraft and it descends below your radar floor, it will go into coast mode just like many real radar systems. Aircraft below the radar floor cannot cause conflict alerts. You can still radio-select and perform operations on aircraft below your radar floor. This is important for flights departing from satellite fields where as an APP controller you may need to [Mod - Happy Thoughts]ign a squawk, amend a flight plan, etc.

 

Download VRC 1.2.1 here:

 

http://www.metacraft.com/VRC/download.shtml

[Matthew Barkley 1020782]

I tried downloading it, but when I click the saved exe file on my pc, it justs tries to install 1.2.0 not 1.2.1

 

Any one else?

[Ross Carlson]

It's possible your browser is downloading a previously cached version of VRCSetup.exe .... have you tried downloading it from the other mirror site?

[Matthew Barkley 1020782]

Thanks, now it's downloading the correct version, do you know if it fixes the bug of the bottom line of the text radio history not appearing on Intel video cards?

 

Thanks,

Matt

[Owen Catherwood 903683]

Thanks, now it's downloading the correct version, do you know if it fixes the bug of the bottom line of the text radio history not appearing on Intel video cards?

 

Thanks,

Matt

 

Matt, that's an Intel driver issue and not a VRC issue; Intel, for some reason or another, does not support OpenGL very well or at all.

[Ross Carlson]

No, 1.2.1 does not include a workaround for the Intel video driver bug.

[Matthew Barkley 1020782]

DO you know how I could fix it? I tried the instructions on the VRC website, but didn't understand how to perform the instructions.

[Ross Carlson]

I don't know any more than what's posted on the site. I don't have any Intel cards, and I'm not the one that discovered that fix ... I'm just p[Mod - Happy Thoughts]ing on the info I was given by an Intel card user.