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New developer advice needed

Ralph Freshour

Ralph Freshour

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unitedstates
I'm a new developer and I would like to develop an add-on to FSX that would display a textual window on the screen when the user presses a hotkey. There will be text in the window but I want to be able to control the transparency of the window and still be able to read the text.

How would I begin to research how to accomplish this?

What IDE's are available to create add-on products?

I can program in C, C++ and C# and favor open source tools such as Eclipse IDE and C#.

And what part of the SDK would I use to accomplish this?

I have already installed the FSX SDK.

Thank you...
 
Some third party add-ons use FSUIPC's "Adventure Text Display" for this purpose.
You might want to look at that and dig around the FSUIPC site and forums for more info on how to use it.
 
Hello Ralph,

Nice to see you - I had no idea you could program too.
How about using the basic FSX menu display - the same kind ATC controls use.

As per IDE, well that shouldn't matter. Personally I use VS because that's what I started with, but eclipse should work. You'll be using SimConnect SDK, from the Core Utilities set. If you decide to go with C#, which is somewhat less documented, but does definitely work, I recommend looking up Beatle managed SimConnect kit.

Sent from my Nexus 10 using Tapatalk
 
Heretic said:
Some third party add-ons use FSUIPC's "Adventure Text Display" for this purpose.
You might want to look at that and dig around the FSUIPC site and forums for more info on how to use it.
Click to expand...

I downloaded FSUIPC but there is no documentation on his site that tells me how to use this tool...and I didn't see a forum ???
 
>How about using the basic FSX menu display - the same kind ATC controls use.

Well, I've been doing a lot of reading the past few days and now I'm more confused than ever lol.

(1) Where can I find info on the FSX menu display? That sounds like what I need to do alright. I saw the API calls in the SDK docs on how to add to the FSX menus...is that what you mean?

What's confusing me about FSX development is this:

(2) What C++ model should I be working in? C++/CLR Windows Forms Application? CLR Empty Project?
I'm assuming (incorrectly maybe) that since I want to display a window with text in it when I click on my add-on menu selection, that I need a Windows Forms Application, is that right?

I installed VS 2013 but saw MS removed the ability to develop Windows Form Apps in C++. They want you to use C# to do that now. I was told that I should be using C++ to program add-ons in FSX.

So I then installed VS 2012 and same thing. No C++ Win Form Apps capability.

So, now I am using VS 2010 which still supported Win Forms in C++ but I'm not 100% sure my model is the Win Form App.

Thanks for all of your continued help!!

Ralph
 
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