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Panel Disconnect

Dutch

Dutch

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us-northcarolina
This may be common knowledge but it just bit me and I finally figured it out.

In order to clean up when my gauge is closed I have various shutdowns of sounds and such in PANEL_SERVICE_DISCONNECT. Logical, eh? And in FS9 this works well. FS9 only calls PANEL_SERVICE_DISCONNECT when you would expect -- when the panel is being disconnected due to the flight being ended, or a crash, etc.

Ah, but FSX - FSX calls PANEL_SERVICE_DISCONNECT every time the gauge is re-sized! This means when a user resizes his gauge I close up everything -- close keyboard direct input, any music or sounds playing, even shut down SimConnect -- needless to say a disaster.

The alternative (not to close up shop) leaves potentially music and sound effects playing even after the user has ended his flight. Can't do that.

So, does anyone know if there's another PANEL_SERVICE that FSX triggers when it's shutting the flight down but not when the gauge is re-sized?
PANEL_CLOSE isn't it -- that happens when the user makes the gauge disappear. PANEL_KILL isn't it either, it's called whenever the gauge is re-sized or when it's closed. I don't have much hope for this there isn't any likely candidate in gauges.h.

Alternatively, is there some tidbit of info anywhere in FSX that would let me distinguish between a re-sizing and actual shutdown?

Dutch
 
You should't use the PANEL_SERVICE_* functions to do global initialization because, as you found out, the behaviour is not guaranteed to be the same between FS9 and FSX.

The correct way of doing this, is to use the module_init() and module_deinit() callbacks.

The module_init() is guaranteed to be called only ONCE, when the AIRPLANE that contains *any* reference in *any* panel (even those that are closed at start) of your gauge, is loaded. So is the module_deinit(), called only once, when the airplane is unloaded.

They are defined inside the GAUGE_TABLE_BEGIN macro as being empty, but you are not forced to use that macro, you can simply write the same code, and take away the module_init() and module_deinit() functions, and fill them with your code.

Yes, module_init() is the perfect place to place any initialization code, like opening Simconnect, initializing sound code (directsound, etc.), initializing any variables, etc. And, of course, the module_deinit() it's the best place to do the opposite, closing Simconnect, clean up everything, etc...
 
Ah, yes, it simply never occurred to me that I could override the definition those in a gauge. Obvious!

Thanks a lot! This does solve a goodly number of issues that I have clumsy workarounds in place to handle now.

Dutch
 
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