Primer for Livewire Assistant v0.2.592

Until there is time to write proper documentation, this primer will serve to explain the primary features of Livewire Assistant.

Livewire Assistant (LWA) is a tool for MS Flight Simulator 2004 (FS2004). While it is primarily being developed as an advanced interface for Livewire Virtual Airline pilots, much of its current functionality is useful for all FS2004 pilots, particularly those who use pre-configured flights. When launching LWA for the first time, it will ask you if you want to run it in Livewire mode or Universal mode. Universal mode simply disables features that are specific to Livewire pilots.

This primer will not be updated for every new build of LWA. Therefore, it is still very important that users read the LWAssistantStatus.txt file that accompanies every release. Contained in this file are a complete version history as well as planned features and known bugs.

Features in red represent Livewire-specific features. Features added since the last version of this document are indicated with a *NEW* tag. Features that have existed for only one previous version of the document are indicated with a *RECENT* tag. Features modified since the last version of this document are indicated with an *UPDATED* tag.

Table of Contents

Installation
User Interface
Profiles and Global Settings
FS2004 Interface Control
Audio Checklist *NEW*
File Menu
Action Menu
Flight Menu
Aircraft Menu
Panel Menu
Options Menu
Experimental Menu *UPDATED*
Thin Mode
Panel Attachments
Custom Panel Windows
Flight List
Aircraft List
Panel Selection List
Event Log
Options View

Installation

LWA is not currently provided with an installer application. The LWA package is, instead, provided in three formats: .ZIP, .RAR and .EXE. Regardless of the package chosen, it should be extracted to its own directory wherever the user prefers.

User Interface

LWA currently has very few toolbars and no context menus. They are going to be added later. This will speed development time. Currently, most settings are set from the menus and from the Options view. A freeware user-interface framework called ProfUIS is currently being tested for continued use in LWA. Initially, it's use will be strictly superficial and easy to remove. Later, if field testing is succesful and user response is generally positive, more extensive use of the product may occur. Right now, the framework just modifies the "look" of LWA and provides three appearances that affect, primarily, the menus and dialog controls. This appearance can be modified from the Options->View->Appearance sub-menu.

Profiles and Global Settings

Settings in LWA are stored using two methods and locations. Most settings are saved in profiles. These profiles are user-specific, with any number of profiles per user, and they can be selected in several ways. The profile toolbar contains a drop list of all available profiles. When an existing profile is selected from this list, all of its settings are applied to the session and it becomes the Current Profile. New profiles can be created by entering a new name it the edit box portion of the drop list and pressing the Save button or Enter. An existing profile can be deleted by first selecting it as the Current Profile and then pressing the Delete button. Profiles are saved as files under the LWA working directory in a folder named after the user's login name.

A small number of settings in LWA are not stored in profiles. These are called global settings. Global settings are user-specific but there is only one set of global settings per user, unlike profiles. They are stored in the user's software section of the registry. Global settings will be indicated in this documentation with a [GLOBAL] tag.

Profiles can also be attached to flights and aircraft. Depending on certain global settings, these profiles will be automatically loaded when the corresponding flight or aircraft is selected. Or, it can be set so that they are only loaded when a customized flight or aircraft for which they are attach is launched. If Lock Profile is enabled, which it is by default, the attached profiles will be ignored. Attached flight profiles always take precedence over attached aircraft profiles. Attached profiles is an advanced feature and should only be explored by experienced LWA users.

FS2004 Interface Control

Some feature of FS2004 cannot be preset in the flight, aircraft, panel, etc. files. Furthermore, some cannot be modified through FSUIPC. For these features, it is necessary to force FS2004 to perform the function itself. FS2004 Interface Control allows LWA to perform several simple operations to the FS2004 user interface without needing the user to act. Such operations include simulating the clicking of menu items or dialogs buttons. Several LWA features use this feature and are noted to do so.

Audio Checklist *NEW*

This is an experimental feature based on Microsoft Speech API (SAPI) 5.0. Therefore, in order to use this feature, SAPI 5.0 or greater must be installed on the system. Windows XP comes with SAPI 5.0 and a single voice named "Sam". Voices vary greatly in their quality. The three free voices available from Microsoft are all of very poor quality, but are functional. Information regarding this feature, voices and resources related to voices can be found at the Livewire Assistant Speech Features webpage.

As this feature is experimental, it does not yet have a sophisticated user-interface and is not configurable. The checklist is loaded from the LWA menus. Once loaded, certain preset keystrokes operate the playback functions. LWA will understand the keypresses either when its own window is active, or if the FS2004 window is active. The playback keys are as follows:

The + character indicates holding down of previous keys; LCtrl and RCtrl are the left and right control keys, respectively; if <TAB> is mapped to another key in FS2004, the mapped key will still work, however, if a checklist is loaded, it will also perform the appropriate checklist playback function; The ~ (tilde) key may not be available on all keyboards, however, the same functions are available in the menu for testing from the LWA user-interface

Because this feature uses text-to-speech instead of sampled audio, it has both advantages and disadvantages. The significant advantage is that the voice engine can say anything at all in the language that the voice is designed for and is not limited to what is available with voice samples. The disadvantage of text-to-speech is that the best voices, that sound nearest to natural speech, cost money. However poor the quality of the free voices, however, they are servicable.

The format of the audio checklist uses the standard Window .ini file format. It is a plain text file and should use the extension ".checklist". Any text editor, including notepad.exe, is adequate for creating a checklist. The checklist itself is broken into sections. Each section has a single title and any number of lines:

[Section01]
title=Initial
1=External Power On
2=Primary Inverter On
[Section02] ...

An example checklist is available from the Livewire Assistant Speech Features webpage. More checklists will be made available in the future.

For operating systems prior to Windows XP, SAPI 5.0 will need to be installed to use LWA speech features. Some software may have already done this. If SAPI is installed, a Speech entry will be available in the Control Panel. Once in the Speech Properties Dialog, the default voice can be set in the Text to Speech tab. All available voices will be listed on this page of the dialog. If SAPI is not installed, the easiest way to install it is to download and install the Speech SDK 5.1 from Microsoft. While this is technically a tool for developers, it is also installable on any Microsoft OS since and including Windows 98. The Speech SDK is available directly from Microsoft: http://download.microsoft.com/download/speechSDK/SDK/5.1/WXP/EN-US/speechsdk51.exe

Menus

File Menu

LWA maintains several information caches. The three primary universal caches are the flight cache, the aircraft cache and the panel cache. There are four operations you can perform on the caches:

• Refresh - Once a cache is in place, Refresh searches the relevant files for new and updated elements. It will not detect deleted elements, but is much faster than Reload.
• Save - After Refreshing or Reloading a cache, this will save the cache to file.
• Reload - Reload first performs a Delete on the cache, and then a Refresh. This longer operation is necessary for detecting deleted elements, but is slower than Refresh on existing caches.
• Delete - This operation deletes the cache file and empties the cache.

Refresh and Reload both create the cache if one is not already present. There is no difference between the operations when no cache already exists. All four aircraft cache operations also affect the panel cache, however, the panel cache operations do not affect the aircraft cache.

Action Menu

• Launch Customized Flight - All options selected in the LWA user-interface are applied and the selected flight is launched in FS2004.
• Launch Flight - All options selected in the LWA user-interface are ignored and the selected flight is launched with no changes.
• Create Customized Flight - All options selected in the LWA user-interface are applied and all files needed for the customized flight are created, however, the flight is not launched.
• Flight Launch is Enabled/Disabled - When flight launch is disabled, Create Customized Flight replaces Launch Customized Flight, and Launch Flight is disabled.

Flight Menu

• Enable Real-World Weather (Updating) - When enabled, the customized flight is set to download and use FS2004's Real-World Weather with 15 minutes updates.
• Enable Real-World Weather (Static) - *UPDATED* (Requires FSUIPC >= v3.12) When enabled, the customized flight is set to download and use FS2004's Real-World Weather with no further updating. Because FS2004 will not automatically download the weather, LWA uses its FS2004 Interface Control functionality to force the weather update immediately after the flight is loaded. This requires FSUIPC.
• Enable Pre-Selected Weather - Selecting this entry brings up the Pre-Selected Weather dialog. Weather Themes and existing weather files (*.wx) can be selected for use with the customized flight.
• Adjust Flight Date to Current - This changes the flight date to that of the computer system. It does not modify the time of the flight. This prevents saved flights from being flown on the same saved day every time, and instead is flown on the actual day the flight is being flown. This is ideal for virtual airline flights.
• Start in Cold Cockpit - When enabled, LWA will start the flight with the cockpit in a cold state (everything turned off). This allows the pilot to perform full startup procedures. The specific controls that are turned off can be configured in the Options View. This feature may not work properly with complex add-on panels as it can only modify those features that are built into FS2004.
• Start Paused - When enabled, the customized flight will start paused.
• Start in Slew Mode - When enabled, the customized flight will start in slew mode.
• Reset Panels to Aircraft Defaults - Flight files can contain customizations to the panel layout that override those found in the aircraft panel settings. When this is enabled, panels are repositioned back to their original locations as set by the aircraft panel file. This feature is forced on when panel modifications have been selected in LWA.
• Set Flight Profile - This opens a drop list right above the flight from which a profile can be selected. If a profile is selected it will be attached to the flight and will also be set as the Current Profile. A profile can be detached from a flight by pressing the Clear button. To cancel attaching a profile, press the Cancel button.
• Flight List Sorting - LWA sorts the flight list according to these options. Most are designed for Livewire mode.

Aircraft Menu

• Use Selected Aircraft - When enabled, the aircraft selected in the Aircraft List is substituted for the default aircraft in the customized flights.
• Adjust Flight Number - When enabled, the flight number for the aircraft is adjusted to that expected for the customized flight.
• Force Airline Name - When enabled, the airline name is adjusted to that expected for the customized flight.
• Force Aircraft ID - When enabled, the aircraft ID (tail number) is adjusted to that expected for the customized flight.
• Improve AFCAD2 Support - Not currently documented, Livewire pilots should turn this on, Universal pilots should turn this off.
• Enable Yaw Damper Switch - When enabled, yaw damper is "repaired" on the aircraft used in the customized flight. Many FS2004 aircraft, without this "repair", will not allow the yaw damper to be engaged. It is safe to always leave this on.
• Auto-Select Flight Default Aircraft - When enabled and a flight is selected, that flight's default aircraft will be selected in the aircraft view and scrolled into view.
• Set Aircraft Profile - This opens a drop list right above the flight from which a profile can be selected. If a profile is selected it will be attached to the aircraft and will also be set as the Current Profile. A profile can be detached from an aircraft by pressing the Clear button. To cancel attaching a profile, press the Cancel button.
• Aircraft List Sorting - LWA sorts the aircraft list according to these options. Most are designed for Livewire mode.

Panel Menu

• Use Selected Panel - When enabled, the panel selected in the Panel Selection List is substituted for the default panel for the aircraft in the customized flight. Use Selected Panel and Use Panel Attachments are mutually exclusive.
• Use Panel Attachments - *RECENT* When enabled, if a panel is attached to the aircraft used in the customized flight, that panel will be used. Use Selected Panel and Use Panel Attachments are mutually exclusive.
• Use Custom Panel Windows - When enabled, the Custom Panel Windows settings will be applied to the customized panel.
• Adjust Window Positions - When enabled, the position and size of the indicated window will be adjusted according to the settings in the Options View. Additional windows to those in the menu are available for this form of adjustment from the Options View as well.
• Panel Attachments - [GLOBAL] Sub-menu that contains Panel Attachment options:
  • Attach Panel to Aircraft Type - The currently selected panel is attached to all aircraft that match the manufacturer and type of the currently selected aircraft. This attachment type has the lowest priority. All other attachment types will override this form of panel attachment.
  • Attach Panel to Aircraft Model - The currently selected panel is attached to all aircraft that use the same simulator model of the currently selected aircraft. This attachment type has a higher priority than the aircraft type attachment type and will override those forms of panel attachment.
  • Attach Panel to Individual Aircraft - The currently selected panel is attached to only the aircraft that is currently selected. This attachment type has the highest priority and will override aircraft model and aircraft type attachment types.
  • Detach Panel Attachment - If a panel is attached to the currently selected aircraft, it's highest priority attachment type is cleared.
  • Detach All Panel Attachments - Clears all panel attachments for all aircraft.

Options Menu

• Show Options - When enabled, the Options View is displayed. Select this menu item again to hide the Options View.
• Options Views - When an item in this list is selected, the Options View is displayed, if it is not already, and the indicated options sub-section is scrolled into view.
• View - Sub-menu that contains LWA User-Interface options:
  • Status Bar - When enabled, the status bar is displayed at the bottom of the screen. When disabled, the status bar is hidden to reveal additional screen real estate.
  • Appearance - *NEW* Sub-menu that contains multiple user-interface options, which primarily modify the look of the menus and dialog controls.
• Profiles - Sub-menu that contains LWA profile management options:
  • Lock Profile - [GLOBAL] When enabled, profiles attached to flights and aircraft are ignored. The profile will not change except if changed manually. Lock Profile and Auto-Load Flight/Aircraft Profile are mutually exclusive.
  • Auto-Load Flight/Aircraft Profile - [GLOBAL] When enabled, if a flight or aircraft that has a profile attached is selected, the profile is changed immediately to that profile. Flight profiles always take priority over aircraft profiles. Lock Profile and Auto-Load Flight/Aircraft Profile are mutually exclusive.
  • Auto-Select Flight/Aircraft on Profile Load - [GLOBAL] The currently selected flight and aircraft are saved in the Current Profile. When enabled and a profile is changed, the flight and aircraft that are saved with the profile are automatically selected in the Flight and Aircraft Lists.
  • Auto-Save Current Profile on Exit - [GLOBAL] When enabled, the current profile is automatically saved when LWA is exited.
  • Auto-Save Profile on Profile Change - [GLOBAL] When enabled, the current profile is automatically saved when a new profile is selected.
• Show Event Log - When enabled, the Aircraft List is replaced with the Event Log. This view shows events, errors and the progress of certain operations such as downloads and .zip extractions. This view is automatically displayed whenever an error occurs.
• Event Log - Sub-menu that contains LWA event logging options:
  • Log to File - [GLOBAL] When enabled, all events that are logged in the event log are also written to a tab-delimited text file named "EventLog.txt" in the LWA working directory. This is primarily for debugging and does not need to be enabled during normal operation.
  • Empty Log File - [GLOBAL] When executed, the "EventLog.txt" file is cleared of all entries.
  • Verbose Mode - [GLOBAL] When enabled, many additional events, including informational, warning and error events, will be written to the Event Log. This is primarily for debugging and does not need to be enabled during normal operation.
• Show Panel Selection View - When enabled, the Aircraft List is replaced with the Panel Selection View.
• Thin Mode is Enabled/Disabled - This allows one to manually engage or disengaged Thin Mode.
• Engage Thin Mode on Flight Launch - When enabled, Thin Mode is automatically entered after a flight is launched by LWA.
• Exit on Flight Launch - When enabled, LWA is automatically closed after a flight is launched.
• Allow Assumptions - When enabled, LWA determines certain flight and aircraft information by parsing the Livewire flight name.
• Change Operating Mode - Opens the Operating Mode Dialog box which allows selection between Livewire and Universal Modes. When set to Livewire Mode, all Livewire features become available. When set to Universal Mode, Livewire-specific features are disabled. It is recommended that all caches are Reloaded after changing this option.
• FSUIPC Features are Enabled/Disabled - [GLOBAL] When enabled, FSUIPC features will be available. Alternately, if disabled, FSUIPC features will not be available.
• Watch Clipboard for Supported URLs - When enabled, LWA watches the clipboard for Livewire URLs for flight and aircraft packages. This is part of the experimental Download and Install .zip Package system which will eventually be replaced during Phase II. If an appropriate URL appears in the clipboard, such as occurs when the user right-clicks on a download link in Internet Explorer and selects "Copy Shortcut", the URL Input Dialog is automatically shown and filled with the URL.
• Show Hidden Flight Folders - When enabled, all folders, whether hidden or not, in the Flight Directory List on the left-hand side of LWA are shown. Once a flight folder is hidden, it is necessary to enable this mode to un-hide it. Hidden flight folders is simply to reduce the clutter of flight folders that occur with a default installation of FS2004 and subsequent add-ons. It is safe to hide the LWA created "LivewireAssistant" flight folder, and it is recommended that this be done.

Experimental Menu

These features have been added to test the downloading, extraction and installation features of LWA. During Phase II, this system will go into place within the user-interface Flight and Aircraft Lists.

• Download and Install .zip Package - Opens the URL Input Dialog. One may paste a valid Livewire .zip package URL, primarily for flights and aircraft, into this dialog to initiate the download and install procedure. Use this feature only with packages designed to be extracted into the root directory of the FS2004 installation.
• Install Local .zip Package - Opens an File Open Dialog. Selecting a Livewire .zip package file from this dialog will initiate the extraction and install procedure. Use this feature only with packages designed to be extracted into the root directory of the FS2004 installation.
• Audio Checklist - Sub-menu that contains Audio Checklist functions:
  • Open Checklist... - Launches an open file dialog box for selecting a specially formatted text checklist. Once opened, the remaining operations are available.
  • Read Entry - Reads the current checklist line.
  • Repeat Last Entry - Repeats the last checklist line read.
  • Restart Section - Resets the current line to the beginning of the section
  • Goto Previous Section - Returns to the first line of the section preceeding the current section
  • Skip to Next Section - Skips to the first line of the section following the current section
  • Restart Checklist - Resets to the first line of the first section.

Features

Thin Mode

LWA, in order to operate, has to hold in memory a great deal of information. Because this information is generally not needed when flying in FS2004, but also because it might not be practical to close LWA and launch it again for each flight, the Thin Mode was implemented. When Thin Mode is engaged, LWA disconnects from its caches. Also, all superfluous images are released from memory.

Currently, as LWA is at an early level of development, Thin Mode only saves between 500k and 3M of memory when engaged. However, while the amount of memory used by LWA when not in Thin Mode will increase as features are added, Thin Mode operation should not increase very much at all. Therefore, by the end of LWA's development, the difference should be quite large and Thin Mode will be very practical to use.

Panel Attachments [GLOBAL]

Any panel that is listed in the Panel Selection List may be attached to an aircraft. Once attached to an aircraft, if Use Attached Panels is enabled and a customized flight is loaded with that aircraft, the attached panel is used instead of the default panel for that aircraft. To avoid having to select a panel attachment for each aircraft individually, three attachment types are available. These three types are explained in the Panel Menu section of this documentation. The highest priority panel attachment is always displayed in the Aircraft List.

Custom Panel Windows (CPWs) [GLOBAL]

This is an advanced feature and is targeted primarily at those who frequently edit panel configuration files manually. However, it is quite usable by people who have never done so.

FS2004 panels are composed of a number of panel windows. For example, a panel is often broken up into individually visible panels for the primary panel, the overhead panel, the radio stack, the GPS unit, etc. Many flight simmers have particular CPWs that they like to attach to all of their aircraft. This feature allows one to do this without manually editing each panel configuration file

The Custom Panel Windows List contains a list of all available CPWs. By default, LWA contains one or more pre-configured CPWs. The Garmin GPS500 is one example of a pre-configured CPW. When enabled, all enabled CPWs will be inserted into a panel when that panel is launched with a customized flight.

Panel windows in the panel configuration file are numbered in in ascending order starting at 0 (zero). When inserting CPWs into the panel, LWA locates the lowest available panel window number and inserts the CPWs according to their order in the Custom Panel Windows List. It will insert all enabled CPWs into the panel but will not overwrite or move any panel windows already in the panel configuration file. Therefore, it may be necessary to "make room" in the panel configuration file for a number of these CPWs. Due to the Panel Reservoir feature of LWA, this should only need to be done once per panel as that panel can then be left in the reservoir to be attached to any number of aircraft using the Panel Attachment feature.

As mentioned, LWA will not disturb existing panel windows. However, there is one exception to this. A single CPW may be flagged as the Primary GPS Unit. If a standard FS2002/FS2004 GPS unit is found in the panel, it will be overwritten by this CPW. By default, the pre-configured Garmin GPS500 is set as the Primary GPS Unit. Therefore, if any launched panel contains, for example, a Garmin GPS295, it will be automatically replaced with the Primary GPS Unit, in this example the GPS500. The Primary GPS Unit can be recognized by being listed in blue text.

A number of enabled CPWs will have a green background. This designates them as Primary Panel Windows. Windows numbered between and including 0 and 8 are considered Primary Panel Windows. These are the only panel windows that can be accessed by keystroke (by default, Ctrl+1 to Ctrl+9). Panel windows that are not Primary Panel Windows will still be added to the panel, but will not currently be accessible.

An additional pre-configured panel window will be added to LWA sometime in the future to allow access to non-Primary Panel Windows. Until then, it will be necessary to "make room" for any CPWs that need to be accessed.

User-Interface Features

Flight List

Currently, the Flight List is very straightforward. There are currently no filters, and it is lacking many planned columns. The columns for which the meaning is not easily evident are as follows:

• WT - Weather Type
  • (Blank) - No weather type. If a WX file is available for the flight, it is used.
  • Thm - Theme
  • U-D - User-Defined
  • Sta - Real-World Weather (Static)
  • Dyn - Real-World Weather (15-minute updates)
• PLN - Flight Plan File is Present
• WX - Flight Weather File is Present
• Orig - Origin Airport ICAO Designation
• Dest - Destination Airport ICAO Designation
• FR - Instrument Flight Rules (IFR) or Visual Flight Rules (VFR)
• AL - Assumed Airline Name
• Flt # - Assumed Flight Number
• ID - Assumed Aircraft ID (Tail Number)

Aircraft List

The Aircraft List is a list of all aircraft elements. There is one element for each aircraft title found in all of the aircraft.cfg files under the FS2004 Aircraft directory. Atop the list are two toolbars. The first has two buttons. The first button cycles between display of the Aircraft List and the Event Log. The second button cycles between display of the Aircraft List and the Panel Selection List.

The second toolbar contains three controls. The first is a list of all aircraft manufacturers. An aircraft manufacturer may be selected from the list to filter only aircraft with that value in their "Manufacturer" field. The second is a list of all aircraft models. It is also filtered by the aircraft manufacturer filter. An aircraft model may be selected from the list to filter only aircraft with that value in their "Type" field.

The third control displays the currently selected panel, if any.

If an aircraft is double-clicked, the appropriate panel for that aircraft is set as the current panel. If Use Panel Attachments is enabled, then the highest-priority attached panel is assigned. Otherwise, the default panel for that aircraft is assigned.

Panel Selection List

The Panel Selection List is broken up into two windows. The first window is an abbreviated version of the Aircraft List. This list shows only a single entry for each aircraft folder, as opposed to one for each aircraft element. The second list shows the panels available for the aircraft folder selected on the left.

The first entry in the left frame of the Panel Selection List is always the Panel Reservoir. This is a representation of the <FS2004>\Aircraft\fsfsconv directory which has a long-standing tradition for being the place to put additional panels that aircraft will alias to. Any panel folder, up to three levels deep in the folder hierarchy underneath fsfsconv, will be listed in the right pane and be available for use and attachment to aircraft.

When a panel is selected, its name will show in the edit box in the Aircraft List/Panel Selection List toolbar.

Event Log

The Event Log shows several important pieces of information. First it displays events. Events can include errors (in red), warnings (in orange), notes (in yellow) and general info (in white). When an error is added to the Event Log it is automatically switched into view.

Additionally, the Event Log shows the progress of downloads and extractions.

Options View

The Options View contains several sub-sections that need to be discussed individually. Currently there are multiple Apply Changes buttons in this view. All perform the same function. Eventually, it is planned that LWA will detect changes to the settings in the view and automatically apply them. But this functionality is intentionally omitted at this time to simplify development. While present, it is recommended that the user press one of the Apply Changes buttons after making any changes to this view.

Primary Options

• Flightbase 2000 Username/Password - Currently disabled as there is currently no need to authenticate with the Flightbase 2000 server.
• Archive Downloads - When enabled, any packages downloaded by LWA will be copied to the selected path.
• User-Interface - These adjust the appearance of LWA.
  • Show Background Images - When enabled, background images show in the main display lists, such as the flight and aircraft lists.
  • Sound drop list - *RECENT* [GLOBAL] This setting determines which user-interface sounds will be played by LWA. The four values are 'No Sounds', 'Few Sounds', 'Many Sounds', 'All Sounds'. 'Many Sounds' is the default setting.

Flight Options

• Cold Cockpit Start Controls - This section shows a large number of three-way checkboxes for many of the controls related to the aircraft state. When Start in Cold Cockpit is enabled, these settings specify the exact modifications made to the flight controls. Each checkbox can be set to one of three settings:
  • Unchecked - This control will be forced off
  • Checked - This control will be forced on
  • Grayed - This control will be left unchanged and, therefore, the setting in the flight file will remain as-is.
• View Axis Indicator - Sets the value of the axis indicator as found in FS2004's View Options dialog.
• Spot View Gradual Transition - This checkbox can be set to one of three settings:
  • Unchecked - Panning in spot view will instantaneous and crisp.
  • Checked - Panning in spot view will be smooth.
  • Grayed - Panning will be left as found in the original flight file.
• Spot Transition Type - Set the value of the spot transition type as found in FS2004's View Options dialog.
• Flight Starting Situation - These three-way checkboxes follow the same rules as the Cold Cockpit Start Controls. However, these are applied regardless of Cold Cockpit on Start being enabled or not.
• Sim Run-up - (Requires FSUIPC >= v3.12) This cluster of options work together to allow a flight to allow the traffic situation to stabilize after the initial loading of a flight. It does this by loading the flight early according to the value in the Minutes field. It then runs the simulation with time compression at rate assigned by the Accel field. Once the time originally given by the flight is reached, the simulation is paused and time compression is turned off. To abort this process before completion, press the Abort button. Due to the way FS2004 loads AI traffic, there tends to be either too little or too much AI traffic on the ground just after loading a flight. By allowing the simulator to run for a while under acceleration, the airport traffic will take on a more normal consistency.

Panel Options

• Garmin GPS500 - These options are related to the FS2004 Garmin GPS500 unit, which may or may not be present in any given aircraft:
  • Adjust GPS Window Position - When enabled the Position and Size settings will be forced on the GPS500 unit if available.
  • Position - Each possible value represents a possible position on the screen for the GPS500 to be placed. (e.g. 5 represents full right horizontally and dead-center vertically)
  • Size - The GPS500 can be scaled to various sizes. The default size found in FS2004 aircraft is 0.5.
• ATC, Message and Flying Tip Windows - These three option groups all have the same type of settings which will be applied to the appropriate window:
  • Adjust Window Position - When enabled, LWA will apply the remaining settings in the window position settings group.
  • Paste .FLT Data - As an alternative to pasting the position values for all windows from a .FLT file using the Window Position from .FLT... function, the user may copy just the data for the relevant window to the clipboard from a .FLT file and press this button to apply the appropriate settings to a window settings group.
  • Docked - Selects Docked or Undocked windows. This should usually be left checked.
  • Screen Coordinates - The screen coordinates of the window. These should be set from an existing .FLT file using the Paste .FLT Data or Window Positions from .FLT... functions.
  • Screen Coordinates (Undocked) - The undocked screen coordinates of the window. These should usually all be set to zero.
• ATC Window Visible at Start - (Requires FSUIPC >= v3.12) This one option is available only to the ATC window. This is another tri-state checkbox. When checked, the ATC window will be displayed. When unchecked, the ATC window will not be displayed. When grayed, the setting in the original .FLT file is retained. Because FS2004 does not read this setting from files, LWA must use its FS2004 Interface Control functionality to open the window immediately after the flight is started. If the simulation is paused, the window will not appear until the simultaion is unpaused.
• Read All Window Positions from .FLT... - This function is the primary method of filling in all of the position values for all three window settings groups. When pressed, an Open File Dialog will appear. When a .FLT file is selected, all values in that .FLT file will be applied to the position values. To make best use of this features, while in a flight, adjust all windows as preferred. Then save the flight to a .FLT file. This function can then load those values into LWA.

Panel Window Options

• Custom Panel Windows - [GLOBAL] These options are related to the Custom Panel Windows feature:
  • Custom Panel Windows List - Lists all available custom panel windows, whether they are enabled, whether they are flagged as a GPS Primary Unit, whether they are going to be loaded as a primary panel for the currently selected aircraft, and other information. Existing entries may be double-clicked to edit the custom panel window.
  • Add New... - Opens a blank Panel Window Dialog.
  • Edit - Opens a Panel Window Dialog for the currently selected custom panel window.
  • Delete - Deletes the currently selected custom panel window.
  • Set/Clear Primary GPS Unit - This toggles the Primary GPS Unit flag of the currently selected custom panel window. Only one panel may be designated as the Primary GPS Unit.
  • Set Files Folder... - (Feature Disabled) Opens a 'Browse for Directory' dialog for selecting an Additional Files Folder for the currently selected custom panel window.
  • Reset All - This resets the Custom Panel Windows List to the default LWA custom panel windows and clears all user-defined custom panel windows.
• Mini-Panel Generation- *RECENT* [GLOBAL] These options are related to the Mini-Panel Generation feature:
  • Enable - When enabled, a very small panel window will be created that contains buttons for making visible and hiding other panel windows. The remaining settings in this section determine the appearance and content of this mini-panel.
  • Include - This drop-box contains three options that determine the content of the mini-panel:
    • Include CPWs - When selected, only buttons connected to LWA Custom Panel Windows (CPWs) are included in the mini-panel. Every enabled LWA CPW will be associated to a single button. They will be numbered in the order that they appear in the CPW list.
    • Include Recognized - When selected, only buttons connected to panels recognized by LWA to have an appropriate simicon are included. Currently, LWA is only able to recognize a very limited number of panel window/simicon associations. It is planned that future LWA releases will be able to recognize more such associations.
    • Include Both - When selected, both buttons for recognized panel-windows and button for CPWs will be included in the mini-panel.
  • Layout - These options determine how the mini-panel will appear. This includes the orientation (horizontal/vertical) and the number of rows. If set to a single row, the recognized buttons will be listed first, followed by CPW buttons, all on a single row. If set to two rows, recognized buttons will be listed in the first row and CPW buttons in the second. The "2-row" options are only selectable in Include Both content mode.
  • Position - The mini-panel can be set to appear in any of the four corners of the screen using this setting.
  • Visible - If enabled, the mini-panel will be initially displayed on flight start.
  • Max - This numerical value limits the number of buttons that can appear on a single row of the mini-panel.

Advanced Options

• Process Priority - These drop lists specific task-specific priority classes. When LWA is performing the specified task, it will assign itself the selected priority for that task. These should generally be left at their default positions.
  • Standard - [GLOBAL] Used for all the time LWA is operating outside of the other tasks. This is set to 'Normal' by default.
  • During Flight - [GLOBAL] Used for all the time FS2004 is running concurrently with LWA. This is set to 'Normal' by default.
  • During Sim Run-up - [GLOBAL] Used from the time a Sim Run-up enabled flight is launched until that process is complete. This is set to 'Above Normal' by default.