I’m wondering if it would be possible to make a modified “VFR Map.” The one from the on-screen toolbar.
I find the lack of good, useable flight planning tools in MSFS a real drag. While the overall map is cool, the detail is lackluster, and so is the nav log page (before entering the flight). Like, why can’t I change my cruise altitude? I’ve tried several times in various flights to do this but it doesn’t let me. The system in place for adding a point to your flight plan is severely lacking. Like, I can select a departure, select an arrival, then when I try to add a point in between somewhere, it more often than not just selects the leg I have already made and that little menu that pops up when you click somewhere on the map (to add a point) doesn’t come up. Very frustrating.
Anyway, that’s a bit beside the point. I want to make the VFR Map intractable. I want to be able to say, right click and create a waypoint or a destination and have it draw the path in for me.
I often fly with no real goal or destination in mind, checking out an area or sightseeing and I find this lack of flexibility really bad.
When flying in real life the vast majority of my flight planning is done using Foreflight on an iPad which is extremely flexible. Why Asobo wouldn’t implement some of the basic functionality of making a dynamic nav log is beyond me.
So is it possible for me to do that with the SDK or would I need to write an entirely new addon / program to do that?
I’m a web development student so I was hoping I’d be able to build it with JavaScript.
So you could build a duplicate toolbar like VFR map and use web tech to build whatever you like inside. But it won’t have position tracking. I think we might find a way to make that work without needing to run another program.
It looks like you could just include simvar.js and call SimVar.GetSimVarValue("PLANE LATITUDE", "DEGREES") like all the other HTML/JS contexts. But maybe it’s not allowed here.
I don’t think you’ll find any mention the SDK about the tech that you’re aiming to use here, except for the VFS and the structure of packages, but it looks like you could start with a copy of the GameVFRMap (or the template above which has figured out the spb stuff…which I’m not that familiar with yet either) and do exactly what you want.
I’ve been able to use an iframe within a custom window to send simvars to my webserver, currently building part of an app - one facet of which is flight recording and showing position on a map. I can send messages back and forth but having a few teething probs.
So far I am able to record simvars sent to my webserver via the custom window and save this in a csv, which I then plan to record in a db row.