After lots of work and quite a few late nights of hammering on my keyboards, POPM pre-release version 4.0 is here. I’m initially releasing this as direct download without enabling auto update for all users yet. This will allow me to get feedbacks and do a round of bug fixes before releasing to everyone. If you would like to try out this version, please download it directly from my github repository and unzip it over your existing POPM installation. Please see the post above for the latest changelog. You would have the ability to rollback to previous version easily.
When you first launch this new version of the app, your POPM personal profile data will be converted to a new format and a copy of the old profile data file will be backed up. There is a built-in feature to rollback to previous version 3.4.6.0321 of the app with one click of a button if this new version does not suit your needs or is too buggy for your use (hopefully not!) Please go to Help => Support in the new app to rollback to previous version. Any changes to your aircraft profiles and settings with the new version will not be able to apply to the old version unfortunately.
Two major accomplishments for this new version are:
Updated implementation of touch which a lot of users who are using POPM for. I believe it is more responsive and is getting very close to native click performance. Lots of trial and error and performance tests took place to find the right combination of code. Please provide feedback on this feature if you’re using it with touch monitor or on tablets with Spacedesk, etc.
New modern UI, more usability feedback, customization and improved application performance. Hopefully this will make the use of the app more enjoyable and more intuitive.
As for the delay and challenge of releasing v4.0, with the new AAU2 MSFS patch, I’ve encountered quite a few issues and they do not happen consistently. When I solved one issue, another AAU2 related issue will pop up. Please be patience and report back if you encounter weird issue when using the new POPM. For example, you may encounter touch suddenly stops working or does not work if you touch certain spot in the pop out panel. And if you use the mouse to click the button directly, it does not work either. But by restarting the flight or game, this will suddenly fix it. This was driving me nuts and I was wondering is it my code or the game. Hopefully SU13 in September will stabilize the game a bit more or a hotfix by Asobo before then.
Anyway, here is the github download link:
Lastly, I wholeheartedly thank you all for your support of POPM and please enjoy the app!
Stanley
Sounds good and I am looking forward to it, but I am a bit cautious about pre-release software because, other than some known issues, the current version is stable for me, and I don’t want to risk messing anything up. So how is the feedback looking so far? Not seeing many comments here, so no news is good news?
So glad the current version is working for you. With version 4.0, there is a seamless rollback feature that will restore the app and POPM data file to your current version so you can test out this new version for as long as you want without worry that it will mess things up. There are 2 caveats to try out the new version with rollback:
Your current POPM needs to be on version is 3.4.6.0321 since the rollback can only restore to this particular version, older version is not supported.
Any changes to profile in the new version will be lost since the new version has new data that the old version does not understand.
If you have any questions, please feel free let me know. Since there are so many variations in how user uses POPM and I’ve made some aggressive performance changes to the app, I’m worry about v4.0 have show-stopping bug, too. But so far, no news is indeed good news
The update went smoothly and everything seems to be working fine.
However, I can no longer find the option we added to manage the touch feature on the RealSimGear GTN750 gen1. Did you remove it or can it still be enabled in a config file?
Using RealSimGear GTN750 Gen1 is now built-in. In previous version, POPM needed to disable touch to click emulation logic but at the same time still needs to keep the game refocus logic, so there was the option to specify RSG Gen1. With v4.0, this option is no longer needed because as long as you enabled “Automatic Game Refocus” for that particular panel, RSG Gen1 refocus will work. Please make sure you do not enable touch for this panel since RSG Gen1 is not a touch panel (it uses RSG proprietary mouse driver emulation). Please let me know if your RSG Gen1 works. If not, I may have messed something up and I’ll fix it.
So as a bonus for v4.0, for any instrumentation pop out in MSFS, if you hover or click on the pop out (accidentally or intentionally) and even though this panel has no touch function, you will still lose flight control. With v4.0 “Automatic Game Refocus” option at a per panel basis, you can customize refocus as needed.
For me the refocus feature does not work when my cursor is over a popout panel, it only works when either the panel is touched when I have touch capability enabled, or when I click on a panel when touch is not enabled. Simply having the cursor hovering over a popout panel does not refocus and I lose control of the aircraft.
I am using Spacedesk and popping out the Cessna 172 PFD and MFD to two separate Android tablets. with panel touch capability off for each as the C172 MFD and PFD popouts have no touch functions.
I have the Refocus Game Window option on in settings and Automatic Game Refocus selected for each panel.
Sorry, I misspoke, only click or touch on the panel will trigger the refocus feature. Mouse hover will disable flight control and POPM currently does not refocus the game. This is because it will take a lot of CPU cycles to detect mouse movements and figure out which panel the mouse is currently hovering over and then trigger a mouse redirect back to the game window.
But, never say never, this is another improvement to POPM I can investigate. This MSFS bug is a major confusion to a lot of users since if the user forgets to re-click game window to refocus the game or accidentally moves the mouse over a pop out window without realizing, all flight controls are lost. He or she then wonders what just happen and if it is during landing, then, yikes, plane crash, LOL!
That makes sense thanks, and again it just works!!!
So just had to know that we no longer need to have ‘touch enabled’ to have the touch feature and refocus on the RSG GTN750 GEN1 as this panel version just behaves as a standard mouse.
Nice idea as it also offers the refocus when only using the mouse.
I can’t believe I didn’t thought of this earlier for the mouse hover pop out losing flight control issue. When using Air Manager, if a pop out panel is underneath the Air Manager’s bezel, flight control is OK. The reason is because Air Manager is the “top most” window compare to the pop out. So as long as “non MSFS application window”, either Air Manager or POPM or even notepad is on top of the pop out, flight control does not get disable. But this window has to be transparent to make it see through.
So the solution is to make a transparent window that always sits on top of the pop out, and then make it goes wherever the pop out goes or resizes. I just did a quick implementation and I think it works.
Here is a video: https://vimeo.com/845406309
In the video, the transparent window with the red border will move with the pop out. Since POPM tracks the movement and sizing of the pop out ONLY when it happens, it takes very little CPU cycle and accomplishment the same thing. I don’t have to monitor all Windows OS mouse movements and find out where the mouse is at all or if it is on top of MSFS pop out or not.
There are still a few technical issues (such as when pop out closes, the transparent window needs to close too and I’m not sure will I be able to detect that) to work out and hopefully I can implement a final solution and you can configure a “display” only panel, non touch, that will not steal focus from MSFS.
Please let me know if this a feature that is useful. This bug has been with us since day 1 and hopefully Asobo will fix it once and for all in MSFS 2024!
Great: Transition to the new interface completed successfully.
I have only one small doubt:
Panel 4 does not allow the simultaneous setting of “Full Screen Mode” and “Hide Title Bar”.
Not a big deal - I hover over Panel 4 and do Alt Left + Enter and it resizes.
Ciao Gand thank you for this great tool.
Full screen mode and hide title bar are mutually exclusive since Full Screen Mode emulates Alt-Enter keystroke in the game and there is no title bar anymore. If you want the panel to fill up the entire display (tablet screen or monitor), just unselect Hide Title Bar, move the panel to your desire monitor and then enable Full Screen Mode.
I tried v4.0 with my RealSimGear GTN750 Gen 1. The pop-out worked fine and I only selected the full-screen option. Touch is not enabled, as you specify (penmount is running in mouse emulation mode). Oh, and auto game refocus is ticked. I still have to touch twice every time. Seems not to ‘register’ the first tap. The good news is game refocus works great.
Any thought as to why the need to double-tap?
This revised app is brilliant, thank you Stanley. I can finally have pop out panels for the CRJ. One question" what is the “game refocusing” do?
Thanks again.
