New Winwing MCDU: paths to provide to make the BRT/DIM button work

User Support Hub Hardware & Peripherals
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1

Guys, this is for msfs-2020.

I reiceved my Winwing MCDU and it isn’t entirely plug’n’play.

More specifically, I realised that the BRT/DIM button, which is supposed to adjust the brightness of the backlighting of the MCDU, wasn’t doing anything on my device (it does adjust the brightness of the MCDU in the sim, as in which I can see on my monitor, but not on the physical device itself).

I contacted Winwing who told me that I need to provide the below 4 fields in the Settings menu of their SimAppPro app:

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So, I have filled these 4 fields with what I “think” they should be, see below in the same order, but unfortunately this isn’t working.

C:\Users\Jean\AppData\Local\Packages\Microsoft.FlightSimulator_8wekyb3d8bbwe\SystemAppData\wgs

C:\XboxGames\Microsoft Flight Simulator\Content

C:\Users\Jean\AppData\Local\Packages\Microsoft.FlightSimulator_8wekyb3d8bbwe\LocalCache\Packages\Official\OneStore

C:\Users\Jean\AppData\Local\Packages\Microsoft.FlightSimulator_8wekyb3d8bbwe\LocalCache\Packages\Community

One thing that may be important - I am not sure - is that I am flying the A320 Fenix.

Any idea if one of they “look” wrong ? I have MSFS2020 from the MSStore.

3

Please navigate to the folder:

C:\Users\Jean\AppData\Local\Packages\Microsoft.FlightSimulator_8wekyb3d8bbwe\LocalCache

Open the UserCfg.opt file in Notepad.

Scroll down to the bottom of the file and find the last line starting with InstalledPackagesPath. Copy that line and paste it here in your reply.

4

Ok for whoever is going to face this issue (which I believe is going to be everyone), I give you the answer, which Winwing support couldn’t give me and which took me a few hours to find by myself:
in the below menu, you need to click the “Synchronise with the game”, and leave it there. If you do that, the BRT/DIM button will change the brightness of the backlighting on the MCDU.

See below screenshot.

It seems that the people responding in the chatroom of Winwing support are very fast and very polite, but are more rep people who deak wtih orders, shipping etc and do not have a deep understanding of the technical details of the product.

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3 Likes
5

Thanks for the information.
It will definitely be useful, as I’ve ordered the PFP 3N panel, which is a different one but I think the brightness adjustment will work in the same way.

6

Received mine a couple of hours ago. It was a good job you posted the solution to the light setting I don’t think I would ever have found that one so thank you very much.
Yes it works like a treat can’t wait to do a full flight with it tomorrow.
The only criticism that I have is the one already raised about the naff font. I’ve no doubt someone will sort that out for us in due course. The one they’ve used is bold and I can’t understand why they have done that. It does look weird.
But hey ho I’ve got to have a gripe about something.

7

@ Sellie6131
In the SimAppPro App is a Menu “Font Management” (Game Peripheral Display → Device → Font Management) … doesnt look difficult … and the fonts are available … e.g. the Fenix has a MCDU on the Webbrowser, Webbrowser have developer tools… or the honeywell_MCDU Font is used in the FBW MCDU which is a github project … … … And the SimAppPro is actually pretty nice when its come to fonts and adjust them …

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1 Like
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I’ve just been in there looking around and only had the current font and no other options.
How did you manage to import the Fenix MCDU font into there to make it a selectable option.
Sorry but I’m missing something here.

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The hint is already there … There are several options to get fonts you need, either google and download them, or when they are on a website, like the Fenix MCDU, you can get the used fonts on websites by the use of the browsers developer tools (F12) → “Application”-> at the bottom “Frames” → “Fonts”, double-click will download the font you want…

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you can also use github to look up for font donwloads, you can search there for the offical name of the mcdu font “Honeywell MCDU” … you need a UPPERcase Font, and a lowerCase Font…

For all fonts: You need to install them to import them in the simAppPro App

2 Likes
10

Thanks very much for the explanation. I’ll give it a go tomorrow.
Just terrified I’ll break something as I’ve only had it a few hours.

11

@DaveDeMo6132 Thank you for the explanation.

Is this something you have done yourself ?

Because here’s the issue I am facing: SimAppPro expects a font file with the WWFZ extension. It won’t let me select any other file extension. Problem is this doesn’t seem to be a standard font file extention like the ttf you mention in your post or the otf I found on the web. In fact, I tried to google what this WWFZ extension file is, and found a grand total of nothing.

How do you go about this ?

(it is of course possible to select another font in the dropdown list in SimAppPro but this is not what we want, what we want is an airbus custom made font, which isn’t a standard Windows font).

12

I think I have more questions:

  1. my MCDU doesn’t have the McDoo upper and lower case you have in your list.

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  1. I went to github and did a search on Honeywell MCDU but this returned nothing. Do you have a direct link please ?

Thanks !

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Wait, are these 2 files which I circle in red color, for upper and lower case respectively ? But problem is it’s not WWFZ format…

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Concerning Airbus fonts I found this site: https://b612-font.com/

1 Like
15

I found it, I started the A320 in MSFS and open http://localhost:8083/, pressed around a bit in the MCDU and the font was there as he described.

What you do is you open the font files and press install (so they are installed in Windows) then you will find it listed as windows font i the SimAppPro.

This was genius tip by DaveDeMo6132, thank you - I been looking for days trying to find a good font but the Airbus font is not public. The fenix font version is probably the most accurate out there.

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The WWFZ is the format when exporting the new set (or import)… its a “simapp pro” fileformat; you need to hit the “add font” button (therefore its needed to install them before as this imports only installed fonts) … you need truetype (ttf) format… im not sure what the sfd version of fonts is …

in the fenix webbrowser mcdu try with right click on the screen of the mcdu and chose developer tools an the bottom of the context menu

just for explanation… im not sure how all this works when its come to copyright… thats why i just pointed in the direction instead of sharing my created fontset.

17

I’m sorry but I don’t understand the first step: as you can see in the below screenshot, you can see I do not have the 2 McDoo tff files that DaveDeMo refers to.

How do I make them appear ?

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EDIT:

Yes this part is fine, I am already in the developer tool by pressing F12. Then I get to the list of fonts, which doesn’t include the 2 McDoo fonts, like in my above screenshot. That’s my problem. The rest of the process after that I should be fine.

19

Thank you. I managed to install this font. It doesn’t work very well, some pixels are missing here and there. Is it the same for you ?

20

I have not yet received the winwing mcdu to test this font

On the internet, you can find several similar fonts (example: inter)

To test?

21

Ok I’ve got the two Fenix font files. And I’m able to import one or the other to create a winwing .wwfz font file.
How do I get them both into a single .wwfz that is how do I combine them?
Thanks

22

Its also possible to use FlybyWire fonts (.sfd files listed over here) and convert them using a free program called FontForge(Google it). You open the .sfd files there and press “generate fonts” to Truescript (.ttf file). Once generated you open the file in windows, install it and find it in SimProApp as System font.

The Fenix is prop. best though. I dont have my MCDU yet but I see it has some red characters. You can however edit the single ones in the SimAppPro and select a different font for those.