It’s almost comical that touch support isn’t a thing in the sim considering how many instruments can actually use it. It’s 2022. Touch screens are pretty ubiquitous. Even IN the sim itself with all the GTN 750, G3X and G3000/5000 equipped aircraft.
These 4 things need to happen to make popouts what they should be:
A fix for the performance loss when using popouts. That one is still a thing. For those able to use DX12, it’s mostly fixed. But it’s still a huge issue on DX11 for those of us unable to use DX12 due to VRAM overuse on GPUs with 8G or less.
Fix the bug where external hardware such as yokes, pedals, throttles, etc are locked out when the mouse cursor is within a popout. This is another bug that I can’t believe is still in the sim since launch. That makes using popouts, including the in-sim panels like ATC, VFR map, etc with a mouse impossible as it locks you out from being able to fly your plane while your mouse is in that window. How is this still a thing after more than 2 years of being reported?
Native touch screen support for popped out windows. Like I said, it’s almost comical this doesn’t work considering all the touch screen planes in the sim.
The ability to remember window popout layouts on a per plane basis. I’ll call this one a “nice to have”. Not optional, but probably the lowest priority for me. I don’t mind using Popout Manager for that in the meantime.
Popout Manager is excellent substitute in the meantime. It fills the giant gap in the core sim and even works around one of the UI bugs. The per-plane window placement works amazingly well once you have it set up. And the addition of touch support is amazing.
The only down side is input lag. It has to go though a touch to mouse click translation layer to take input, then it runs a macro to move your cursor out of that window to prevent the bug at #2 from happening. This adds touch lag to the input. Not a show stopper, but native touch support would be so much better rather than Stanley having to work around UI issues in the sim to get popouts to work they way they should.
I’m grateful he has. But he shouldn’t have had to. This should be native to the sim.
I only tested with 1 plane then got sidetracked helping someone out with some hardware issues, so didn’t test more than 1 plane. But I can’t see how they could do this and not have it on a per plane basis.
The issue is this isn’t really a bug. The new externalization feature actually works great. And I doubt that breaking functionality of a 3rd party tool fits into the beta bug category. From the Microsobo perspective, that’s up to 3rd parties to make their tools work with new sim changes.
From my post above, there are 3 big problems with the pre-SU 12 popout feature, and 1 minor. And without fixing all of them at once, the overall experience is degraded because we already have a 3rd party tool to do this.
We had Popout Window Manager that fixed 3 of the 4 issues. It didn’t fix the performance issue, but it added missing touch support (not a bug, that’s just not a feature at all in the sim) and fixed the serious UI bug that’s been reported since the sim launched and still not fixed.
The 4th item on the list is what I considered optional - remembering the placement and size of popouts. This is what Asobo implemented only. The didn’t fix the other issues. And by doing this, it broke the tool that fixed those bugs and filled the functionality gaps. Whether RoastedGnu will be able to make POPM work with this new system is unknown.
Asobo implemented the optional “easy” feature without addressing the core bugs underlying the entire system. They’ve actually made the overall experience better for people who just want windows on another monitor, but have made it far worse - and even unusuable - for those with touch screen cockpits.
Thanks for the info. I have so many things to do right now that I didn’t read carefully enough.
Regarding the default functionality, it’s successfully saving a position for you now? My G1000 is currently in a box. I popped it out last night and left it on my same monitor. Didn’t save.
I only tried 1 plane so far (the HJet). Loaded it up 4 times, and when I popped out the windows, it automatically placed them where I had them last time. After placing them the first time, of course. So from my very limited testing of this, it worked as intended.
Unfortunately I got side tracked at that point helping another friend on Discord with some hardware issues and didn’t have time to test more thoroughly with other planes.
So yeah, this isn’t a bug with the sim. As far as I can tell without more testing, this new feature is working properly. Once I can test it out in multiple planes, I can write up a Release Note Testing report confirming the feature works.
The unfortunate part is that this new feature breaks the 3rd party tool we previously used for popouts management. And that tool added the much-needed external touch screen support and fixed the bug where having a mouse cursor over externalized windows locks out hardware controls. So now, those of us flying planes that use touch screens like the GTC or GTN are basically dead in the water due to this new feature.
And there’s really no way I can report this as a “bug” with SU12, or even as a regression. This is essentially a 3rd party issue as far as the MSFS team would be concerned. I could certainly write something up, but seeing how pretty much every one of the legit, reproducible bug reports I made on previous betas died without ever being acknowledged by the team, I really don’t think it would do any good.
On a side note, it was just confirmed in the devsupport forum by FlyingRacoon to not expect any touch support in the sim anytime in the foreseeable future. So this is a major functionality regression and huge kick in the nay-nays to many of us who have home cockpits based on touch screens.
Popout Window Manager is an amazing tool. The author not only fixed the UI bug I described, but managed to add the touch input support that the sim lacks at its core.
With the way externalization is now handled, it’s unclear if he’ll be able to make the tool work at all with this new system. And if he can’t, that’s essentially a disaster for many MSFS users.
And the confirmation by Sylvain that touch screen support is basically now a ‘bottom of the list’ feature request is very disheartening.
EDIT: Added a screen shot of the dev comment on touch screen support.
Sim Update 12 beta. Number 17. Glass cockpit externalization has been reworked.
I tried this with PFD and MFD on separate G1000 screens. After starting a new flight, i had to pop out the windows manually again ! The Position was restored, more or less in windowed mode, but without restoring to full screen ! This is only 30% of the functionality the a home cockpit user with hardware screens needs. Please pop out automatically and restore to full screen.
Sim Update 12 beta.
Responding to :
17. Glass cockpit externalization has been reworked. There’s no intermediate window anymore; each glass cockpit opens a distinct window with the glass cockpit name. Window position and size is saved when ending a flight.
Create a new topic, and give it the title: “17. Glass cockpit externalization has been reworked”
Do not delete the template. Answer the prompts in the template. Explain what works and what doesn’t work. (In my opinion, I think that this is a “Partial” because there is no intermediate window anymore, which is correct, but panels don’t remember their positions. But, answer it how you think is best.)
You speak for yourself not everyone else. I absolutely do not want the popout to go full screen when popped out. The idea here is that we set once to what we want and it then remembers what we set for each aircraft. If you want full screen you drag it so it’s full screen and it should come back like that next time. If I want it smaller than fullscreen then I size and position it where I want and it also remembers what I set the first time on subsequent loads.
As a user, if I use a spare monitor as Monitor 1, I want to be able to load specific aircraft into Microsoft Flight Simulator (MSFS) and pop out their windows onto that monitor.
Current Scenario:
The new Window UI Mode is enabled.
I load up the default A320 Neo aircraft.
I load in the airport EGAA.
I pop out both MFDs (Multi-Function Displays) to Monitor 1 and snap them into position. They stay there for the remainder of the flight.
However, if I switch to another activity, like flying the F-18, and then return to the A320 Neo and load a different airport, such as London Heathrow, the pop-outs do not automatically return to Monitor 1. I have to manually pop them out again.
A320 Is just an example have yet to try in other aircraft.
Many are using it quite easily. Sure it would be better if the functionality this brings was built into the sim but it was produced simply because that functionality is missing from the sim. You can either use it and have the functionality or suffer without it. Your choice.
