I can guarantee you there is absolutely no interaction going on between Sky Dolly and Little Navmap (apart from being able to exchange files, of course, such as “user points”).
Yes, both are using the Qt toolkit and are implemented in C++. And yes, both are using SQLite databases.
But each application has its very own database - in fact, a simple file (Sky Dolly calls those “logbooks”). Sky Dolly does not write into the databases from Little Navmap, and as far as I know neither is the case the other way around.
Those apps also do not communicate e.g. via sockets - so Little Navmap crashing while Sky Dolly was running must have been an unfortunate coincidence.
After a long time Sky Dolly v0.17 has been released, see all about the new features here:
To set expectations right: this is mostly a “polished release”, improving existing functionality, with little new features. And I haven’t been working on Sky Dolly all those months either - “life has happened”.
I have a little request to the community: as I am stuck on Windows 10 (respectively iMac / macOS ;)): could anyone quickly test whether the new “Windows 11” style is actually working, in the sense that it is visually distinct from the previous “Windows Vista” style and most importantly that it supports the “dark theme” settings? You need to enable “dark theme” in the Windows 11 system settings (Sky Dolly simply follows suit).
I expect the “Windows 11” style to be the default style on Windows 11 (naturally), but you can check in the Sky Dolly application settings, under “User Interface” (it will say “Default” initially, but that should be the same as explicitly selecting “Windows 11”).
Windows 10 users have to choose “Fusion” if they want dark theme support: the default “Windows Vista” style does not support dark theme, due to “win32 API limitations”. And while the “Windows 11” style is seemingly selectable it won’t work: on Windows 10 it will fall back to the “Windows Vista” style (that admitedly looks more “Windows-y” than the platform-independent “Fusion” style).
→ So if any Windows 11 user could post a screenshot of the main Sky Dolly window with “Windows 11” style, preferrably with dark mode enabled (or both, for comparison) , that would be great!
Thank you for providing your screenshots. However I do have reasons to believe that you actually have chosen the “Windows” style instead of the “Windows 11” style (note the 11 in the name ;)):
The “Windows” style is another “built-in” style (in the “cross-platform” Qt toolkit that I use for developing Sky Dolly) and I decided to keep it in the list of selectable styles - for those “Windows 95 nostalgia people among us”
But for a more modern look you definitively want to choose one of the following styles:
Windows Vista - default on Windows 10, using the “native style API” of Windows 10 (not sure whether this will actually select the “Windows 11” style on Windows 11 itself)
Does not support dark mode!
Windows 11 - default on Windows 11, using the “native style API” of Windows 11 (and hence won’t work at all on Windows 10 respectively the “Windows Vista” style is still used in this case)
Supports dark mode (Windows 11 only)
Fusion - a “cross-platform”, modern-looking style
Works on all platforms (even on my iMac ;)), just like good ol’ “Windows” style does as well
Supports dark mode (on both Windows 10 and 11)
So you probably want to choose the “Windows 11” style (which I expect to be the default one on Windows 11 anyway).
I hope that makes sense.
P.S. The above screenshot was taken on Windows 10, with the “Fusion” style selected (and dark mode enabled in the Window 10 system settings).
Thank you for providing this screenshot (and yes, that one looks to be the “Windows 11” style ;)).
I immediately spotted an issue with the “module selector” buttons on the top right: the one that is active is hardly readable.
This most likely is related to an already reported bug in the Qt toolkit (QTBUG-124286) that mentions a “hard-coded colour”, especially in case when tool buttons are not in a raised state (but in a selected state instead - as is the case here).
While the bug is closed and marked as fixed for the next minor Qt 6.8 version (not before September 2024) there is hope that the fix will be downbranched to one of the next patch releases Qt 6.7.x.
The curent workaround:
Use the “Fusion” style instead (that also supports dark mode)
Use the bright mode (theme, style) in the Windows 11 settings (but who with a twisted dark soul would want to do that anyway ;))
And thank you for sharing your great video (and of course your Location Manager addon)!
They take effect in the flight simulator (for instance Microsoft Flight Simulator) itself, so while you are flying you can start recording by pressing CTRL + R at any time during the flight. As the record button acts as a toggle pressing CTRL + R again will stop the recording. Or you press CTRL + S which will trigger the stop action, as usual.
Likewise replay can be started with CTRL + P, you can skip to the beginning and end (CTRL + PgUp and CTRL + PgDown), or incrementally seek on the timeline (CTRL + , and CTRL + .).
The default shortcuts have been chosen such that they do not collide with existing keyboard shortcuts with the default keyboard input in MSFS. But you can change them any time in the Sky Dolly application settings, in the Flight Simulator tab just as shown above. Simply click on a shortcut field and press the desired new shortcut - that’s it.
And the best thing: you do not have to reload anything!
Because Sky Dolly will now also constantly try to auto-connect with the flight simulator (*), so those keyboard shortcuts take effect as soon as the flight simulator is launched. Or whenever you change a shortcut. That easy!
Happy flying!
(*) Fun fact: Sky Dolly will try to connect with decreasing time intervals that happen to be the numbers of the Fibonacci sequence - because why not That sequence is reset to 0 each time an interaction is done that requires a valid connection.
Every then and when I get requests from the community and I give my best to fulfill them as they fit into my own “architecture & feature roadmap”. And most importantly my “time budget”.
I thought that this would already work “out of the box”. Turned out that I actually “actively” prevented any SimConnect client configuration to take effect (technically speaking: by using the connect option SIMCONNECT_OPEN_CONFIGINDEX_LOCAL, as prominently given in the sample code in the SimConnect documentation).
I am a big fan of using named constants in code instead of “magic numbers” (like e.g -1), so as this is the only constant defined by SimConnect related to this connect option I did not think much of it and simply used it. That was like three years ago, when I wrote the first few lines of Sky Dolly and was just about to learn about the SimConnect API in the first place.
The quick fix would have been to simply change this value to 0 (meaning: “take the first configuration” in the SimConnect.cfg client configuraiton - we’ll come to that).
But I went the extra mile and added flight simulator connection plugin (*) specific settings - among them the option to choose between three pre-defined network configurations:
Those settings correspond to three network configuration sections in the SimConnect.cfg that now comes with Sky Dolly, located in the Sky Dolly application folder.
Those three sections work out of the box with the default SimConnect server configuration, the SimConnect.xml that is located in the MSFS data folder, that is either:
You can choose a connection type at any time in the Sky Dolly applicaiton settings. And the best thing…
No restart required!
But before you get all too excited:
The SimConnect network functionality has been marked as legacy functionality by Asobo (but it still works perfectly)
This is Windows to Windows only (no Xbox support)
For an actual network configuration you need to edit the client SimConnect.cfg configuration with a text editor of your choice and edit the server IP address and possibly port number. You may find more information here:
(*) Sky Dolly features a plugin architecture that allows to “hot-deploy” new functionality, while saving valuable RAM for those plugins that are not in use.
Very nice update!
I’m thinking that now that we have keyboard shortcuts I can program Spad.Next to automatically start recording when, for example, the altitude is below some threshold, I just need to send the shortcut via a keyboard event that Spad supports.
I need to try this right now and then I can forget about forgetting to record the landing.
Huh… nice idea! Didn’t think of that It’s nice when people come up with creative ideas and combine multiple add-ons to achieve what they want
In fact, someone over at flightsim.to mentioned that he was able to even map those “shortcuts” (?) to actual joystick buttons (I have yet to ask how he managed that ;)).
That being said, an actual automated “black box” recorder with configurable recording conditions is still on my roadmap, too. But first I want to tackle and improve other (existing) features…
“Thanks a milion this update is God sent for us in VR, with the implementation of shortcut keys I can finally record, replay, FFW and REW all while in VR, just mapped the key to some buttons on my joy and can finally do it all right from VR. THANK YOU !!!” [AndyCYXU, flightsim.to]
It is so nice to hear that - after such a long time without any updates - Sky Dolly is still being used and folks are so generous with their thank you and constructive feedback.
I have had several email conversations with avid flight simulation and Sky Dolly enthusiasts about how to improve the usability, bank angle calculation in gliders and last but not least people letting me know about bug issues they stumbled about.
@JayDee6281 deserves an extra mention here in this context: not only did he promote Sky Dolly in his excellent JayDee YouTube channel (in German) every then and when (completely on his own terms!), but also reported several issues related to pausing/unpausing the simulator and most recently about the “native user interface styles” not being selectable (all those issues should be fixed by now :)). And most importantly he is also very active in developing countless addons for MSFS, go check them out on flightsim.to/discover/jaydee!
Then there is @LilacBadge40509 and friends: they mentioned Sky Dolly on their product page for their FlightLog Analyzer (go check it out!). I assume they are talking about one of the CSV (comma-separated values) formats that Sky Dolly is able to import as flight path. Thank you! In fact, not only is Sky Dolly open source, but I also try to “open it up” with as many other addons as possible, via well-documented import/export formats (and documenting my own “logbook” format as much as possible).
There is also Alex (@thealx2901 perhaps?), developer and founder of the TouchingCloud team who contacted me November last year (2023) for a possible collaboration for their excellent AirshowAssistant (check it out!) that provides real “AI co-pilot formation flying”! I had to decline at the time, for time and other reasons - but kindly pointing to my own source code for inspiration, and telling Alex about the known issue with the “AI aircraft jitter” that exists with SimConnect since the FSX days apparently… when done “naively” by repeatedly sending GPS position data (only) - somehow the AirshowAssistant solved this problem :).
The funny thing is: I heard about the AirshowAssistant a couple of weeks later (in several YouTube videos), bought it on the market place (“how did they do it?” - not knowing that this was the actual product that Alex asked me for collaboration ;))… and just stumbled over his original private message on flightsim.to a couple of days ago - and only then it became clear that this was the very product he was talking about!
I have yet to reply to him to his latest private message - and ask him how they solved the “jitter” problem, maybe he reveals some little hints
To be clear: those are just some very specific examples that shall represent all the countless nice comments, feedback and other email exchange I have had over the last couple of months!
So thank you all so much for your support, community!
And last but not least it warms my heart when I see in what creative ways people are actually using Sky Dolly. Again, this is just one of many examples I have seen - but the most recent and very impressive one (*):
Shared with kind permission from the author @Medevac71.
This is a promotion video for the free ETHB - Bückeburg Helicopter Airfield, making heavy use of the Formation module of Sky Dolly that allows you to “incrementally fly and add more and more aircraft to the current formation flight”.
Having done such a formation video myself I know how much time and effort goes into such a video production. Not to mention the work and sweat that was put into this free addon - so please also check this out!
(*) Yes, those are helicopters “in formation flight”, but before you ask: no, they most likely do not implement the new helicopter model that was introduced a couple of simulation updates ago (SU 11 perhaps?). Because there is a long-standing known issue that such helicopters cannot be spawned as “AI aircraft”. Perhaps we will see “helicopter traffic” or at least “spawnable helicotper AI aircraft” in MSFS 2024, who knows…
In a previous post the new keyboard shortcuts for the flight simulator were introduced.
But how do you for example know whether the flight recording has actually started when pressing CTRL + R (respectively the shortcut that can be defined in the Sky Dolly applicatin settings, under Flight Simulator)?
Get Notified
Therefore Sky Dolly v0.17 also introduced desktop notifications for when starting and stopping recording:
The just released Sky Dolly v0.17.2 brings a new feature: while you keep the seek backward and seek forward shortcuts pressed (in MSFS) the action is now repeated, making seeking back and forth a much more delightful user experience.
What’s Love Got to Do with It
Sky Dolly just received its 500th “Like” - whooo! Thank you so much all!
Trust me, they are: as a matter of fact Asobo acknowledged this in a developer forum issue:
„At the moment, helicopter traffic is not supported by the game.“
And by implication aircraft that implement the new „helicopter model“ that was introduced with SU 11 cannot be spawned as „AI aircraft“ (not even as „Non-ATC AI aircraft). A SimConnect exception is thrown in MSFS each time such an attempt is made (which is not fatal, but indicates that „it simply does not work / not implemented).
I know that. As a matter of fact I posted such a video myself, in one of the more recent posts of mine (shared with kind permission of the original author) ;))
What you see are helicopters that do not implement the new „helicopter model“ (SU 11), but rather they tweak the existing aircraft model to „behave like a helicopter as much as model“.
Those „almost helicopter“ aircraft can be spawned, just like every other aircraft. But not just the new „helicopter models“, as introduced with SU 11.
Again, this is a limitation of MSFS that may eventually be implemented (in MSFS 2024 perhaps) and any addon is affected by this (also refer to the developer issue).
Sky Dolly being in an early development stage (as indicated by its version number < 1.0) does not come yet with a proper installer. As such there is no way to properly „uninstall“ Sky Dolly either. For now simply delete the Sky Dolly application folder, or unzip the new version in a separate folder (you can run various versions in parallel. However you can only open a given logbook with one instance at a time. Also, once a logbook has been opened with a newer Sky Dolly version it cannot be opened anymore with an older version, as it gets automagically converted to the new „database schema“ upon opening it the first time).
In short: just unzip to a new folder and delete the old folder (*). Make sure that you do not accidentally delete the folder that contains your actual logbook: that‘s why since Sky Dolly v0.17 the default folder containing the default logbook (in your „Documents“ folder) is now called „Sky Dolly Logbook“, to avoid this possible confusion (and yes, this has apparently happened to at least one Sky Dolly user, that the wrong folder got deleted - and no backup either. Bummer.)
(*) Theoretically you can unzip into the same folder and overwrite the existing DLLs and *.exe: But it is always possible that I will still rename some DLLs / plugins etc. in upcoming versions - so better delete the old content for now first.
The just released Sky Dolly v0.17.5 provides an important fix for a regression introduced by Sky Dolly v0.17.1: Sky Dolly would attempt to create a network connection (using IPv4) instead of a local shared memory-based connection (via a pipe).
This would work in most cases (albeit not with optimal performance: memory-to-memory interprocess communication is more lightweight than the (local) TCP/IP stack), and hence this regression went unnoticed for quite some time (that is, it worked flawlessly on my Windows 10 setup).
But once I got detailed bug reports from community members such as Oliver J. (thank you so much!) the culprit was quickly found and fixed!
Technical details may also be found in the issue 159 that I have created based on the feedback. In the spirit of full disclosure
Meanwhile other community members share how they do flight analysis, by extracting the data from the Sky Dolly logbook (which is an SQLite database really) and processing it further.
For instance DocDressler wrote:
"I am extracting the data using Python. The plot is then done with GNUplot.
This picture shows a flown pattern with a Diamond DV 20:
So after a long intercontinental flight you have started to grab the landing procedures checklist, the flight attendant just brought you some last coffee into the cockpit, you casually have a quick look at your wristwatch which indicates 23:59:59 local time…
… and bang! there goes your flight recording, sharp at midnight for no apparent reason, making your entire replay go nosediving like a flying brick with clipped wings, completely out of control!
Don’t worry, Sky Dolly has you covered: with proper time zone support and timestamps that allow you to record your flights for up to 263 milliseconds (= signed 64 bit number) you can record up to 292,471,209 years… a long time anyway!
24 Hours
But while your flight would reliably be recorded there were other practical limits in Sky Dolly that limited the actual flight duration to a day (which, again, could always start the day before: there is no “midnight break” in Sky Dolly). The most obvious limitation was the time counter that would show the timestamp in hh:mm:ss format, limiting in effect the longest seekable timestamp to 24 hours.
Likewise durations in the logbook were also limited to 24 hours.
What About Those 292,471,209 Years Again?
Well, no more: the just released Sky Dolly “Illustrious Ikarus” v0.18 greatly increases all those limits:
In essence:
The timestamp widget will now automatically show the date as well once the recording duration exceeds 24 hours (try it ;))
Durations will now switch to days, weeks, months and years accordingly (and of course can be still sorted in ascending or descending order in the logbook)
As the maximum year of the timestamp widget is 9,999 this is still somewhat limited, but the remaining ~7,000 years should still give you plenty of recording time.
And as another benefit the simulation time is now finally synchronised with the replay, allowing you to seek back and forth and always have the exact same day of time conditions as during the replay. This is super useful for video content creators who need to replay the same scene multiple times, with different camera angles for video-editing later on. Of course the time synchronisation can be turned off in the Sky Dolly application settings, so you can still manually set the desired date and time during replay, as before.
One Year Timelapse
As a little exercise the following SQL script will generate a “timelapse” recording with a duration of one year - because why not:
-- Add a flight with an end date "today + 1 year"
insert into flight (title, user_aircraft_seq_nr, end_local_sim_time, end_zulu_sim_time)
values ('One Year in New York', 1, datetime('now', 'localtime', '+1 year'), datetime('now', '+1 year'));
-- Add an example aircraft (Asobo XCub)
insert into aircraft (flight_id, seq_nr, type)
values ((select max(id) from flight), 1, 'Asobo XCub');
-- Pan from 40.728603, -73.995477 at 1243.55 feet altitude...
insert into position (aircraft_id, timestamp, latitude, longitude, altitude)
values ((select max(id) from aircraft), 0, 40.728603, -73.995477, 1243.55);
-- Attitude: heading 10
insert into attitude (aircraft_id, timestamp, pitch, bank, true_heading, on_ground)
values ((select max(id) from aircraft), 0, 0, 0, 10, 0);
-- ... to 40.746672, -73.986111, within 365 * 24 * 60 * 60 * 1000 [ms] = 1 year
insert into position (aircraft_id, timestamp, latitude, longitude, altitude)
values ((select max(id) from aircraft), 365 * 24 * 60 * 60 * 1000, 40.746672, -73.986111, 1243.55);
-- Attitude: heading 21.5
insert into attitude (aircraft_id, timestamp, pitch, bank, true_heading, on_ground)
values ((select max(id) from aircraft), 365 * 24 * 60 * 60 * 1000, 0, 0, 21.5, 0);
commit;
Note that the database schema related to position and attitude has changed in Sky Dolly v0.18: the position is now sampled only with 1 Hz (acting as a low pass filter, smoothening out any “jitter” during recording), while the aircraft attitude is still sampled each simulated frame, for maximum accuracy. The above SQL script takes this into account already, inserting the position and attitude into the corresponding tables.
See this previous post of how to programmatically insert those flight recordings into your logbook (use a new logbook if you are learning SQL, or at least create a backup first).
Et voilà, we have a flight taking place for one year over New York, slowly moving towards the Empire State Building. Conveniently the maximum custom replay speed factor has also been increased to 99,999. This allows you to replay this one year recording in about 6 minutes only (“timelapse”). Together with the synchronised simulation time this can generate quite some interesting day/night effects.
Note that the actual simulation rate is also increased, to the nearest “power of two” factor according to the replay speed factor: by default it is limited to a factor of 8, but you can increase the maximum simulation rate factor up to 128. But at least on my computer this brings MSFS to a grinding halt. But if you have extra computing power you can try it
Happy timelapsing! And now relax and enjoy the view at midnight out of your cockpit
That sequence is reset to 0 each time an interaction is done that requires a valid connection.
