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.
I am able to confirm that a pop-out window does have its position saved if the flight is ended while it is open. However, I am unable to determine where in the filesystem this information is actually saved. Has anyone identified what configuration file is written to with the window coordinates and size?
I am working on a prototype that moves this window, and the final position is getting saved with size and coordinates I do not like. I was hopeful I could write some logic to read the initial settings and then clean them up later. Currently I have to manually correct the pop-out with the mouse and then exit the flight with the pop-out remaining open for the size and position to get saved reasonably again. Alternatively, I would settle for just deleting the saved size and position if that forces the simulator back to using defaults.
I appreciate the effort you’ve made to inform me. However, I am already aware of this tool, and I have reviewed it’s functionality. My prototype has a different overall purpose.
Did you check out [quote=“skypilotYTS, post:4, topic:627059”]
The locations are saved in your cloud save profile which can be manually cleared.
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Yes, I did see that. But I can’t verify it – I have no information on how to read or write the data. How do I access the cloud profile? If I can, what index or key would identify the pop-out panel positions?
I can confirm that starting the simulator with the -DeleteCloudSaves option does indeed reset the popup position. As warned in the link, it also deletes all of the other cloud data. (I did lose my settings, completions for landing challenges/trainings/bush trips, and my logbook.)
I will mark this question as answered; my experimental results confirm the data is in the cloud profile. I’ll start a new topic about how to read and write the cloud profile, but I’m not going to hold my breath. I’m guessing that the data is not exposed to 3rd-party developers.
FWIW, I don’t agree with the development decision to put this data in the cloud. The positions of the pop-out windows are a device-specific configuration. By saving it in the cloud, the simulator is forcing those positions on users who may be signed in on a machine where the locations aren’t logical. For example, a user may have both a gaming desktop and a laptop. It also makes monitor reconfiguration problematic.
I don’t have extra screens and hardware – I’m making something that solves a problem differently than what POPM was made for. Are you the creator of that application or something? Is it so difficult to believe that a small business software developer could need this information for a novel idea?
Not affiliated with it whatsoever, it just works, versus having screens go missing when screen layouts or monitors are moved / changed (for others who may be wondering).
And possibly it made provide you with the information you are looking for in another manner versus trying to get it out of the cloud save.
At any rate, I’ve provided you the answer / solution.
Just to say that I strongly second you about those questions:
It makes no sense for device-specific data like popup locations to be stored at user-level (I personally use two computers, one for dev and the other for the actual home cockpit, and I don’t want popouts to appear in the same place on each of them).
Although MS Popout Manager is a really great contribution to the community, I think the approach should be seen as a workaround, as it emulates clicks and other UX actions to automate the desired workflow. It does it quite well, but still the approach is quite clumsy. The SDK should provide clean API for this… And by the way the sim itself could just add a few features that would do the job for most of us. Just remembering the popout status and allowing for full-screen stretching on a given display should be ok most of the time…
From my experience the popout panels positions are not stored in any Microsoft cloud location. I have just bought a new pc, the popouts work fine on that and I can place them where ever I want, but on the older system I cannot find them. Before closing the flight I always set them small and in the middle of the screen. If they were held in a cloud based file, when you started msfs as I have done on my previous system, then the popouts would popout where you had left them, this does not happen. I am having to use popout manager to use popouts on my older system