Ideal Flight Accessibility phase 3

[Steve Waite]

Popular ATC addon Pilot2ATC won't work properly unless you taxi to the runway. I tried warping with IF yesterday and it told me to "backtrack and then line up and wait."

What I've been intending to do is provide a warp to the hold short areas as well.

However, I wonder in the meantime, if you can fool that program by pushing back first, then calling you are lined up before warping to the runway when told to move onto it.

[ke7zum]

I just caught up on posts. I still don't get the thing with the mouse and sound. How can we actually change the position so tha the whole soun dtake up the stereo field.

also my theory about control shift f and virtual desktops didn't work. I tried with eveyrthign on desktop one and ideal flight still didn't gain focus, but I heard the voice say "ideal flight" or what ever it says.

[Steve Waite]

Regarding interface sounds:
I don't understand your question about sound. When using a mouse to click on the icons of the main screen, the position of the mouse within the desktop determines the balance of the beeps. So if you put Ideal Flight over to the left of the desktop and click on the leftmost icon, the sound is loudest in the left speaker.


Regarding focus:
With Ideal Flight connected to the simulator, after pressing CONTROL+SHIFT+F in the simulator, this makes Ideal Flight the focused window. With a screen reader present (Narrator or NVDA and possibly others) you will hear Ideal Flight say "Header" followed by the flight information. If you press ESCAPE key followed by DOWN ARROWs you will hear the reader call out the menu items.

It is possible that some programs might grab focus back from Ideal Flight. It might also be possible that another program is intercepting the key within the simulator and preventing Ideal Flight receiving the command. In those cases it is not something Ideal Flight can do to fight with another program.

[Steve Waite]

Just to clarify with sounds in-flight, which I explained in an earlier post, are separate to the user interface sounds. Sounds in-flight include the guitar plucks, the flute tones, and the drum beats.

Tones denote vertical speed and bank angle. Plucks denote climb, descent and heading.
Centre soundstage high note is up, low note is down and mid notes are heard in either stereo speaker.
Increased volume tones denotes vertical speeds and bank angle increased.
Increased volume plucks denotes increasing climb and descent rates and heading angle.
Heading off route toward the left will pluck in the left channel.

The higher pitch drum sound is for Localizer captured and the lower pitch is for Glideslope captured.

[Steve Waite]

I mentioned earlier that the runway holding direction in the current preview is not very precise and won't like being moved to a runway other than that in the plan. In the next preview I have improved the direction holding and incorporated Aileron control to assist the Rudder and helps to keep the aircraft direction stable. This now works when another runway is selected in the Assist window.

At the moment I am incorporating Elevator trim to steady the climb. This is a new checkbox item to select in the Assist checklist. I have also enabled Elevator angle callout selected in the Voice sets.

[Steve Waite]

The climb assist is enabled in the Assist checkbox window. This uses the autopilot to keep to the climb rates as set in the I F aircraft parameters page, and remain level. This is engaged around 80% of landing speed. It is up to the pilot to arrange flaps and throttle. The climb assist is disconnected if the climb-to altitude is altered on the AP or when the climb is completed.

The rudder assist is enabled in the Assist checkbox window and is engaged by using the auto-throttle climb speed. This works by looking for the end of the runway so we need to be headed in the runway direction before starting. This also uses the ailerons to remain level in a side wind and produce pressure on the wheels to remain straight ahead. This is disconnected when the aircraft is in the air or when the throttle is manually altered.

The wait for the next preview will not be too long now but has been delayed slightly by other work assignments. Taxi assist is still in experimental stage so won't be available in the next preview build.

[ke7zum]

Actually, none of us, at least none of us totals can actually use a mouse. So, it is keyboard access only. I think this is why I'm having trouble understanding actually what is meant by clicking the left icon. We can't see it.

and control shift f does say opening blah blah blah, but it never throws focus. Hitting escape and down arrow will actually exit my sim and bring me to the pause menu.

I have a 5 star Texas sized headache so I hope what I wrote makes some semblance of sense.

[Steve Waite]

Actually, none of us, at least none of us totals can actually use a mouse. So, it is keyboard access only. I think this is why I'm having trouble understanding actually what is meant by clicking the left icon. We can't see it.

and control shift f does say opening blah blah blah, but it never throws focus. Hitting escape and down arrow will actually exit my sim and bring me to the pause menu.

I have a 5 star Texas sized headache so I hope what I wrote makes some semblance of sense.

Yes, I understand that you are not using the mouse, the UI sounds are for feedback to mouse users.

Since you hear the screen reader that means the the I F window comes to the top. On most systems when the window takes focus it stays on top. However it sounds as if one program on your system grabs focus back so that is closing the sim. I can't think what that might be but it is probably an addon that closes the sim. What I would like you to check is take focus of I F from the task bar and see if it stays in focus.

[Steve Waite]

...or the other way to focus I F is to use ALT+TAB.

[Steve Waite]

Actually, none of us, at least none of us totals can actually use a mouse.

...Remember that you said in the first place that the sounds were from I F? But as we discussed these User Interface sounds are for mouse clicks. So another thing to check is that it may be some other program making the beeps.

You can go to the folder:

"C:\Program Files (x86)\Ideal Flight Professional\Sounds"

there you will find the sound .wav files:

buttonactivate.wav
buttonactive.wav
buttoninactive.wav

Those are the User Interface sounds activated by mouse clicks in I F.