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Flight Generator?

PostPosted: Sat Apr 21, 2012 1:24 am
by CorkyNM
Steve,
I like the program very much. I use it all the time now but I'm having a hard time with something:
I would like for the flight to NOT be generated until I'm ready. It generates the flight when I leave the "Browse Airports" screen then it regenerates each time I make a subtle change like time or change any setting on the "Flight Generator" screen. Since that screen is named "Flight generator" why not make it a flight generator? Maybe it would build the flight when I exit that screen rather than have it build after selecting the airports, it's changed, rebuilt, changed again, rebuilt again, etc.
So in other words, it would be nice if my airport choices are just stored away to an .ini file or something, then I can make changes and tweaks to my plan and parameters to my heart's content. Maybe you can make the "Flight Generator" screen come up automatically after a "Generate Flight" button is pushed. In that scenario, perhaps the "X" and "Fly" buttons would be grayed out until the "Generate Flight" button is used. So then I can add finishing touches and build the flight. Simple. Straight forward. No hair pulling. It seems I have to wait too many times to regen the flight only to find I forgot something. It is aggravating especially if there are a lot of waypoints. Or maybe you should rename that screen to "Flight Modifier/Regenerator" so I never push that button ever again. Haha.
Also, it seems as if I change the time in the "Flight Generator" screen to what I want, say 10:00 AM today, the time is not as I specified when the flight starts - instead it's dusk or something. Did I miss some setting somewhere?
Thanks for the hard work! This is a very enjoyable proggie otherwise.
CorkyNM

Re: Flight Generator?

PostPosted: Sat Apr 21, 2012 1:56 am
by Steve Waite
You can "Cancel" when it goes to regenerate the flight.
It has to generate a flight first before you get to change waypoints or runways, it could leave out a few things in the build while you change things, but then you would need to build them after.

I suggest you give it a bit more time, you should become comfortable with the way it works. I get a lot of mail from people just getting into IF, "can you make it do this and that" excitedly, but there's always more to it than may be apparent. It's very complex under the hood, and then in the UI there's always going to be a better way of doing things, but that's maybe not so good for others.

Thanks for the suggestions, I'm keeping all things in mind.
Steve

Re: Flight Generator?

PostPosted: Sat Apr 21, 2012 2:03 am
by Steve Waite
The time of a flight starting includes the fuelling/loading/checking, and then you get in the plane, and then push back when ready. The time for fuelling/loading/checking changes with plane. If you want to avoid that, make the checkbox Time Now in Flight Gen checked before building the flight.

In the profile you can set the two checkboxes keep day and keep time, then you always get flights for your current time.

Also in the profile screen you get to set the flight times you want flights generated between.
So you can cut out 10pm to 4am. If it's 11pm the next flight will start at 4am.