Norman Vine writes:
> Having a 'aircraft type' index into the aircraft database is a good idea
> but I think that it should probably be just that an index otherwise you
> end up needing multiple copies of the actual data.
>
> ie where would you put a WWII sea-plane fighter in the heirarchy ??
>
> Indices can be easily built using the XML construct
> < $TAG include=$PATH />
A type tag or multiple type tags would certainly be nice. The
aircraft selector gui could use that to put the aircraft several
appropriate places in the menu structure.
But I would also like the ability to organize the aircraft in
subdirectories, just for sanity. Once the aircraft builders and
painters really get cranking we are going to have hundreds if not
thousands of aircraft and variations of aircraft. There's no way we
want to have these in a single flat directory structure. I don't
think we want to necessarily impose a standard directory structure
either, although it makes sense to suggest one in the base package.
Perhaps the tools / code that locate aircraft should be smart enough
to scan the Aircraft directory tree. Plib provides directory scanning
functions now. The gui aircraft selection menus could be built
dynamically based on what the code discovers in the Aircraft directory
... maybe organized based on tags or directory layout or both. For
instance ... (layout is off the top of my head and for the purposes of
this example only, I'm not proposing this as the actual layout ...)
Choose Aircraft
-> Small
-> low wing
-> faster
-> slower
-> high wing
-> Big
-> commercial
-> military
-> Jet
-> Piston
----------------------
-> By Directory Layout
-> Airbus
-> Boeing
-> Sea Planes
-> Fighters
-> WWI
-> WWII
-> Korea
-> Vietnam
-> Modern
-> etc.
Regards,
Curt.
--
Curtis Olson IVLab / HumanFIRST Program FlightGear Project
Twin Cities [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Minnesota http://www.menet.umn.edu/~curt http://www.flightgear.org
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