On 25 Jun 2004, at 20:41, Ampere K. Hardraade wrote:
Sorry, I should have quote this instead:
Christian Brunschen worte:Consider an aircraft with *lots* of different things that can be
changed; including things like autopilot, radios, and so on. Rather
than having to have all possible things accessible from the keyboard -
likely leading to overloading of keys through modifiers, i.e., having
to use 'x' and 'shift-x' to mean different things - one could cycle
through having the keyboard 'focus' on different parts of the
instrument panel. One second the entire keyboard could be 'dedicated'
to setting up the autopilot just right, thus allowing lots of freedom
in the choice of which keys do what; by a simple keypress the keyboard
configuration could be changed to look at only the radios, with the
same keys that would change the heading on the autopilot configuration,
now used to change the frequency of the main communication radio, for
instance.
If a panel is dedicated to a specific key bindings when it is selected, then
we need to unselect it and tell FlightGear to use the original keybindings
after a certain time. You don't want the user to forgot about cancelling the
selection until it is too late.
I think you misunderstand the scenario I'm sketching at.
You seem to be suggesting a scenario with one 'main' configuration, and the ability to focus briefly by selecting a certain part of the panel, with the default panel resuming operation after the user 'deselects' the panel - with a certain time of inactivity triggering automatic deselection, to handle the case where the user forgets to deselect it.
That is not what I had in mind. I was thinking of a scenario where the user would use one or two keys on the keyboard to switch between different keyboard configurations, and that this change would be persistent until the user actively changes the configuration back themselves. I was not thinking of the user mousing around in the cockpit to select a certain part of the panel per se; just to give the user the ability to switch between different keyboard / mouse / joystick configurations. 'focusing on one part of the panel' was just a perhaps somewhat contrived example of a scenario where swapping out a large part of the keyboard controls would make sense.
Your idea of being able to select a part of the panel, which would bring a panel-specific keyboard configuration into place while that part of the panel is selected (and automatically deselecting it if necessary), is really an orthogonal idea - but a very interesting one in itself. A GPS might be able to offer actual typing input to the user, which might be very useful indeed.
But to reiterate, I wasn't suggesting quite what you thought I was. Really, I think my suggestion is *mainly* useful for switching between different *joystick* configurations - such as for the motorglider example I suggested (switching the purpose of the throttle lever between controlling the engine and controlling the airbrakes). I just think that on principle, the same facility should be made available for the keyboard as well.
I happen to not really like having to use modifier keys to access different functions from the keyboard, especially if I'm keeping my hand on the joystick to control the plane. Also mousing around the cockpit to select a part of the panel to focus on doesn't really appeal to me as it, too, would possibly disturb my control of the plane. But using the keyboard with one hand, using keys to switch between different keyboard configurations to allow me quicker access to the specific functions I've set configured, would make it not just possible but actually *easy* to control even the complex functionality available in some planes.
Regards,
Best wishes,
Ampere
// Christian Brunschen
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