Jabo

You might need to elaborate on that statement Michael!

Bump - first post updated

Very nice Arthur - very nice indeed.

In order to setup an android tablet (for the purposes of this guide, a Samsung Galaxy Tab 3) as a button bay, there’s a few things you’re going to need. Firstly (and most importantly) you’ll need a tablet computer (connected to your home wifi network) and a second monitor on your rig. This might not be the deal-breaker it appears at first sight since most modern graphics cards have two outputs and you could pick up a second monitor pretty cheaply on the second-hand market. The reason you need a second monitor is because you have to display the Touchbuddy panel in order to be able to share it with the tablet. If you have both of these – read on. Now you’re going to need some software. Because I’m essentially a nice person I’ve already uploaded the necessary ones to the Vault. Look in the Utilities section for ‘Touchbuddy Files’. Download and unzip it to a folder and then unzip the files inside (except tightVNC) to their own sub- folders. Install touchbuddy, the touchbuddy toolkit and tightVNC onto your computer and install your VNC app on your tablet Launch tightVNC and access the server configuration screen by clicking the VNC Server icon in the system tray (down by the clock in the bottom right-hand corner (normally)). Now set the ‘Server’ and ‘Administration’ screens as per the screenshots below. Remember to set the Primary, View-only and Control Interface passwords – They should all be different but it’s up to you. Now set up VNC on your tablet. I’m using the Android-VNC-Viewer app so it might look a bit different if you’re using a different app. Here are the fields to fill in; (i) A nickname (ii) the password (same as the Control Interface one) (iii) the IP address of your rig (hover over the TightVNC Service icon on your computer if you need to find it) (iv) the port (5900 is the standard one for VNC – I think) (v) and a username (this needs to be the administrator account name for the computer) – I’ve blanked this out on the screenshot but it will display the account name in plain text. (vi) Set the ‘Color Format’ to 24-bit color (4 bpp) (vii) And ‘Force full-screen bitmap to ‘Auto’ If you now click ’Connect’ you should see the computer screen on your tablet. You might need to drag the screen across to see the second monitor. In order to control the mouse pointer on the computer, click the Menu button on the tablet, select ‘Input Mode’ and switch to ‘Mouse Pointer Control Mode’. You’ll also need to make that switch to use Touchbuddy. Along with the TB software in the 7z file, I’ve also included the profile posted by Snacko (masquerading as WBK) over on the TB forums. The main file is IL2-Series-wbk_2.1.zip, this includes the primary panels and all the switches, buttons and knobs used on the panels. Once extracted, the contents of the folder should be copied into the plugins folder in TB – In my case that is E:\touchbuddy\plugins. There are two further files in the zip, WBKs_Bombsight_Calculator_Plugin_1.1.2.zip and WBKs MSMP_Music_Plugin_3.0.35.zip. I haven’t yet done anything much with these, but instructions for installing them are in the readme’s in the zip files. There’s not much more I can impart at this point. Most of what I have learned had been by reverse engineering Snacko’s panel and asking him questions. My version of his panel is shown below but apart from some re-arranging and button removal I haven’t really done much although I plan to add a Nav panel which will enable me to use beacons and access maps etc. This will be going where the empty Flaps panel is at present. I also intend to start work shortly on a new panel for CloD before starting one for BoS.

Where's the Hunter??? Darn it.

My 'office'

300deg turn with a centre detent - the bodnar board supports 1024 steps so in my case 512 either side of zero. works well for me

Lol, good for you OT

Lol

Lol, yes it does have an accelerometer so could use it for toe brakes too!

Also missing a 'kick FT' button - I'll get around to it. Actually I'll still be needing the Bodnar board as it's the input for the rudder and my trim controls are there also. Box Mk4 coming up! I'm pretty chuffed with this so far.

Does doesn't it!

Early tests are promising: I should point out that this profile is none of my own work. So far anyway

Tab 3 turned up this morning and have 'borrowed' a profile from the TB forum. Now for a leedle customisation and well, we shall see!

Lunatics? Us?

I think that always happens for everybody with DCS Chet - it certainly happens for me.

If you choose to go down this route OT, first thing you need to do is take the discs which come with it (if included) and recycle them as coasters. Windows 7 will detect the stick and install the necessary drivers. IIRC the disks only work for Windows 95/98. This unfortunately means that the software to program the stick doesn't work with 7 but the stick support in-game copes anyway (you can map directly the stick buttons to the game functions). Jabo P.S. Incidentally, it might be worth letting us know if you're bidding on any of these sticks - no sense in getting into a bidding war with another Dog(z)

Get a MSFFB2 stick OT (Microsoft Force Feedback 2 - Otherwise known as the Sidewinder 2). It's been out of production for a long time but there's usually a few for sale on ebay, You'll still be able to use the x52 throttle as well! In fact quite a few of the guys here have gone down this route (me too - so purchasing this stick is no guarantee of improvement!) http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Microsoft-Sidewinder-Force-Feedback-2-Joystick-Excellant-Condition-/181289384957?pt=UK_Controllers_Attachments&hash=item2a35b07bfd - I could probably go and collect this - Kenilworth is about 15 minutes from me! http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Microsoft-Sidewinder-Force-Feedback-2-joystick-/111248707419?pt=UK_Controllers_Attachments&hash=item19e6f08f5b http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Microsoft-SideWinder-Force-Feedback-2-Joystick/331099433210?_trksid=p2047675.m1850&_trkparms=aid%3D222002%26algo%3DSIC.FIT%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D11%26meid%3D3864232703956461593%26pid%3D100011%26prg%3D1005%26rk%3D2%26rkt%3D3%26sd%3D301053861003%26 There's a few for starters

Slight change of plan required. As of last night I will be using a Galaxy Tab 3 (bought cheap on ebay lol) so will be able to have a bigger screen - same principle applies though. Using the TB toolkit, I have set up a suitable size window and added a background graphic. Now for the buttons and the macros.

Ah, sorry for confusion.

In terms of uploading Arthur - on your damp string connection it's likely to take a looooong time. Try speedtest.net to get a feel for your upload speed (don't mix up KB/s with Kb/s - Kilobytes per sec and Kilobits per sec (KB x ) then using your finely honed teaching experience work out how long it'll take to upload your flle. Of course this is under ideal (i.e. unachievable) conditions so double or triple that to give you a closer estimate. Ten hours for a GB? definitely Jabo

Git

@ Snacko - Well, I think the main question is 'how' as in how do I do this? I've got an idea that I want something that looks like an annunciator panel, but rather than just being warning lights they're actually toggle buttons. and on a screen this size probably a grid 5 x 3 would give a sensible button size. Something like this; Obviously the buttons would say different things. Thoughts? @Fruity - this your free one Kev?

Simples really Gec, all I did was to install VNC on my desktop and a free VNC app on the Galaxy (all password protected) and then shared my second monitor output with the Galaxy with Touchbuddy running in a window on that second monitor. Then just enable mouse control on the Galaxy (via VNC) and hey presto! the Galaxy touchscreen allows me to click on buttons on the touchbuddy application! It's all pretty slick but so far I don't have any buttons mapped to IL-2 - That's the next step. The only downside is that my second monitor cannot be used for anything else while running TB but it's no real problem. I'm thinking that this may be the answer to my switchbox problems on RoF and BoS but I'll keep you posted I'm also considering a cheap android tablet so I get a bigger screen and it frees up my phone at the same time. Jabo