Network Module

Remote control your network computers by defining certain actions that are executed on every computer start and create a flight status page for web display.

This section provides you with an easy way of configuring several startup actions for all your network computers that are involved in your flight simulator setup.

It also includes a full-screen waiting screen that is displayed on your network client computers till your flight simulator is fully started.

First build your network client by clicking on the Build Client button on the right side of the screen and start this client on all of your network computers that you want to control with this program.

Note: You can configure certain parameters of the network client in the Settings module.

Afterwards add all your network computers by clicking on the Add New Computer button.

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This network client needs to be copied and started to all of your network computers that you want to control with this program.

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To make sure the pilots do not see anything from the background tasks needed to start your flight simulator, a full-screen waiting screen is displayed till all tasked have completed and the simulator is ready to go.

You can fully customize this waiting screen to your need and change the background image, logo and even text (for example also translate it to your language).

Note: Although you can use the waiting screen in all license editions, the customization is only possible with the commercial license.

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On the top of the client interface you can see some useful information.

First you can see the network port which is used to communicate with the FS-FlightControl program.

Note: This port can be changed in the Settings module. Please keep in mind that you need to rebuild the client (and copied to your network computers again) after the port is changed.

Beside the connection port also the IP address of the client computer is displayed. Please enter this IP address in the network dialog of FS-FlightControl when you add this computer as new computer there.

Note: You may find more than one IP address displayed here. Then this computer have more than one network interfaces active. If you don't know which one is the right one to use, you just need to test it.

Below that you can see the time of the last connection to the server.

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You have the option to directly start this network client with Windows which is highly recommended as only with this setting the full screen waiting screen can be displayed.

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On the left side all configured network computers are listed and selectable with just one click.

If there is a problem connecting to one of your network computers this computer will be surrounded by a red square. As long everything is fine this square will be green. This way you have an easy overview of the status of all your network computers involved in your flight simulator setup.

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For each of your computers first enter a name which will be displayed on the button that correspondents to this computer.

Next you need to enter the IP address where the computer is reachable in your network. This IP address is displayed on the client software that you started on your network computer (see above).

Same for the following Port field: Please enter here the network port which is displayed on the client software started on your network computer.

We suggest to enable the check box “Enabled” not before you have completed the full computer configuration including the assignment of action. This ensures that you can finish everything before the network computer start to react on your actions. With this check box you can enable or disable the network computer at any time.

If you want to delete this computer again, click on the corresponding button.

Below you fill find to information texts showing the Last Status and Last Connect time to the network computer.

Note: The Last Status text will turn red if there is no connection to the network computer and will be green if everything is OK.

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If you want to share your current flight information you can enable a status page for web display.

This can also be used for e. g. display the current flight status on a public screen outside of the flight simulator.

Note: In the Settings module you can define where the generated web page should be placed: It can be directly outputted as web server, saved in the local file system or uploaded to a certain FTP server.

To enable or disable it again click on the corresponding check box after you clicked on the “Status Page Web” button in the bottom right of the screen.

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After the status page for web display is enabled you can configure how it should look like.

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First you can define certain variables which then can be used as placeholders inside the HTML template of the web page. Start with entering a departure and arrival airport ICAO and your call sign.

By default the system displays the aircraft name provided by the flight simulator. As this is not always “nicely” formatted you have to option to force (overwrite) this name by any name you want.

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Now you can create a custom HTML template that should be used to generate the status page. Following placeholders can be used inside the template:

There is a default HTML template provided which shows how to use these placeholders and even how to show the current aircraft location on Google Maps. A status page generated by the default template looks like this:

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You can customize to your needs then.