*** ExtPlane-Panel ***

https://github.com/bobgates/ExtPlane-Panel forked from:
https://github.com/vranki/ExtPlane-Panel

An external, networked cockpit panel for X-Plane flight simulator. 

Requires ExtPlane plugin installed on X-Plane:
https://github.com/bobgates/ExtPlane forked from:
https://github.com/vranki/ExtPlane

License: GNU GPLv3

Readme date: 24 July 2011

Works with the ExtPlane plugin on XPlane. It is then possible to run this 
panel on the same computer, or another computer on the network, to display
cockpit instruments remote from X-Plane.

The instruments are all drawn from scratch using Qt's graphic tools, with
a couple of graphics imported to add some realism. It would look better with
many more graphics, and forms a nice framework to do this, but I prefer 
programming to art.

The app is written using Qt, and is developed here on a Mac. It is likely 
that it can be made to run under Windows and Linux with a little effort. You
need to be able to follow the process of compiling and making the plugin. If
you follow the same steps with this, you'll be able to build and make this 
application. 

From the ExtPlane-plugin app on github:
---------------------------------------
* Common build requirements *

Copy X-Plane SDK to home directory, so that the headers can be found
at ~/SDK/CHeaders/XPLM (or edit the .pro file).

You'll need Qt development libraries installed.

* To build on Linux *

$ qmake
$ make
copy libextplane-plugin.so.1.0.0 to X-Plane/Resources/plugins/extplane.xpl

* To build on Mac *

$ qmake
$ make
copy libextplane-plugin.1.0.0.dylib to X-Plane/Resources/plugins/extplane.xpl


The ExtPlane-Panel
------------------

There are currently 8 instruments:
- A basic compass
- A direction indicator with the compass rose
- An airspeed indicator
- An altimeter
- An attitude indicator
- A variometer
- and an RPM gauge.

The appearances are largely from the Cessna 172 in X-Plane. 

The interface is clumsy, but works: click inside the yellow square at top
left to start changing things: 

"Edit Panel", followed by "Close" (to close the menu) makes 
the instruments become selectable with a click. It is then possible to move
the instruments around, and when an instrument is selected, its properties
are now available on the "Item properties" menu button, and it can also 
be deleted ("Delete Items").

"Add Item" allows new instruments to be added, from the 8
mentioned above, and hopefully more to be added. 

"Save panel" saves all the panel settings to a file called "extplane_gauges.ini"
in the same directory as the executable (~/git_code/ExtPlane-Panel/build/Debug 
on my machine). This ini file is editable, and can be used to change sizes,
positions and settings of instruments. 

"Load panel" loads the current contents of the ini file, so can be used to
recover from accidents, like deleting an instrument. This might cause the app
to crash, though...

"Export panel" currently doesn't work. The intent is that in future, several
panels can be used with this app by importing them from wherever they are 
saved and exporting to create new ones. This would allow appropriate settings
and instrument combinations for different aircraft.

"App settings" currently allows the IP address of the X-Plane machine to be
entered, and can allow changes to fullscreen and screen rotation. Future 
options will include setting the screen size and background color.