New Readme

                    *** ExtPlane ***

X-Plane plugin that allows commanding X-Plane from external programs using an easy TCP protocol.

• Features *

• Multiple concurrent connections
• Set and get datarefs
• Dataref types supported: int, float, double, int[], float[], data
• Simulate key and button presses
• Supports both X-Plane 9 and 10
• Free & Open Source under GPLv3
• Client classes for Qt included

Known users:

ExtPlane-Panel - a panel application @ https://github.com/vranki/ExtPlane-Panel

GNU GPLv3, (c) Ville Ranki ville.ranki@iki.fi

Contributors:

Bob Gates

* Downloading *

Some binaries for various platforms are available in binaries/ directory. Just
download a suitable binary and copy it to X-Plane/Resources/plugins/extplane.xpl.

If a binary for your favorite platform is missing, please build it and
send it to authors!

• 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 Mac & Linux *

$ qmake $ make

Mac notes:

Warning! If you see any error or warning like : ld: in /opt/local/lib/libxslt.1.dylib, file was built for unsupported file format which is not the architecture being linked (i386)

You need to rebuild libxslt with the +universal variant on MacPort otherwise the plugin cannot be loaded by X-Plane ! You should get the same for qt4-mac also.

 * Test session *

Launch X-Plane in console and observe the output. You should see something like:
TcpServer::TcpServer(QObject*, DataRefProvider*) Listening on port 51000

Open another console and run 'telnet localhost 51000'

Wait until you see line 'EXTPLANE 1'

Try typing the following commands:

sub sim/cockpit/electrical/night_vision_on
set sim/cockpit/electrical/night_vision_on 1
set sim/cockpit/electrical/night_vision_on 0
sub sim/flightmodel/position/local_y 100
set sim/flightmodel/position/local_y 3000
key 0
key 0
set sim/flightmodel/engine/ENGN_thro [1,0]
set sim/flightmodel/engine/ENGN_thro [0,0]
disconnect

• Command reference *

Datarefs: sub [accuracy] - Subscribe to dataref, with optional accuracy. unsub - Unsubscribe dataref. set - Set dataref to value. Dataref must be subscribed first.

With accuracy you can decide how much the dataref's value can change before a update is sent. Set it to as large value as possible to maximize frame rate and minimize network traffic.

List of datarefs can be found at: http://www.xsquawkbox.net/xpsdk/docs/DataRefs.txt

Keys and buttons: key - Create a command key press. but - Press down an button. rel - Release button pressed using "but" command.

List of key and button id's can be found at: http://www.xsquawkbox.net/xpsdk/mediawiki/XPLMUtilities Note that the key and button id's are numbers, not names. X-Plane does not provide a way to lookup keys or buttons by name.

Other:

disconnect - Disconnect the TCP socket. extplane-set - Set ExtPlane setting Settings are: update_interval - How often ExtPlane should update its data from X-Plane, in seconds. Use as high value as possible here for best performance. For example 0.16 would mean 60Hz, 0.33 = 30Hz, 0.1 = 10Hz etc.. Must be a positive float. Default is 0.33.

• Plugin output *

EXTPLANE - Sent when connected. Version number is currently 1. u - Update of dataref

Array datarefs output data like this (a float array, size 4):

ufa sim/flightmodel/position/q [0.84599,-0.00730657,0.00933933,0.533067]

Set array datarefs the same way. You can give less values than the dataref holds. For example this sets full throttle to engines 1 & 2

set sim/flightmodel/engine/ENGN_thro [1,1]

ExtPlane plugin outputs some log to stdout, so if you have problems with the plugin, start X-Plane in console and read the output.

• Client library *

See directory "client" for client code. Currently there is only client code for Qt. If you write client code for other environments (Python, Java..) please add them here.

Comments and bug reports to ville.ranki@iki.fi
Official git repo at https://github.com/vranki/ExtPlane

Contributions welcome!