HawgTouch - Clickable MFCD frames for multi-monitor setup!

HawgTouch is a simple light-weight framework which allows you to create your own cockpit panels for DCS-10C. The software is bundled with 2 MFCD's, a UFC panel (Thanks to jeffyd123 @ ED forums):

Included profile ShowcaseProfile.xml which demonstrates tabs, scaling and latest additions

Version 1.25 changes

- Fixed a bug where keystrokes of Rocker Switches weren't sent

- Fixed a bug where keystrokes of Two State Switches weren't sent

- Fixed a bug where keystrokes of Three State Switches weren't sent

- Fixed panel closing and tab switching crash

- Added a "drag" button to the top right, to drag, click and hold the button

- Optimized code and image handling

- Profile parsing improved, now showing detailed exceptions if profile is illegaly formatted

- Two State switches now support multiple types:

- On/On

- Momentary/On

- On/Momentary

Take a look at the "TestPanel" tab in the ShowcaseProfile.XML to see how to assign switch behavior

- Three State switches now support multiple types:

- On/On/On

- On/On/Momentary

- Momentary/On/On

- Momentary/On/Momentary

Take a look at the "TestPanel" tab in the ShowcaseProfile.XML to see how to assign switch behavior

- HawgTouch now ships in two executables. x86 and x64

Version 1.2 changes

- Fixed bug in ClickButtons long press. Now working

- Added support for tabs

- Added panel scaling mechanism

- Added audible clicks option

- Better keypress engine, no more flashing

HawgTouch now supports tabs. At least 1 tab must exist in every profile.

Once a profile is loaded. A tab control box appears which allows you to switch between tabs. The tab control box can be latched to 9 locations of your chosen monitor.

This is done by specifying 2 parameters in the profile XML

<LatchTo></LatchTo>

Available parameters:

- UpperLeft

- UpperMiddle

- UpperRight

- MiddleLeft

- Middle

- MiddleRight

- BottomLeft

- BottomMiddle

- BottomRight

The tab control box is also dragable.

<MonitorID></MonitorID>

Specifies which monitor the tab control box will latch on to. To get the ID of the monitor you'd like to latch the tab control box to, click on the "Monitors" link on the main HawgTouch window. It will display your local monitors setup.

Sample profile XML with 1 tab and 1 panel:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<Tabs>
 <LatchTo>UpperLeft</LatchTo>
 <MonitorID>2</MonitorID>
 <Tab>
   <ID>1</ID>
   <Name>Test</Name>
   <Controls>
     <Control>
       <Name>Up Front Controller</Name>
       <PanelImage>\Images\UFC\ufc-main-panel.png</PanelImage>
       <X>80</X>
       <Y>10</Y>
       <ShowTitleButtons>true</ShowTitleButtons>
       <SizePercent>100</SizePercent>
     </Control>
   </Controls>
 </Tab>
</Tabs>

Supported controls in 1.1:

- Click Buttons

- Rocker Switches

- Two State Switches

- Three State Switches

HawgTouch is fully "customizable", allowing you to use your own skins and graphics in any size you choose to make.

Setting up exported MFCDs:

1.HawgTouch comes with a default skin in which the MFCD "transparent" zone is 400x400 pixels. With additional 186x146 pixels for the bezels. Therefore the MFCD's rendering in your multi monitor setup LUA file should be to 400x400 pixels to fit inside the frames.

This is my multi-monitor setup: (1x 24" @ 1920x1080 and 1 x 22" @ 1280x800):

_ = function(p) return p; end;
name = _('My_example');
Description = 'Two monitor configuration';
Viewports =
{
Center =
{
x = 0;
y = 0;
width = 1920;
height = 1080;
viewDx = 0;
viewDy = 0;
aspect = 1.6;
}
}

LEFT_MFCD =
{
x = 2050;
y = 105;
width = 400;
height = 400;
}

RIGHT_MFCD =
{
x = 2650;
y = 105;
width = 400;
height = 400;
}

UIMainView = Viewports.Center

2. Now you will need to set up the keys in DCS A-10C control settings which are mapped to the MFCD profiles in HawgTouch.

HawgTouch comes with 2 MFCD profiles which are configured to the following keys:

Left MFCD OSB1 through 10 - Left Control + 1 through 0

Left MFCD OSB10 through 20 - Left Control + Left Shift + 1 through 0

Right MFCD OSB1 through 10 - Left Alt + 1 through 0

Right MFCD OSB10 through 20 - Left Alt + Left Shift + 1 through 0

Here is in-game screenshot of the controls binding:

You can set any key combination you want. Here are the key shortcuts: (Made identical to TouchPal for easier transition)

{BACKSPACE}

{TAB}

{CLEAR}

{RETURN}

{LSHIFT}

{RSHIFT}

{LCONTROL}

{RCONTROL}

{LALT}

{RALT}

{PAUSE}

{CAPSLOCK}

{ESCAPE}

{SPACE}

{PAGEUP}

{PAGEDOWN}

{END}

{HOME}

{LEFT}

{UP}

{RIGHT}

{DOWN}

{PRINTSCREEN}

{INSERT}

{DELETE}

{LWIN}

{RWIN}

{APPS}

{NUMPAD0}

{NUMPAD1}

{NUMPAD2}

{NUMPAD3}

{NUMPAD4}

{NUMPAD5}

{NUMPAD6}

{NUMPAD7}

{NUMPAD8}

{NUMPAD9}

{MULTIPLY}

{ADD}

{SEPARATOR}

{SUBTRACT}

{DECIMAL}

{DIVIDE}

{F1}

{F2}

{F3}

{F4}

{F5}

{F6}

{F7}

{F8}

{F9}

{F10}

{F11}

{F12}

{NUMLOCK}

{SCROLLLOCK}

You can mix all sorts of shortcuts for your liking. Most will work but I can't gurantee crazy combos since I haven't checked it myself.

Creating your own panels:

HawgTouch gives you the liberty to create any panel you find useful for your simming pleasure. Take a peek at the TestPanel.xml file for information of how to use the different controls HawgTouch supports. With time and by request more complex controls will be added!

UFC bundled in 1.1 (Thanks to jeffyd123 for the image works!)

NOTE: The key commands for the UFC are not set! Once you set your UFC key bindings in-game, open up UFC.xml and fill in the KeyCommand slots!

My setup:

Download:

HawgTouch 1.25 x86 [1.03MB]

HawgTouch 1.25 x64 [1.03MB]

Extract anywhere. In this version the last known position of the panels is not saved. You will have to manually set it to the specific panel. To help you achieve that a new button has been added to the panels which shows the current windows X/Y positions. Once you are happy with your position you can type that data into the panel XML and it will be launched in the position you saved.

IMPORTANT NOTE: If you are running any Windows version with UAC enabled (Vista and higher) and you are running DCS A-10C as Administrator you will have to launch HawgTouch as Administrator aswell. Orelse the keystrokes wont be sent to the game.

You will need .NET 4.0 to run this so if you don't have it installed make sure you run a Windows Update or download it from here : .NET Framework 4.0 Download

Tested on WinXP 32/64, Win7 32/64

Enjoy!

ClearDark

Excellent work Rep inbound.

I assume you need a touch screen monitor?.. or am i missing something?

I assume you need a touch screen monitor?.. or am i missing something?

You can use it with your mouse too if you'd like. I don't have a touch screen and I still use it :)

Excellent work. My MFCD's are set for 512x512 so I can see all I have to do is switch them to 400x400 and I will have clickable OSB's on the secondary monitor:D. Much easier than having to go to main monitor...

This looks awesome. I wish we could get the UFC and or the CDU with something like this. Great Job!

This looks awesome. I wish we could get the UFC and or the CDU with something like this. Great Job!

I might add a UFC up in the near future depending on my available time! :)

This looks awesome. I wish we could get the UFC and or the CDU with something like this. Great Job!

Helios has the whole cockpit modeled, but it is not free, it's $69.00

If you want to check out Helios: http://www.scsimulations.com/index.php/software.html

Helios is indeed a great piece of software! HawgTouch is a free tool which will probably expand in time and will remain free. It's not intended to compete with Helios, rather provide a simple light weight solution for touchscreen and multi monitor users :)

Helios is indeed a great piece of software! HawgTouch is a free tool which will probably expand in time and will remain free. It's not intended to compete with Helios, rather provide a simple light weight solution for touchscreen and multi monitor users :)

I applaud your work, and that you are offering it for free.

I mentioned Helios to provide information, sorry if it seemed in bad form.

I've linked this post at SimHQ.....excellent work, thanks.

I created the monitor setup profile and all my buttons work, but I can't get it to show on the second monitor.

I have the monitor profile selected and I've tried it in both full screen and windowed mode.

I mentioned Helios to provide information, sorry if it seemed in bad form.

Oh no worries, It wasn't taken in such way :) I say, everything that makes this crazy hobby of ours more intuitive and closer to real life the better :D

I created the monitor setup profile and all my buttons work, but I can't get it to show on the second monitor.

 

 

I have the monitor profile selected and I've tried it in both full screen and windowed mode.

You will have to select the monitor setup from the Options->System screen

Ill take a snapshot so you can see in more details:

Notice the circled options. The resolution is user typed at 3200x1080 (1920 + 1280x the highest res of the two which is 1080)

For further details on how to set up 2 monitors you can see MadTommy's great guide here:

http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=60815

Hope this helps :)

aha very nice! It works great except for cutting my framerate from 60 to 25. :(

Great tool! After fiddeling around with resolutions and aspect ratio I finally got my dual-monitor-setup working as it should.

But of course, there are a few questions remaining. Chief among which is this:

Is it possible to switch the in-cockpit MFDs off to save FPS? And I don't mean the "Day/Night/Off" switch since that one turns the "exported" version on the second monitor off as well.

I don't have SLI/Crossfire, just a single GTX460 1GB and I'd like to reduce the load on the card. After all: With HawgTouch and a second monitor displaying the MFDs, I don't really need the in-cockpit screens.

Cheers,

S.

EDIT: Did some pokin' around and I've managed to disable the in-cockpit-MFCDs (using the MFCD_init.lua-file), unfortunately this also switched the "exported" MFCDs on my second monitor off. I'm not a programmer, but I guess the "render_purpose.GENERAL"-command in there refers to wether the game should draw the MFDs or not. I removed it and replaced it with the "render_purpose.SCREENSPACE_OUTSIDE_COCKPIT"-command (it just sounded right) ;) but no joy: All MFCDs (in-cockpit and on 2nd screen) remained black. Any ideas what I should do and if it can indeed be done?

You can use it with your mouse too if you'd like. I don't have a touch screen and I still use it :)

Excellent, i'll try this out. :)

I spent 3 hours last night creating my MFCD's in touchbuddy and just started doing the CDU keyboard.... Next day I find this!!!!! Gutted....

I've thought about making a customisable interface to create switches and things for touchscreen before. Did you write your program in C++ or C# or similar? If so, how do you send the keys to the program without taking the Focus?

Looking very cool.

But how can i alter the size of these? I can alter the image sizes myself no problem.. but what else do i need to do?

I love this BUT if I can't alter the sizes it is no good for me. Thanks for any help.

EDIT: also is it possible to have MFCDs of different sizes... as that is how i use them presently.

Looking very cool.

 

But how can i alter the size of these? I can alter the image sizes myself no problem.. but what else do i need to do?

 

I love this BUT if I can't alter the sizes it is no good for me. Thanks for any help.

 

EDIT: also is it possible to have MFCDs of different sizes... as that is how i use them presently.

You will need to alter the image sizes for both MFCD and buttons to match. Also you will have to change the X and Y for the buttons layout. Just take a look at how the current MFCD is built. If you are getting to complicated just give me the size you need and ill try to create one for you :)

I intend on expanding HawgTouch to allow all sorts of controls (UFC, CDU, Panels) in the near future with functionality to let users create their own skins and panels to their liking!

EDIT: Did some pokin' around and I've managed to disable the in-cockpit-MFCDs (using the MFCD_init.lua-file), unfortunately this also switched the "exported" MFCDs on my second monitor off. I'm not a programmer, but I guess the "render_purpose.GENERAL"-command in there refers to wether the game should draw the MFDs or not. I removed it and replaced it with the "render_purpose.SCREENSPACE_OUTSIDE_COCKPIT"-command (it just sounded right) but no joy: All MFCDs (in-cockpit and on 2nd screen) remained black. Any ideas what I should do and if it can indeed be done?

No that I know of but ill be looking into that. If someone else has any idea please share with us.

I've thought about making a customisable interface to create switches and things for touchscreen before. Did you write your program in C++ or C# or similar? If so, how do you send the keys to the program without taking the Focus?

HawgTouch is written in C#. I can share the code at a later point when ill be home :)

Thanks, Dark. I've reposted the question in a thread of its own. This way I figured the devs would have a better chance of finding it.. :)

I reverted to my backed-up .lua for now. My changes seemed to cause some weird behaviour in-game and I didn't wanna mess up my setup...

You will need to alter the image sizes for both MFCD and buttons to match. Also you will have to change the X and Y for the buttons layout. Just take a look at how the current MFCD is built. If you are getting to complicated just give me the size you need and ill try to create one for you :)

Ok cool.. i'm looking through them now.. i've made the edits to the images.. just need to figure out the button placement.. I'm sure i can work it out.. :blush:

Edit: figured it out.. now i just need to do the grunt work.. the little app i have that can measure screen pixel distances is bloody useful right now!

Regarding different sizes for left & right MFCD.. this does not seem possible at this stage.

EDIT2: Actually regarding the different sizes.. i could run two instances of this...with different setups.. :)

Lovely jubberly! Across my 22" screen at 1680x1050

I'll post up my files when i have it polished.

Great job Dark and a great community addon... thank you very much!

I was going to get helios but I felt $70 + another $20 for the instruments was too much considering that there are several instruments that aren't working (ED not exporting the data for them).

Got 2 questions...

Does this work on touch screens?

Do you have any instructions on how to make other instruments work too?

Regarding different sizes for left & right MFCD.. this does not seem possible at this stage.

Maybe I misunderstand you, but you should be able to set different sizes for the "exported" MFDs in the "Multimonitor-Setup"-file. Underneath the placement coordinates there's the size-values (400x400 by default). Have you tried entering different sizes for the left and right MFD? Say, 250x250 for the left and 500x500 for the right?

Maybe I misunderstand you, but you should be able to set different sizes for the "exported" MFDs in the "Multimonitor-Setup"-file. Underneath the placement coordinates there's the size-values (400x400 by default). Have you tried entering different sizes for the left and right MFD? Say, 250x250 for the left and 500x500 for the right?

That is not the issue.. the issue is there is only one size image / frame.

But you can run two instances..as you see below. :thumbup: