Mode Selection Switch Configuration

Management Summary:

- Allow for configuring Switches to be grouped together to create a Mode Selection Switch, who's constituent Switch positions are mutually exclusive.

- Add an overlay, similar to the Flight Controls overlay (RCtrl-Enter). The position of the overlay for each Switch belonging to a Mode Selection Switch ought to be configurable, so that the user can position them advantageously within his cockpit view, for example, around a cockpit canopy frame, or elsewhere in a free area, defined by the user, in the cockpit.

Detailed Description:

DCS allows for defining Modifiers and Switches for setting up your cockpit and game controls. Most Modifiers are pre-defined as the Meta-Keys used by Windows (Alt, Ctrl, Shift, etc, but DCS also differentiates between LCtrl and RCtrl etc. as well. These Modifiers are active, the same as their use in Windows, only when being held down (pressed), and in DCS allow to give a key or button a different control definition.

EG: RCtrl-L might be configured to turn landing lights on, whicl RAlt-L might be configured to turn landing lights off.

Switches are different in that they toggle on and off at each press. If RAlt were configured as a Switch, if you press and release RAlt once, it would work the same as if RAlt were configured as a Modifiers, and you pressed and held RAlt.

The advantages of using Switches, is that it allows you to to define many more uses of the physical buttons and switches of an HOTAS.

The disadvantage is, the only indications of a Switch being active, is how other switches and buttons function, and this can lead to much confusion in the cockpit.

Real World Implementation and example:

For P-51D Sim controls I have a TM Warthog Throttle and Joystick HOTAS. I have the DMS (Data Management Switch - just below the Trim Thumb Hat on the Joystick) configured as Switches:

DMS-Left: is for cockpit environment settings, instrument lighting, Kneeboard, etc.

DMS-Up: is for radio settings

DMS-Right: is for weapons settings

The problem is, that if I've switched to DMS-Left to look at the Kneeboard and then forgotten to turn it off, then subsequently later want to look at the Kneeboard again, I automatically press DSM-Left again, turning it off, and depending on which other Switch might have been accidentally left on, pressing the button to open the Kneeboard might do something radically different, like change my radio channel.

If I could configure all the DMS switch positions to be mutually exclusive, this would never happen. If DMS-Left were pressed, and then DMS-UP, the DMS-Left Switch would automatically be canceled, and I would have a defined setting (DMS-Up Switch active, all other DMS Switches inactive).

I could then define DMS-Down as the default (basically being what I currently have configured without any of the other DMS Switch positions being active), and I would have the ability to always have and KNOW a defined situation with regards to the DMS Switch positions.

The overlay would simply make things even simpler, in that it would be a visual queue to what the current DMS Switch status is. Being able to position the overlay for each Mode Switch would allow for each user to configure their position to their own liking, and allow for optimization for each aircraft the user flies, making it universally implementable.

To implement this, in the Switches definitions, one could have a simple numeric field added to each for each Switch belonging to a single Mode Switch. EG for each DMS Switch defined (DMS-Up, DMS-Left, DMS-Right, DMS-Down) the numeric field could have "1" entered into each, defining them as belonging to Mode Switch 1, this making them mutually exclusive. All Switches without an numeric value set would work as before.

To position each Switch overlay, one might press a key-combination to allow the user to drag each overlay into the user's preferred position, with pressing the key-combination again to lock and save their positions.

Each Switch overlay might consist of something resembling an LED indicator light with a small text next to below or above it declaring which Switch is being indicated, possibly taken from the Switch name defined.

This would make the possibilities of configuring an HOTAS Hat as a set of Switches far more useful, productive, and easier to use.

Yeah what he said +1

Management Summary:

 

If I could configure all the DMS switch positions to be mutually exclusive, this would never happen. If DMS-Left were pressed, and then DMS-UP, the DMS-Left Switch would automatically be canceled, and I would have a defined setting (DMS-Up Switch active, all other DMS Switches inactive).

 

 

 

 

This would make the possibilities of configuring an HOTAS Hat as a set of Switches far more useful, productive, and easier to use.

just b/c this may work for you; doesn't mean it will work for anyone else.