Kneeboards: a little intel please

With apologies in advance for asking another very basic question after coming back to DCS somewhat rusty for the first time in four years, the -- very welcome -- kneeboard feature is new to me. Can anyone explain how the selection is made, i.e. is it contextual, depending on where the a/c is in relation to certain airports or is it up to the player to load images into a directory which then show up as kneeboards? Where is this folder? Can the player add images and, if so, what are the restrictions re. size and file type? Many thanks.

Are you flying in VR ? If not , i like to use my tablet for the kneeboard . I simply take screenshots of airport diagrams , VADS ,

Map sections , notes etc and compile them into a folder .

If you are flying in VR , you may find this helpful .

https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=229077

I have no experience with the DCS kneeboard , but others will help you there .

Are you flying in VR ?

No, although my new PC can more than handle it and I will no doubt give it a try quite soon. For the moment it's old-school TrackIR with a widescreen monitor. Why?

Edited my post for why :)

I'll just dump this old copypasta – it answers at least some of those questions:

The kneeboard is an often under-appreciated tool in DCS It can provide all kinds of useful information while in flight without having to look away or alt-tab to manuals or printouts or the like. The Caucasus and NTTR maps come with airport navigation cards, and some modules — notably the Viggen and MiG-21 — come with their own to deal with particular quirks of the respective aircraft.

Most commonly, kneeboard pages are simply images that DCS uses to populate the kneeboard, but they can actually be fully dynamic LUA scripts. By default, DCS will for instance generate flight plan pages that overlay pre-planned waypoints on a map of the current area. Similarly, the aircraft-specific pages, like the Viggen's target parameter page, are created through LUA scripting

The kneeboard can by default be accessed by pressing K for a quick glance; RShift-K to toggle on and off; and be paged through using the [ and ] keys. Some modules also offer shortcuts for creating marks on the kneeboard map or for creating and quickly skipping to specific kneeboard bookmarks.

Adding kneeboard pages

The really good thing about the DCS kneeboard is that it is pretty trivial to add your own pages to add whatever you feel is needed for good flying. Just create a png, jpg, or lua file that shows the information you want (preferably using a 3×4 aspect ratio) and dump it some place where DCS will automatically load it.

DCS loads image and LUA files from a number of different directories:

• DCS World\Mods\aircraft\…\Kneeboard — aircraft-specific pages
  
• DCS World\Mods\terrains\…\Kneeboard — map-specific pages
  
• %USERPROFILE%\Saved Games\DCS\Kneeboard — user-specific pages
  

Of these, the first one can and should largely be ignored — it is just where aircraft modules store their built-in pages. The second is a bit more interesting, since that is where map-specific airport cards (if available) are stored. If you want to add kneeboards that similarly only apply to a specific terrain, they need to go here. Altering these two directories is for all intents and purposes modding, and those alterations can (but are unlikely to) be wiped out by DCS updates. Using a mod manager is a good way of ensuring that they are in order.

The last one is where the bulk of kneeboard work should be done. It is immediately available and specifically intended for the player to add their own pages to. In this directory, you can either place files that will be universally available to all aircraft on all maps, or you can create aircraft-specific subdirectories that are only loaded when you fly that particular aircraft. The naming convention for these subdirectories is fairly straight-forward: it is usually just the model name of the aircraft (so, A-10C for the Warthog), but there are enough exceptions — especially when it comes to aircraft variants — that it cannot be taken for granted.

In addition, mission (.miz) files can include a Kneeboard directory that contains mission-specific pages, but that is more something for the mission builders to worry about.

Kneeboard builder

Kneeboard builder is a handy tool that manages and automates a lot of the work that goes into creating custom kneeboard pages. It creates the proper directories and includes a conversion utility that can turn PDF pages into kneeboard images — handy if you want the entire A-10C emergency procedure chapter to be part of your kneeboard collection. It also offers facilities to adjust how the kneeboard appears inside DCS by adjusting its size and position, and even making this contingent on what aircraft you are in so that it does not block critical instruments.

For more info, check out its dedicated thread.

The kneeboard folder is created\found in

• [user name]\Saved Games\DCS\kneeboard\[module name] i.e.

IIRC the DCS kneeboard can use .jpg, .png, and .bmp images, the main restriction is the file extension *must* be lowercase.

The Viggen is different, as it requires .lua file for each image and they need to be placed in module's folder.

You can also add kneeboard images to a .miz mission file and make them mission specific i.e.

• AV8B Sandbox, Batumi.miz\KNEEBOARD\AV8BNA\IMAGES\kneeboard_1.jpg

This is very helpful, gents, many thanks. As it happens, Svsmokey, I just bought my very first tablet, a Kindle Paperwhite, for this specific purpose. Its "read only" functionality is fine for me, I won't need to do video, full-featured Internet browsing, etc with it. I think it may be more convenient to use this as a kneeboard but I will definitely look into the kneeboard feature and the excellent-sounding Kneeboard Builder. Thanks once again.

Gents, last night I made a file called Kneeboard in the following path: C:\Users\Admin\Saved Games\DCS\Kneeboard\AV8BNA (I made the aircraft sub-directory) and put in three proven kneeboard .png files but they still didn't show up among the stock kneeboard files in the Harrier I placed at Batumi for startup practice. Can anyone explain? I am out of ideas. I can use my tablet but I'd like the kneeboard to work if and when I go VR. Thanks!

You're probably overcomplicating it – you want the images spread out in a directory, not in contained in a file of any kind.

You want to create a directory in your own save game directory (DCS should already have created the base one for you):

- C:\Users\[whatever your account is called]\Saved Games\DCS

In this directory, you want to create the Kneeboard and aircraft-specific directories:

- C:\Users\[whatever]\Saved Games\DCS\Kneeboard\AV8BNA

And finally, in that directory, you want to dump your kneeboard images (png:s, jpg:s, lua:s) in a big old jumble. They'll load in alphabetical order, more or less.

I haven't populated my Harrier kneeboard yet, but this example from the L-39 should be telling enough:

Thank you. But isn't that the path I created? Here's how it looks:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/qvp39zywgyb8ip7/Kneeboard.jpg?dl=0

And yet no sign of these images in the Harrier's in-cockpit kneeboard function. I might be missing something very simple here. Thank you for all your help and patience.

I might be missing something very simple here.

/Saved Games/DCS/Kneeboard/ is the path of the Stable version of DCS.

If you are using the Open Beta version, the path is likely to be /Saved Games/DCS.openbeta/Kneeboard/

/Saved Games/DCS/Kneeboard/ is the path of the Stable version of DCS.

 

If you are using the Open Beta version, the path is likely to be /Saved Games/DCS.openbeta/Kneeboard/

Thank you but I am using the non-Beta version. There is just one DCS-related folder, "DCS" in my Saved Games directory.