Let me put it this way Tim:

As soon as I learnt of SkyDemon and saw how the software evolved within a short period of time, I was immediately bought into the idea and subscribed to both packages. My immediate intention, as stated in my first few postings, was to have SD replace both pilotIII and Skyforce in my cockpit.

Almost six months on, I feel the packages though wonderful and a testimony to what SD Team can achieve with current technology their know how and vision, has ceased to progress in the right direction, as it did initially. From my perspective it appears more suited for toying with than for relying on for any serious flying.

While this might be the intention of the developers in the first place, I must admit I failed to grasp this in the first instance. However, I foresee my workhorses, PilotIII and Skyforce, staying on in my cockpit for the foreseeable future. I trust this will put the SD Team in the picture.

Very Newbytheway

DurhamTeaseAirport

Do the PilotIII and Skyforce devices you mention have the pseudo-ILS feature that you are keen for us to add to SkyDemon?

I'm sorry you feel SkyDemon is progressing toward a state where it is not suitable for serious pilots. Luckily a great deal of serious pilots seem to disagree.

A quick note for cct regarding keeping two machines in sync:



I use DropBox, a cloud based document sync and storage tool, to keep a set of files in sync on two or three machines. Although SkyDemon doesn't currently allow a custom data directory (DropBox normally lives under My Documents/My DropBox), it's possible to hack this using the Junction facility in the Windows NTFS file system to make the SkyDemon files live in Dropbox and appear in their usual location at the same time.



Whilst Junctions are not the easiest things in the world, if you follow the instructions it's plain enough.



Dropbox http://www.dropbox.com (2GB available for free)

Junction: Microsoft SysInternals



Works fine for me, as long as both versions of SkyDemon are kept on the same version.



--Graeme

G-AHAU, Andreas, Isle of Man

I'm really not sure what your problem is? Each new release of SkyDemon adds great new functionality that the vast majority of users are enthusiastic and excited by.



If you don't mind me saying, from a bystanders point of view, it just looks like you are throwing your toys out of the pram because your precious e-ILS hasn't made it into a release version yet.

Thanks for the info GraemeH. I dont use Dropbox, but do have an online backup that will synch multiple directories.



However that was not the thrust of my post - I was supporting the idea of a memory stick version/variant - particulalrly to use on a strange PC. Probably too much work for the benefit, though.



--

Chris

Not sure it wd be that much work. If on a flying trip (esp if abroad), ability to use PC version on a clubhouse PC to get NOTAMs, weather etc and sync to card wd be very useful indeed, IMHO.

While some have wifi, most do not. But most airfields now have a clubhouse PC. So Stick version wd be excellent. Also even if they have SD installed, I wd not want to be synced with all the various routes (and settings) on some unkown PC.

Now flying season beckons with w/e trips jaunts across channel, I think this wd be excellent.

D

I think we'll probably solve this by adding a command-line switch such as /datapath which allows overriding of the path SkyDemon looks for all its data in. You'd then create a shortcut on the stick which loads SkyDemon this way, and SkyDemon would then use no resources at all on the host computer, keeping entirely to the stick. How does that sound?

If paths could be defined for the data, then synchronization with dropbox would be possible too.

What I'd like is to have aircraft and routes sync'd, but leave the terrain and map data local to each machine (thereby not chewing up my dropbox allowance with relatively static data).



On a similar note (and possibly still relevant to 'portability'), the terrain files are massive but highly compressible. Would it be possible for the program to use a compressed format - even if unpacking them during start-up. My netbook with it's 4GB SSD values every spare MB!

Tim

That sounds terrific. I think the sync part of this thread is a bit separate.

In fact I use various PCs and I don't think syncing is that much of a deal. The main difference between the various syncings is the different routes  .. charts etc are from SD. So I cannot really see the issue. But probably missing something.

Anyway, a stick solution wd be great. Tx.

D

I can't see us implementing a solution with the complexity required such that some data is looked for on the card/stick and some is looked for on the machine, sorry.

Terrain data files are indeed compressed when they are downloaded, then unpacked before being saved to the hard drive. Portable devices don't have the power to uncompress the files in a timely manner or the memory to load them into RAM, so they stay on disk and need to be uncompressed.