EZBoards - Generate kneeboards (flights, comms, stpts, weather) from briefings
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Like a lot of VR users, I prefer to use openkneeboards. I’ve been doing all sort of horrible things to achieve what I wanted, including making myself go through the trauma of writing Windows code (I’m a unix c developer, or was).
I never thought to incorporate a filthy hack into ezboards … but, if you add just one extra line to the ezboards script to convert the briefing to pdf as well as html, and point openkneeboards at that, it works an absolute treat.
Ezboards already has wkhtmltoimage in its bin directory. I added wkhtmltopdf (from the same author at wkhtmltopdf.org), and copied the wkhtmltoimage line to output to a pdf file of my choosing. Simples.
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@rubbra
This. But it’s actually even easier than this.
Openkneeboard can read pngs as well.
And with a little modification, EZboards can render the left and right pages to two different images.
So both can be imported to Openkneeboards and paged through separately.The corresponding lines to replace in EZboards v12, around line 60 would be
ECHO [33mRendering HTML to left and right briefing images.[0m bin\wkhtmltoimage.exe --width 1024 --height 1554 --disable-smart-width --enable-local-file-access briefing.html briefing-left.png IF %ERRORLEVEL% NEQ 0 GOTO ERROR bin\wkhtmltoimage.exe --width 2048 --height 1554 --crop-w 1024 --crop-x 1024 --disable-smart-width --enable-local-file-access briefing.html briefing-right.png IF %ERRORLEVEL% NEQ 0 GOTO ERROR GOTO SUCCESS
I’ve already assembled such an alternate version of the EZBoards Bat file for use with OKB that’ll render those into a seperate folder, and I’ll ship it in the next version I upload.
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@Logic “easier” not a lot of difference, to be fair.
In the next release, any chance of you extracting the departure time for the holding steerpoint which is in the briefing? E.g the one before push should have a departure time… I use this all the time to hit my push point at exactly the right time without a having to draw sky circles at the holding point.
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@rubbra said in EZBoards - Generate kneeboards (flights, comms, stpts, weather) from briefings:
@Logic “easier” not a lot of difference, to be fair.
In the next release, any chance of you extracting the departure time for the holding steerpoint which is in the briefing? E.g the one before push should have a departure time… I use this all the time to hit my push point at exactly the right time without a having to draw sky circles at the holding point.
@rubbra said in EZBoards - Generate kneeboards (flights, comms, stpts, weather) from briefings:
@Logic “easier” not a lot of difference, to be fair.
In the next release, any chance of you extracting the departure time for the holding steerpoint which is in the briefing? E.g the one before push should have a departure time… I use this all the time to hit my push point at exactly the right time without a having to draw sky circles at the holding point.
i modified mine this way (target2 is the folder where openkneeboard reads the briefings):
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@Virus any chance of posting it so it’s readable? It’s v low res in my device and not a chance of reading it.
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@rubbra sure
this is around line 60
REM /// Step 2: Render the HTML file to briefing.png image. ECHO [33mRendering HTML to briefing.png image.[0m bin\wkhtmltoimage.exe --width 2048 --height 1554 --disable-smart-width --enable-local-file-access briefing.html briefing.png bin\wkhtmltoimage.exe --width 1024 --height 1554 --disable-smart-width --enable-local-file-access briefing.html briefing_0.png bin\wkhtmltoimage.exe --width 2048 --height 1554 --crop-w 1024 --crop-x 1024 --disable-smart-width --enable-local-file-access briefing.html briefing_1.png IF %ERRORLEVEL% NEQ 0 GOTO ERROR ECHO [32mOk.[0m
this should be around line 82 (use the folder where you want openkneeboard to read your kneeboards)
SET TARGET="%THEATERPATH%\%TARGETFILE%" SET TARGET2=E:\Data\OneDrive\Desktop\Sims\BMS\Briefing
and finally this around line 100
REM /// Do the actual copy. ECHO [33mCopying the result to %TARGET%.[0m COPY /y briefing.DDS %TARGET% COPY /Y briefing_0.png %TARGET2% COPY /Y briefing_1.png %TARGET2% IF %ERRORLEVEL% NEQ 0 GOTO ERROR ECHO [32mOk.[0m
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V13 Released.
- Added EZ2PAGES.BAT for generating briefings on two separate pages, for use with OpenKneeboards.
Images will be generated in the folder given bySET DESTFOLDER=
,
by default in .\pages - Minor increase in font size for better readability.
- Added EZ2PAGES.BAT for generating briefings on two separate pages, for use with OpenKneeboards.
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@Logic said in EZBoards - Generate kneeboards (flights, comms, stpts, weather) from briefings:
Added EZ2PAGES.BAT for generating briefings on two separate pages, for use with OpenKneeboards.
Does this mean EZBoards (when executed with this new EZ2PAGES.BAT) will not replace the first page of either side of the remaining pages lying underneath anymore?
Anyway…
Big THANK YOU to you Logic for providing us with this powerful application and still updating it as well. I’m using it since the first version, its so quick and handy. -
@Zero900
Yes, for simplicity, it’s either EZ2PAGES.BAT for 2 separate pages as PNG files or EZBOARDS.BAT for the usual single double page as texture file.
But nobody’s preventing you from modifying the one or other to have both generated at the same time! -
@Logic said in EZBoards - Generate kneeboards (flights, comms, stpts, weather) from briefings:
@Zero900
Yes, for simplicity, it’s either EZ2PAGES.BAT for 2 separate pages as PNG files or EZBOARDS.BAT for the usual single double page as texture file.
But nobody’s preventing you from modifying the one or other to have both generated at the same time!Nice, have to check it out!
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And if you want to run both from
EZWATCH.BAT
add the call toEZ2PAGES.BAT
at line 114 inEZBOARDS.BAT
It might not be the correct or most swelligant solution, but it works for me!
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Does EZ Boards work with different parallel BMS Installations ? Cheers, Stephan
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@Phonon Yes, but you will need to create a new ezboards instance for each bms instance, and know how to edit a .bat file with notepad…
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@Fish44 Thanks a lot – perfect … this is very simple … thanks a lot, Fish44
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thanks for the update Logic!
It would be a nice idea to include the version number in the script’s output so one can be sure it has updated correctly… just a thought.
All the best,
Uwe
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Amazing mod! really helped me with knowing which channels to use !
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@Logic
Just trying this out. I have a few game installs on different folders and EZBoards seems to find one folder, for example Z:\Falcon BMS 4.37.3. However, I am playing on a test folder Z:\Falcon BMS 4.37.3-test-How do I tell EZBoards or EZ2PAGES to look at Z:\Falcon BMS 4.37.3-test- folder for any kneeboard updates?
Thanks!
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@Atlas There’s a line in the .bat file which points to the registry key for bms (different for each version). Its the registry key which tells EzBoards where BMS is. See my post a page back.
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@Fish44
Sir, you speak of that forbidden place where I dare not venture, for fear of borking my PC…REM /// Get BASEDIR and PILOTBIN from Registry. REM /// Note: This part will need to be updated in future versions of BMS. SET REGPATH="HKLM\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Benchmark Sims\Falcon BMS 4.37"
I believe it’s that last line? to be changed to HKLM\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Benchmark Sims\Falcon BMS 4.37-test-
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@Atlas
Nah, that’s the Registry key which is most likely still the same in your test install.
Yuo can just override the BASEDIR, in lines 12 and following:REM /// delims is a TAB followed by a space REM FOR /F "tokens=2* delims= " %%A IN ('REG QUERY %REGPATH% /v baseDir') DO SET BASEDIR=%%B SET BASEDIR=Z:\Falcon BMS 4.37.3-test- ECHO BASEDIR=%BASEDIR%