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manufacturer/created by

arrowmaker

arrowmaker

SOH-CM-2024
Now I should warn you that I'm in the mood for a little ranting! The topic? The consistent use by some developers of putting their company's name down as the aircraft manufacturer in the cfg. file.

Now this may not bother some, and the situation is now nowhere near prevalent as it was in FS9, but the practice is still used by some of the communities top developers, and I have to say that it just plain bug's me. FSX after all now has the "ui_createdby=" entry in aircraft cfg. file for developers to utilise. Why do some also insist on putting their own name down in the "ui_manufacturer=".

If I want to search for Cessna, Piper, Beechcraft, etc, then those are the names I wish to find in the FSX library, NOT the name of some software developer. I don't wish to name names but we all know who still does it and who doesn't. I simply wish to have the option to search by manufacturer OR developer.

Ok some might say,what's the big deal? Just edit the cfg. file yourself. Well of course we can do this , but it's just a chore, and one that would be completely unnecessary if the developers just got their act together.

I've just spent 15 min. reediting the cfg. files of a new product, I recently purchased and all the time I'm thinking to my self; "if only they (the developer) had a little forethought". Rant over. :isadizzy:
 
Yea, I think there are a lot of folks who have the same thought every time they purchase aircraft from a certain developer. There are others who do it a well, and why, I'm not sure. I usually don't think about it until I go looking for a certain aircraft under the manufacturers name and find it tucked somewhere else under "that other name". At that point, I go to the aircraft.cfg file and redo every single airplane to what it "should be".

I know it's irritating, but chances are, it will continue.
 
I agree and it's not only the manufacturer name that gets messed up either. The same applies to the 'aircraft type' category too and I frequently have to edit configs to correct things so that they fall into my preferred groupings or to eliminate the 'Legacy' listing which happens when the creator didn't bother to enter anything at all.

While we are on the subject of config 'pet peeves' the other one I hate is the fact that there is no standard for assigning pop-up panels to the 'shift+number' keys. I have a button on my joystick set up to display the GPS and this is set to 'Shift+3' which works with most aircraft but from time to time I will come across a new aircraft with something else assigned to that button combination and then it's a case of editing the panel.cfg file to set it up the way I like it.
 
One reason it is done is copyright/trademark law.

I'm using this as an example, not as a specific case where it is true, but for instance take an F-99 "Nightstooger" model made by me. F-99 is assigned by the Government, aren't about to prosecute me over their copyright on it, so I can use it. "Nightstooger" is a nickname, not an official designation, so no-one copyrighted or trademarked it. On the other hand Lockgrum Electric, who made this mythical aircraft, have a whole lot of lawyers, a whole lot of money and a whole lot of reason to protect their trademark, so I don't release it as a Lockgrum Electric F-99 Nightstooger, I release it as an "Ian P Enterprises" F-99 Nightstooger. Lawyers dodged.

The place where that falls down, of course, is when the shape of the F-99 is also a trademark of Lockgrum Electric... Then they can come after me anyway, with their entire army of lawyers and taxpayer funded apparently bottomless bank account. :173go1:

I dislike it too, but that's why a lot of people do it.
 
Thanks for the explanation Ian. I never even considered that it might be a case of keeping the wolves at bay.:salute:
 
In FSX, there are two entries; one for the actual aircraft manufacturer (like Cessna, Beechcraft, etc), and one for the actual author.

At least we can edit these and put in our own entries if need be.

Luckily for me, it doesnt take 15 min's. More like about 3 min's. Try using Copy/Paste and copy both lines at once and paste into each Registry.

I agree though. It hinders finding a plane in a huge collection. After 6 months to a year, you forget which is by which, so finding them by 'manufacturer' is easiest. There is also a setting for searching by Author, as well as Manufacturer.


Bill
 
Lionheart said:
In FSX, there are two entries; one for the actual aircraft manufacturer (like Cessna, Beechcraft, etc), and one for the actual author.

At least we can edit these and put in our own entries if need be.

Luckily for me, it doesnt take 15 min's. More like about 3 min's. Try using Copy/Paste and copy both lines at once and paste into each Registry.

I agree though. It hinders finding a plane in a huge collection. After 6 months to a year, you forget which is by which, so finding them by 'manufacturer' is easiest. There is also a setting for searching by Author, as well as Manufacturer.


Bill
Click to expand...



I can beat that, Bill. :icon_lol:

Notepad or Wordpad.
Use 'CTRL+H" (Replace)
Put in Developer Name to be replaced by Aircraft Manufacturer Name.
Any place in document where that occurs, changed.
Specify the whole line entry to avoid errors.
Easy Peasy.

Also arrowmaker, I endorse this message. :icon_lol: :applause:
 
for me, there is one instance where i find it useful that this occors. it groups all my carenado stuff together, and sometimes, when that's what i'm looking for, it makes it easier for me
 
But you could also achieve that by selecting "Carenado" from the "created by" drop-down.

I use that quite a lot. For which I almost entirely blame jankees as I'm normally trying to find a missing Mustang! ;)
 
Dain Arns said:
I can beat that, Bill. :icon_lol:

Notepad or Wordpad.
Use 'CTRL+H" (Replace)
Put in Developer Name to be replaced by Aircraft Manufacturer Name.
Any place in document where that occurs, changed.
Specify the whole line entry to avoid errors.
Easy Peasy.

Also arrowmaker, I endorse this message. :icon_lol: :applause:
Click to expand...



Dang! I didnt know you could do that..

Dommo Arrigatto, gozi-mash-tah!

<-- bows humbly





Bill
 
IanP said:
One reason it is done is copyright/trademark law.
Click to expand...

Thanks Ian, for the explanation. I can see that some developer's might be a bit hesitant about using the name of some corp. or other in their cfg's. However, in my book, if someone models a Cessna 172, and it's plainly obvious that that is what it's meant to represent you don't put Joe Bloggs Design in as the name of the manufacturer.

However I'll admit that I don't really understand the pressure a developer can come under when using a well known name. I remember the SimFlight 58 C172 which originally used the name Cessna. However after an update to that product, the aircraft manufacturer's name was removed and replaced with that of the developer. Maybe some sharks had a word in the guy's ear. Who knows.

Dain Arns said:
Notepad or Wordpad.
Use 'CTRL+H" (Replace)
Put in Developer Name to be replaced by Aircraft Manufacturer Name.
Any place in document where that occurs, changed.
Specify the whole line entry to avoid errors.
Easy Peasy.
Click to expand...

Wow Dain! That has to be one of the most useful tip's I've heard in a long time. Will certainly prove to be a time saver. Thanks for the tip. :ernae:
 
In my case, having spoken to several large and small manufacturers over the years, I know there is always a concern (real or imagined) about liability when someone uses anything with their name on it. And so, out of respect, I almost always leave their company names off.

As another consideration, using Super Cubs as an example, Piper is not the only manufacturer of Super Cubs. You have Cubcrafters, Turbine (now Backwoods), Mackey, and then a number of homebuilt and Experimental versions each with their own names. If I was to put the respective manufacturer's names in all the .cfg files, you'd be searching all over the selection pages in FSX looking for what you want. Grouping them under Flight Replicas makes things easier.

But if anyone wants to change the .cfg files, that's fine with me!

Mike
 
Doesn't changing the CFG's yourself become a pain in MP?? Will the multiplayer engine still display the correct aircraft if you change the manufacturer and created by values??
 
Multiplayer (and AI) uses the aircraft title, not the UI (user interface) values, chaders.
 
I'll be the whacko. :)

I actually prefer my aircraft listed by developer.

I don't want my Carenado Cessnas and Pipers mixed in with the default Cessnas and Pipers, or my A2A P47 at one end of the list and my A2A P-51 at the other end of the list and my A2A P-40 somewhere else.

I deliberately go back through and group the aircraft by developer. I find that much easier to find the aircraft I'm looking for when setting up a flight.

And no I don't want to sort the list, I want "Full Listing" visable at all times.

I wasn't really sure about this until the first time I loaded the Real Air Tail dragger package and so how nice it was to have them all in one place at the top of the listing. :)

The other thing that it's inadvertantly helped me do is to start on my next aircraft manufacturer weeding out process. When I start seeing entire sections of my Aircraft GUI list that I skip over everytime I'm setting up a flight, it starts making me realize that particular manufacturer group is falling behind the usability curve.

I just recently dumped an entire line of payware aircraft that I've been buying from since FS9 because of this listing practice. Everytime I went to set up a flight I'd skip that entire section everytime. The aircraft in that grouping had all fallen behind the cool factor curve compared to the newer aircraft in the hanger line-up, so they all got the boot.

Proper organizing makes house cleaning of uneeded stuff much easier. :)

FAC
 
But that is exactly the idea of the extra lines in FSX. They allow you to search by either true Manufacturer OR Developer. There is no need to edit either if the cfg has been formatted correctly.
 
am i the only person who just scrolls through the big page with all the pretty thumbnails?? :icon_lol:
 
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