panel design, gauges into the panel folder?

[michaelvader]

Hallo friends,

before finishing the panel pack for the F7F-1 I have a question:
would it be better if the gauges used by a panel would stay in the panel folder of the aircraft or would it be better if the gauges should be placed in the FS2004\gauges directory?
When flightseem reads the gauges, will flightsim read those contained in the panel folder or is hierarchy of the gauges directoy higher?
Thank you in advance for any advices
Yours
Papi

 

[Lane Street]

FS looks for gauges in the panel folder first, then looks in the Gauges folder for any not found in the panel folder.

cheers,
Lane

 

[Milton Shupe]

Papi,

Most people, me included, prefer the gauges stay with the panel folder. That keeps the FS9/Gauges folder clean and if one wants to delete the F7F, all the gauges go with it. Good housekeeping is essential for a smooth running sim.

 

[Willy]

On the other hand, I like to put 'em into the main gauges folder where I can use 'em in a different aircraft. I'm always scrambling panels & gauges around.

 

[Dev One]

I leave mine in the panels folder & I also 'un cab' them as it seems to load faster that way, i.e. they don't have to have another application applied.
Keith

 

[ViperPilot2]

I keep them in the Gauges folder; like Willy, I'm always fiddling around with Panels & Gauges with FSPS.

Alan

 

[Blackbird686]

I'm like Milton, always put them into the panel folder within the aircraft folder. I DO, however... have a separate folder I call FS Gauges. If I'm fiddling around with a panel and want to use a gauge from a different aircraft, they're all there in the FS Gauges folder. Also, if I end up deleting an aircraft, or even moving it out of the sim, the gauges go with it. If a model has effects as well, I delete them manually from the Effects folder. I NEVER run uninstallers.... learned the hard way.

BB686

 

[Tom Clayton]

Just as a side note, deleting effect files may be good for housekeeping, but as for storage space, they're really just text files like the cfg's. The only thing in the effects folder that might take up a little room is the texture folder that contains the bitmaps that some effects need to work right. To compare, my aircraft folder is 2.7 GB (small by some standards...), my gauges folder is 423 MB, and my effects folder is only 10.9 MB. I know that the Sim does a roll call of sorts on the aircraft folder to see what's in there, but I don't think (don't really know though) if it does the same thing on any other folders. I know that if a plane uses a gauge that causes an issue, that issue doesn't crop up until the Sim tries to actually load that plane. And that aircraft roll call only takes a fraction of a second. If you don't care about things like accumulated engine hours, go to C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\FS9\AIRCRAFT and delete the contents. Leave that folder open and start the Sim, then you'll see the Sim repopulate the folder with a stack of folders to match what's in your Sim.

 

[gaab]

Always put them into the panel folder within the aircraft folder.

I NEVER run uninstallers.... learned the hard way.

Same with Fsx.

And I always try to fool installers : I have a "FakeFSX" folder just to know what they will mess up
With few exceptions like Orbx...