The Toolbar

The FS Panel Studio toolbar appears as follows:

Here's a brief description of what the individual buttons do. The same functions are available through Main Menu picks.

The first five buttons deal with opening and saving Panels. In order, they will...

FS Panel Studio will create a new, empty panel.cfg file.

Adds a new Panel to an existing Aircraft. Use this to create a new Panel from scratch. For a step by step overview on how to do so, see the Tutorial.

Use this to open a specific panel.cfg file using the normal Windows File Explorer. Useful if you wish to edit a panel.cfg file anywhere on your system (not in the normal FS directory structure).

Use this to open a Panel based on the Aircraft name, rather than on the panel.cfg file name. When selected, this will bring up a window showing all installed Aircraft and the Panels installed for them.

The current Panel will be saved to disk, and optionally, a backup file will be created.

The next three buttons are:

The currently selected Gauge(s) is deleted.

The currently selected Gauge(s) is will be swapped for one selected by the user using the normal Gauge Selection Dialog. The size and position of the original Gauge will be retained.

The currently selected Gauge(s) is deleted, and a copy of it is made to FS Panel Studios' internal clipboard.

A copy of the currently selected Gauge(s) is made. The Copy/Paste function is implemented internally in FS Panel Studio and does not use the Windows Clipboard.

The previously Copied Gauge(s) are pasted onto the current Panel. The Gauge size and placement is retained, but offset 100 units to the right and down. The added Gauges will be selected. The Copy/Paste function is implemented internally in FS Panel Studio and does not use the Windows Clipboard

The last operation on a Gauge(s) is undone.

The last Undo operation is redone.

When active, the mouse is used to zoom in/out and zoom into areas on the display.

To activate the Zoom tool, click the Zoom tool button on the Toolbar. Use the left and right mouse buttons to increase and decrease the magnification level. To zoom in, left-click the image. The magnification increases each time you click the image. To zoom out, right-click the image. The magnification decreases with each click. To zoom in to a specific area of the screen, draw a box around it by clicking and holding the left mouse button while dragging the mouse. When the left button is released, the display is zoomed into the area defined by the box.

To return to the standard view, click the Normal Viewing button on the toolbar.

When active, the mouse is used to select and manipulate Gauges.

The main window is zoomed in by approximately 15%.

The main window is zoomed out by approximately 15%.

The panel is fit to the current window. FS Panel Studio will limit Zooms and Fits to the range of 20% to 500%. If the <SHIFT> key is held down while clicking this button, the Zoom is set to 1.0.

FS Panel Studio's Main Window is repainted.

This button will alternately display and hide the Grid.

This button will alternately display the Panel background bitmap and Gauges in High or Low resolution. This tracks the behaviour of Flight Simulator, which changes its display depending on whether the displayed graphics resolution is lower or higher than 1024x768.

NOTE: FS Panel Studio does not store copies of both high and low resolution bitmaps in memory to conserver resources, so toggling this button will cause FS Panel Studio to reload the panel with the proper bitmaps. If you've made changes to the panel, you will be prompted to save the file.

Select this button to draw Gauges transparently, as is normal in Flight Simulator. Any black area (RGB 0,0,0) on a Gauge bitmap becomes transparent.

When selected, all Gauge Elements (as selected by the Gauge Drawing Options dialog) are drawn. When off, only the first Static Bitmap Element of a Gauge is drawn. For XML Gauges, all Gauge elements are bitmaps, so this will toggle display of all bitmap elements or only the first bitmap.

This button toggles between 4 modes:

- Gauges are outlined in yellow

- Gauges are outlined in yellow but their bitmaps are hidden

- Gauges are hidden, no outlines are drawn.

- Normal display

This button will alternately display and hide the Gauges which take up the entire Window. Full size Gauges, usually used for special effects like night lighting, make editing other Gauges difficult, and increase redraw times. Turning them off while editing can speed up your display, and make it easier to edit other Gauges on the Panel. Be careful, it can also make Gauges disappear when you don't expect it however! Some Gauges, like GPSs, are sized to exactly fit an entire Window.

This function does not affect the way Gauges are displayed in Flight Simulator, only in FS Panel Studio.

Press this toolbar button to add a new gauge to your panel.

Press this toolbar button to bring up the Gauge Editor

This button will drop down a list containing the Windows in the Panel  (the current window you're viewing will be checked). Use it to select and display a different Window within the current Panel.

This button will bring up the Fixed Window Tool, which will allow you to manage the Views allowed in FS2002/4. For example, this includes the views out the right, and left sides activated by the joystick hat switch or keypad arrow keys.

You can specify the position (relative to the background) the current window will occupy in Flight Simulator, with the window position tool. This sets the "view" outside the cockpit at startup.

When selected, the current Panel information will be written to a temporary panel.cfg file and opened in Notepad. This is useful to see what effects changes you have made look like in the panel.cfg file. You can also edit the file directly to make changes to the current Panel. After exiting notepad any modifications made will be applied and the Window redisplayed.

Prints the current Main window. Depending on the capabilities of your display driver and printer driver, gauges may not print transparently.

Displays the Help:About window, showing the revision of FS Panel Studio and system information. The most up to date source of Help information can be found at the FS Panel Studio website.