[Flightgear-devel] Composite Viewer UI/Configuration (was Re: A string of pearls)

[Stuart B. <stu...@gm...>]

Hi Folks,

On Sun, Nov 22, 2020 at 4:32 PM James Turner wrote:

> Mmmm, I *really* value the clean look of the splash screen, anything that
> messes with it makes me a bit sad, to be honest. Maybe I should just get
> over that, but since just enabling composite-viewer by itself doesn’t do
> anything; I feel the correct point to present the information is when you
> try to /use/ the feature; then you could do a message box saying ‘composite
> view not enabled’ and it would be perfectly clear.
>

Agreed.

Thinking about this further, I think we should aim to make
--composite-viewer and /sim/rendering/composite-view-enabled=1 a very
limited life configuration option.   If we can reach a point where we are
happy that there is no impact on the sim *unless the feature is actually
used*, then let's get rid of them and have it always enabled.  That's an
intentionally low bar, and one I'd hope we can reach in the next couple of
days.    If we have a feature that has no impact unless it's actually used,
then a configuration parameter to enable the ability to use the feature is
redundant.  It's just adding configuration complexity for no benefit AFAICT.

(Sorry Jules - this probably means you're adding to the help text might not
have been required.)

To get that level of confidence, I suggest we just add
/sim/rendering/composite-view-enabled=1 to defaults.xml and see how many
bugs people hit.  People on next get to be beta testers and they can always
switch it off if it is a problem.

Welcome to the bleeding edge ;)

-Stuart