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Releases: slgoldberg/BLU-fx

v1.2

31 Jul 21:02
@slgoldberg slgoldberg
v1.2
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BLU-fx v1.2 for X-Plane 11/12 - Released 31-July 2024

This is BLU-fx version 1.2, by Matteo Hausner and Steve Goldberg, built on 31-July-2024 as a 64-bit plugin for X-Plane 11 and 12, on Windows, Mac (Apple Silicon or Intel), and Linux.

  • TO INSTALL: Simply download the attached .zip file below, and unzip it. Then drag or move the folder named "blu_fx" (containing the README.tx and other files and folders) directly into your X-Plane installation's Resources/plugins folder. Be sure to replace any previous files to ensure it installs correctly. This uses the modern X-Plane "universal plugin format", which means the plugin for each platform is in the sub-folder for that platform, i.e. "mac_x64/blu_fx.xpl" will be the universal Mac binary (for Apple Silicon and Intel machines), "lin_x64/blu_fx.xpl" will be the 64-bit Intel-based Linux binary, and "win_x64/blu_fx.xpl" will be the Windows 64-bit (Intel-based) binary. Mac users note: the attached blu_fx.xpl has been fully notarized, so it will automatically load if you have your security settings set to allow apps from approved third-party developers; but even if you don't have that set, it will ask you for approval the very first time, without forcing you to reload X-Plane or anything crazy like that!

IMPORTANT: This version of BLU-fx will NOT run on older versions of X-Plane, before v11.10! Any users wishing to use BLU-fx on those versions should continue to use the original v1.0 release by Matteo Hausner. (Note: Since X-Plane 11.10 and up only accept 64-bit binary format for plugins, there is also no way to use this version on a system that doesn't support 64-bit binaries.)

Release Notes for BLU-fx v1.2 (released 31-July-2024):

This is generally the same user interface as the original release, however it includes support for X-Plane 11 and X-Plane 12 (to the exclusion of any older versions!), and introduces a way to readily restore the current filter configuration to the one loaded from the .prf file. It also allows users to swap the .ini file behind the scenes with a different one, and to hit a button in the settings window to force-load the .ini file again, so you no longer need to quit and restart X-Plane just to try out a different saved configuration.

  • Change the Settings window in the following ways:
    • Hide the "Raleigh" slider in X-Plane 12, since Raleigh does not exist (in the same way), and so any saved Raleigh value will be ignored in XP12.
    • Fix the window and associated fonts to be sized and rendered correctly when users choose any "UI Zoom" in X-Plane that is not 100%. In other words, switch to using "modern" windows in X-Plane, to have the plugin correctly honor the UI scaling requested by users via X-Plane "UI Zoom".
    • Add a button to reload the current filter state (i.e, the values of all the slliders and options) from the .ini file on-demand, instead of only loading it at startup.
    • Add a button to write the current filter state back into the .ini file, replacing the contents of whatever was there before. This always happened automatically at simulator shutdown time. This means in addition to always writing at shutdown, BLU-fx now also writes the .ini file when you ask it to!
    • Fix Blu-FX to actually work on all modern platforms, from X-Plane 11.10 through X-Plane 12 (latest release as of this writing.) This comes, however, at the cost of no longer supporting older versions of X-Plane, including 32-bit versions of the operating system.
    • ... more may be added here in a subsequent in-place update ...

Known Issues:

This release (as with v1.0) has a known issue, relating to the way sliders and clicks within regions around them can fail to work properly in some cases within the X-Plane "widgets" graphical user interface toolkit which is being used by this version. The result is that some sliders will not work properly when dragged or when you click within the open space to the right or left of the slider itself. This is mostly problematic for the first slider (brightness).

To work around this issue, simply click the actual arrows ("<" or ">") on the left and/or right of the slider to move the slider one "notch" per click. This works fine. You may also the "<<" and ">>" buttons to move in larger chunks if they move too slow when clicked one at a time.

This issue only happens for a few sliders, not for all of them, and will go away in the future since we will be retiring the legacy "widgets" toolkit in favor of the much more powerful and capable ImWindows user interface toolkit for X-Plane, which enables the use of the very popular ImGui framework. In other words, these problems will go away by the next release, hopefully.

For previous release notes or other information, please see the archived README.md and other information associated with the original open-source repository for this plugin at https://github.com/bwRavencl/BLU-fx.*

  • *The original repository has been archived, since Matteo is no longer able to support that version. Any requests should be directed to Steve Goldberg (via private message on the X-Plane.org forums to @slgoldberg), referencing the forked repository where all newer development is located. (The new repository is at <https://github.com/slgoldberg/BLU-fx>.)

For any questions or comments, please contact Steve (information above).

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