Welcome Back

Hello everyone. We’d like to begin by reaffirming our continued commitment to releasing the first paid version of TFM as soon as possible. The work continues, and below you can find a brief discussion of what is yet to come. The work has slowed as of the last month since Andy was absent on a necessary trip but rest assured things will quickly pick back up on the software side now that he has returned.

What is Being Updated

So, what are we doing inside TFM itself:

• The settings screen is being re-worked, alongside the airports database which was in need of some love. A new, reliable connection screen to display various pieces of information related to TFM’s status will be created, alongside additions to the TFM menu improving ease of access. A single window for TFM will be implemented, meaning that any interface elements that are displayed will appear here.
• We have further separated out keyboard commands. The right bracket offerings that you will be familiar with are now named the ‘PFD’, primary flight display, and include key instruments, I.E heading, altitude, speed and vertical speed. Other right bracket commands will be moved elsewhere. Similarly, the left bracket keys have now been titled the ‘SFD’ or secondary flight display, which includes key areas such as your MCP, and other functions will be moved elsewhere. The ‘pfd’ and ‘sfd’ will be viewable in a user interface window, which may be useful for those with braille displays for example.
• You will find many other ease of use changes which make TFM more reliable and streamlined. For example pilots will now choose which aircraft they’re flying when launching, a measure designed to insure any detection issues are overcome. TFM’s logging system has also been refined alongside the user’s ability to find and send said logs.

Support

So, what else?

• We are completing our bug tracking processes, but do remember our support form system is now active. Official support is taking place via this method. Any support through the various other groups, especially that from team members, should be considered unofficial but will of course continue. A reminder that we will no longer be officially supporting the opensource versions of TFM, whilst community based support will continue unofficially. After the launch of the subscription, any bugs or feature requests will have to be logged.

Concluding Thoughts

We thank those who sent in applications relating to documentation and will soon form a team for this, although much of the work will begin after the initial release since we do not wish to make large-scale changes to TFM’s core immediately after the process of creation has begun, since this seems rather counter-productive.

Thanks for reading this brief update, we’ll be back with more soon.