[pkg-fgfs-crew] ITP: ffgo -- a launcher for flightgear

[Markus Wanner]

Subject: ITP: ffgo -- a launcher for flightgear
Package: wnpp
Severity: wishlist
Owner: Markus Wanner <markus at bluegap.ch>

* Package name:     ffgo
  Version:          1.12.5
  Upstream Author:  Florent Rougon
* URL:              http://frougon.net/projects/FFGo/
* License:          GPL 3+ with OpenSSL exception
  Programming Lang: Python (3)
  Description:      powerful graphical launcher for FlightGear

FFGo is a fast and simple way to start a FlightGear session. Like other such
applications (e.g., FGRun, FGo!, FGx), FFGo allows one to easily select the
aircraft, airport, scenario, etc.

One thing that distinguishes it from other such applications is the text
window allowing one to write any other, more advanced command line options
that will be passed to FlightGear. This is similar, but much more convenient
and powerful, to editing the .fgfsrc configuration file. The main difference
in power compared to editing .fgfsrc or using FGo! comes from FFGo's use of
CondConfigParser to process the user's configuration.

In addition to this, FFGo offers:
 * an easy setup (Preferences dialog);
 * convenient selection of aircraft and startup airport or carrier;
 * possibility to choose between identically-named aircrafts based on which
   directory they are stored in (using tooltips in the aircraft list);
 * easy selection of startup runway or parking position, offering startup
   locations from apt.dat if there is no groundnet-defined parking position
   for the selected airport;
 * detailed airport, runway, helipad and parking tooltips. Airport tooltips
   show things such as airport type (land airport, seaplane base or
   heliport), latitude, longitude, elevation, number of land runways, water
   runways, helipads, magnetic variation... Runway/helipad tooltips show
   runway type, length and width, surface type, magnetic as well as true
   heading, etc. Parking tooltips show similar information as runway
   tooltips, plus maximum aircraft radius, reserved airline codes...

   Note: MagneticField from the geographiclib-tools package is needed for
         magnetic data.
 * easy consulting of METAR data for the nearest station relatively to the
   selected airport (if any);
 * a powerful Airport Finder dialog allowing one to easily find airports
   using various criteria: distance to a chosen, “reference airport”; number
   of land runways, water runways, or helipads; length of the longest or
   shortest runway in the airport, etc. The table of results displays, among
   others, the distance and bearings between the reference airport and each
   “result airport”. It can be sorted according to any column with a simple
   click on the column header.
 * a GPS Tool dialog allowing one to find the distance, initial and final
   bearings for the shortest path between two given airports. The dialog
also
   computes the flight duration for a given ground speed, and vice versa.
 * easy selection of one or more scenarios, allowing one to browse the
   description of each available scenario;
 * realtime preview of the arguments that will be passed to fgfs
(FlightGear)
   if the “Run FG” button is pressed;
 * the possibility to copy to the clipboard a shell command that is
   equivalent to what FFGo will do if the “Run FG” button is pressed;
 * the option to translate fgfs' --parkpos option into the corresponding
   combination of --lat, --lon and --heading options. This is useful
when the
   --parkpos option is broken in FlightGear;
 * easy viewing and saving of FlightGear output (log);
 * automatic FFGo + FlightGear log saving and rotating.
 * ability to read and merge an arbitrary number of in-scenery-paths,
   uncompressed or gzip-compressed apt.dat files (compliant with a feature
   introduced in FlightGear 2016.4.0).


Kind Regards

Markus Wanner

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