FGCom, FGComGui, and FlightGear

FGCom is a virtual radio software built on top of voip using Asterisk. FGCom and FlightGear are two completely independant programs, but they work together to bring realistic radio communication your FlightGear session. Using FlightGear's generic protocol framework FGCom is able to receive information about your flightgear session, such as when you keyed the mic to talk and your position on earth.

FGCom is currently implemented as a command line only program, it has no graphical interface, it must be started and configured from the shell window. While this is not a bad thing, some find it difficult to understand or unfriendly to use. FGComGui attempts to change this by creating a simple GUI frontend to FGCom, making usage a simple point and click operation.

The main window.

The configuration window. Available from the menu, or the system tray icon context menu.

1. There are two run modes, the normal mode used with flightgear, and a test mode. In the test mode everything you say will be echoed back to you, allowing you to check that everything is working and volumes are good.
2. Slider to adjust your input(recording) volume
3. Slider to adjust your output(playback) volume
4. Start button, pressing this to start fgcom
5. Stop button, press this to stop fgcom
6. Messages from fgcom will be displayed here
7. Name or full path of the fgcom executable. Does not normally need to be changed.
8. The fgcom server to connect to. Does not normally need to be changed(there is only one server currently).
9. The port you configured flightgear to send data on, see flightgear section. Does not normally need to be changed.
10. Enable or disable fgcomgui running in the system tray / notification area.

By default, FGComGui will display an icon in the system tray(notification area). It can be enabled/disabled from the configuration window. On Linux, with system tray enabled, closing the window does not exit the application, and it will continue running in the tray. On Windows, with system tray enabled, closing the window will exit FGComGui, instead use the minimize button to close only the window and continue running in the system tray / notifcation area. With system tray disabled, on both platforms, behavior will be that of a normal window, as expected.

Right clicking on the icon will bring up a context menu with options to show, hide, start, stop, configure, or exit FGComGui.

Hovering the cursor over the icon will show an informative tooltip about current state of fgcom[gui]

* Settings can only be modifed while fgcom is not running.

* Windows does not support rich text tooltips, tooltip will look different on this platform.

To do anything useful FGCom needs information from FlightGear, such as position, radio frequency, and when you keyed the mic. To get this information FGCom uses FlightGear's generic protocol framework, which we need to setup. This is a simple procedure, and only needs to be done once.

Start by opening the FlightGear wizard(fgrun). On the fourth page of the wizard, you will see a button marked advanced like below.

Pressing the advanced button will open a new window. In the list to the left of this window, select Input/Output. Press the New button to add a new entry, and then configure the options to match the image below. When finished, press Ok.

That's all that needs to be configured. Now when FlightGear and FGCom are running, they will be able to communicate with each other. Tuning your radio in FlightGear will set the frequency for FGCom, and pressing the push-to-talk key(default is spacebar), FGCom will transmit what you say on that frequency. It does not matter what order FlightGear and FGCom are started, as long as they are both running. Enjoy!