Helios Users Guide
The Helios Virtual Cockpit System is fantastic embellishment to several flight simulators, and this guide provides an overview and introduction to this system
Craig Courtney;BlueFinBima
©2011 SCSimulations, LLC
©2011 Craig Courtney
All trademarks and registered trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
©Copyright 2014 Craig Courtney
Helios is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
Helios is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.
For the GNU General Public License, see http://www.gnu.org/licenses/.
| Version | Date | |
|---|---|---|
| Gadroc's original Helios Users Guide | 1 | 6th March 2011 |
| First BlueFinBima Revision | 1.4 | 10th June 2019 |
Thank you for your purchase or interest in Helios. Helios has been over a year in the making and we hope you have as much fun flying with it as we've had making it a reality. Helios as a concept was born from some inspirational work of DickDastardly's back in the middle of 2009. It has evolved tremendously and seen at least two user interface redesigns and hundreds of hours of development and testing. Thanks to everyone who has offered support both through encouragement and purchase. In addition I would be remiss in thanking my wife and family for putting up with me spending countless hours down in "the man cave".
This manual should give you a general overview of how to use Helios both to edit and run profiles. While it may seem daunting at first but once you get the general concepts down you'll be building amazing looking glass cockpits in no time. We would highly encourage you to join the forums at www.scsimulations.comto ask any questions, share your work or just say hi. You'll find tutorials and many great pilots who are always willing to help a fellow enthusiast.
Craig "Gadroc" Courtney_(Introduction retained from the V1 User's guide_ -6 March 2011)_
At some point, Craig Courtney began a reworking of the Helios code, the goal was a little unclear, but this effort petered out and he decided to donate this fantastic undertaking to the Open Source community on GitHub. His instructions were to refer to it as Helios 1.5, however without being able to obtain Craig's guidance, the fork that I pulled into the BlueFinBima repo along with Cylution's MiG-21BIS interface I decided to refer to as 1.4 mainly to differentiate it from Craig's 1.3 Master-work).All of the contributions thus far pail into insignificance compared with Craig's original undertaking, and readers should continue to think of Helios being Craig's endeavor with a few changes from others added on.
I began work on the BlueFinBima fork following my purchase of the Harrier AV-8B NA, and I decided to attempt to write my own dedicated Helios interface for that aircraft. I quickly found out how challenging &time consuming writing the interface, and creating a profile with graphics can be. Since then, I progressed on to creating an interface for the F/A-18C hornet and modifying CaptZeen's Hornet profile to talk to the dedicated Helios interface.
Time is a scarce resource, and with only a small number of contributors to the project, progress is very slow, and it is likely to continue to be this way. This said, I will endeavor to make updates available as and when the opportunity arises.
"BlueFinBima" June 2019
Introduction 3
Table of Contents 5
System Requirements 7
Operating System 7
Hard Drive 7
Memory 7
CPU 7
Video Card 7
Input 8
Installation and System Setup 9
Installation 9
File System Layout 9
Touch Screen Setup 11
Terms and Concepts 14
Controls 14
Panels 14
Interfaces 14
Triggers 14
Actions 14
Bindings 14
Gauge Packs and Modules 14
Control Center 15
Starting Control Center 15
Selecting a Profile 15
Starting a Profile 16
Resetting a Profile 16
Deleting a Profile 16
Closing Control Center 16
Setting Preferences 17
Profile Editor 19
Creating a New Profile 20
Saving and Loading Profiles 20
Navigating Your Profile 20
Adding, Editing and Removing Controls 22
Using the Layers Tool Panel 25
Templates 26
Add & Removing Interfaces 27
Bindings 28
Helios system requirements will vary based on how you are using it and what simulation you are running. Displaying switches and indicator lights does not take many resources while displaying 10-20 continuously updating gauges will have a much greater impact on your system.
Helios is designed and developed for Windows 7 and above. It is tested on both 32bit and 64bit versions of the operating system. There is nothing in the software which should prevent it from running on Windows XP with .Net 4.5 installed, but it is an untested and unsupported configuration.
Helios has a relatively small footprint, but does require .Net 4.Net 4.5 to be installed first. .Net 4.Net 4.5 can take up to1.5
GB of disk space on a 64 bit system, but is only installed once for all applications to use it. It is most likely already installed on yoursystem. Disk usage has not been assessed for Helios 1.4.
The amount of memory Helios consumes is directly related to the number of controls and size of your screens. An average profile will take about 100-200 MB of ram. This amount of memory should be added on top of what is required for your simulation.
Note: In order to use more than 3GB of ram you must be using a 64bit operating system. _ Currently Helios 1.4 is only compiled for 64 bit, however a 32 bit version is being considered._
Helios does not require much CPU, but it does need to run at the same time as your simulation. If your simulation is consuming 75% or more of your CPU before running Helios you may need to reduce some simulation settings to prevent FPS impact. An alternative is to run Helios on another PC.
Helios will take on average 75-100MB of video ram, although this is very dependent on what you put into the profiles and the size of the images you use. This video ram is in addition to what your simulation uses. If your card is fully consumed with the simulation, you may need to balance some of the graphics settings inside your simulation and the amount of data and size of graphics you use in your Helios profile to maintain smooth game play.
An alternative is to run Helios Control Center on a second PC.
Helios will work with any device which appears and as a mouse or touchscreen to windows.
To install Helios just download the latest version of Helios and your Gauge Packs from https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/3302014/http://www.scsimulations.comand then double click on each setup.exe. The setup application will check for any necessary pre-requisites and prompt you if you need to install anything before Helios. Helios will need to be installed before you install aircraft gauge packs.installation also delivers two other programs, one for exporting screen sections over a network, and one for keystrokes over the network. Both of these can be used when running Helios Control Center on a second PC.
The first time Helios runs it will create a directory name "Helios" under your My Documents directory. This is where Helios will store all your configuration, profile and images.
Helios.license – This file tells Helios who you are and what you have purchased.
ControlCenter.log/ControlCenter.log.bak - This file contains log information about what Helios Control Center is currently doing and the last time it was run. You may be asked to send this file for support.
ProfileEditor.log/ProfileEditor.log.bak - This file contains log information about what Helios Profile Editor is currently doing and the last time it was run. You may be asked to send this file for support.
HeliosSettings.xml – This file contains defaults and configurations for Control Center and Profile Editor. You can delete this file to reset configuration to defaults.
DefaultLayout.hly – This file contains your saved default layout for the profile editor.
This directory is where Control Center will look for the list of profiles. Each profile will have up to three files in this directory.
*.hpf – This is the actual profile and is the only file needed to run the profile.
*.bak – This is a backup of the profile which is copied every time you save the profile in the Profile Editor. If for some reason your profile gets corrupted you can try renaming this file.
*.layout – This is the layout of the Profile Editor window which was saved last time you saved the profile.
*.hply – This is a newer version of the layout used by the Profile Editor window manager to show the layout from the last time the profile was saved.
This directory and its sub-directories contain the your saved templates.
This directory is where you should place all of your custom images you use inside your profile.
Windows 7 has great built in support for touch screens, but not all of the default options work well with Helios. It is highly recommended that you follow these instructions to property setup your touch screens for Helios.
Note: Not all monitors are recognized as touch screens by Windows. If your touch screens do not respond to these settings, but still work to move your mouse around you need to follow the manufacturer's directions for setting up and calibrating your touch screen... In particular TouchKit based controls do not require these steps. For some touch screens, a mouse event can be triggered following a touch event, and there is an option in the Helios Control Center preferences which will allow mouse events to be ignored for a period of time following a touch event. This is not always necessary.
Windows needs to understand which monitor is your touch screen. If your mouse moves on another screen when you click on your touch screen you need to execute this step.
From the start menu select "Control Panel" then open the "Tablet PC Settings" control panel.
From the start menu select "Control Panel" then open the "Tablet PC Settings" control panel. - Click on the Setup button and follow the instructions on screen. Take special note to press enter without tapping your touchscreen when the message is displayed on normal monitors.
Windows 7 has features to help you use your touch screen as a primary input device. Unfortunately these can get in the way and cause problems when using Helios to play a game. We can disable this input panel tab to prevent it from showing up when we don't want it.
While you have the "Table PC Settings" window open, click on the tab labelled "Other" and then click on "Go to Input Panel Settings".
While you have the "Table PC Settings" window open, click on the tab labelled "Other" and then click on "Go to Input Panel Settings". - Now uncheck the "Use the Input Panel tab" option and click thee Ok button.
By default Windows right clicks when you touch and hold on a touch screen. This is great for interacting with Windows explorer or other regular applications, but causes problems when you are trying to hold down a lamp test or MFD button. Luckily we can change this behavior as well.
From the start menu select "Control Panel" then open the "Pen and Touch" control panel.
From the start menu select "Control Panel" then open the "Pen and Touch" control panel. - On the Pen Options tab click on the Press and Hold pen action and then click on the "Settings"button. - Uncheck "Enable press and hold for right- clicking" then click the OK button. - Switch to the Flicks tab and uncheck the "Use flicks to perform common actions quickly and easily". You can also uncheck "Display flicks icon in the notification area" if you want. - Next, switch to the Touch tab. - Click on the Press and hold touch action and then click on the "Settings"button. - Uncheck "Enable press and hold for right- clicking" and then click the OK button. - Now close the Pen and Touch control panel by clicking the OK button.
Helios has a few key concepts which you should understand in order to build and modify profiles.
Controls are the glass cockpit items that Helios renders and allow you to interact with the simulation through Helios. These range from simple text labels to clickable/touchable switches to full simulated gauges.
Panels are containers for controls. A panel can have multiple controls on it which will all be moved and hidden when the panel is moved. Panels may be nested inside of each other.
Interfaces are connectors which allow Helios to interact with other software and accept hardware based physical inputs. The most common interfaces you will use are the simulation interfaces (DCS, Falcon, etc…) and keyboard.
Helios is constantly monitoring what is happening with all of its interfaces and controls. When Helios detects something has happened that you may want to know about or which may affect displays, gauges or the simulation it fires of a Trigger. Each interface and control can expose a set of triggers relevant to its operation. The simulation interfaces expose the state of the aircraft and its instruments as triggers and controls expose triggers for changes in switch and button position. Triggers often supply giving you the value which triggered the change.
Actions represent the ability for Helios to supply input or change the state of controls and interfaces. Gauge controls expose actions which set their needles position and simulations expose actions to press buttons and flip switches. Many actions take a value as input.
Bindings are how you tell Helios what to do when a trigger is fired. Bindings associate an action which you want to occur when a trigger fires.
Gauge Packs and Modules are add-ins which supplies additional Controls and Interfaces for use in Helios profiles. These are usually licensed separately.
Note: The concept of Gauge Packs appears to have been deprecated with the move to Open Source.
Control Center is the primary tool you will use to find start and stop profiles.
Figure 1 Control Center Panel
- Profile Name – Displays the name of the currently selected profile.
- Power Button – Clicking this minimizes the Control Center to the taskbar.
- Status Message – Displays the current status of the Control Center. Helios will prompt you for any actions and alert you to error conditions here.
- Start Button – Clicking this button will start running the currently selected profile.
- Stop Button – Clicking this button will stop the currently running profile.
- Previous Button – Selects the previous profile. If a profile is running when a new profile is selected it will be automatically stopped.
- Preferences Button – Clicking this button will display the control center preferences.
- Next button – Selects the next profile. If a profile is running when a new profile is selected it will be automatically stopped.
- Delete Button – Clicking this button will delete the currently selected profile. You must confirmthedeletebyclickingthestartbuttonwhenpromptedbythestatusmessage.
- Reset Button – Clicking this button will reset the currently selected profile to defaultstate.
You can start control center by clicking on it in the start menu. Helios Control Center can be found under SCSimulationsGadroc's Workshop.
Control Center loads the list of all profile you have saved in your My Documents/Helios/Profiles directory. You can cycle through them in alphabetical order using the previous and next buttons. The current profiles name will be displayed on the control center.
To start a profile you must first select the profile using the next and previous buttons. Once the profile name you want to start is displayed in Control Center click the start button.
Profiles can also be started through windows explorer by right clicking on a profile and selecting Run.
Sometimes it's necessary to reset a profile to its default state. To reset your profile just click the reset button on the control center window. This is especially useful if you are flying a simulation without full integration and you need to restart a flight. For simulations which have full integration it will also request a full re-sync with the simulation.
Profiles can be reset while stopped or running. Profiles are automatically reset if they are reloaded due to a newer version being available when the start button is pressed or when cycling through profiles with the previous and next buttons.
Profiles can be deleted while in the control center. First make sure the profile you want to delete is selected and then click the Jettison Profile button. Helios will prompt you to click the start button in order to confirm you want to delete the profile. Clicking any other button besides start will cancel the delete.
You can also delete profiles by deleting them through Windows Explorer. Just find the profile in your My Documents/Helios/Profiles directory and drag it to the trash.
Control Center is designed to run in the background and will normally minimize itself to the taskbar instead of exiting. You can tell Helios to close all together by right clicking on the taskbar icon and selecting the "Exit Control Center" task.
Control Center preferences are opened and closed by clicking on the preferences button on the main screen.
Figure 2 Original Control Center Preferences
- Start At Login – When set to on Helios will automatically load every time you log into your system.
- Start Minimized – When set to on Helios will start minimized to the taskbar.
- Hide on Profile Start – When set to on Helios will automatically minimize itself whenever a profile is started.
- HotKey Set – Clicking this button will allow you to set the hotkey which will bring Helios to the top of the screen.
- HotKey Clear – Clicking this button will remove the currently sethotkey.
- HotKey – This displays the currently set hotkey. When this hotkey is pressed Helios will be brought to the top off all windows on thescreen.
- Touchscreen – This is to enable Control Center's ability to ignore a mouse event after a touch event for a short period. This can happen with certain combinations of Touchscreen models, drivers and Windows versions. If "SUPPRESS2NDTRIGGER" is selected, then a time period can be set to ignore the mouse event and avoid the appearance of a double touch on the screen.
Figure 3Control Center 1.4 Preferences Screen
Helios Profile Editor allows you to construct your own profiles or customize the samples profiles you can download. Profile editor can be found under SCSimulationsGadroc Workshop/Helios in your start menu. The default layout for the profile editor is shown below.
Download latest Helios from this repo or from DCS User Files