SlotHel integrates the VACC-Austria Web-based Slotmanagement into EuroScope by reading the provided JSON.
Each Aircraft and Slot are read in, saved and continuously refreshed. The slot data (TSAT & CTOT) for each callsign are provided into a EuroScope DepartureList column. For better slot handling, the times are marked by colors depending on current UTC time (too early, on time, too late).
Since SlotHel was developed as an EuroScope plugin, it requires a working installation EuroScope. The initial development was started using EuroScope version v3.2.1.26, although the plugin should most likely also work fine with previous and later versions. As development continues, compatibility to the latest beta versions of EuroScope will be maintained as long as possible and feasible.
- Download the latest release (
SlotHel.zip) ofSlotHelfrom the Releases section of this repository - Extract
SlotHel.dlland place int somewhere inside your EuroScope sectorfile/profile setup, where other plugins are already set up - Start EuroScope and open the Plug-ins dialog in the settings menu (OTHER SET)
- Load the plugin by selecting the
SlotHel.dllyou extracted and ensure the proper version is displayed
SlotHel will also confirm successful initialisation by logging its version to the Messages chat:
[08:34:10] SlotHel: Version 0.0.1 loaded.
5. Close the plugin dialog and open the departure list columns setup dialog (small S at the left side of your departure list)
SlotHel / Slot Tag Item type. Pick a Header name and set a Width of 12 or greater. This column will visualize the slot and show corresponding colors for warnings.
7. Assign the SlotHel / Reload Data action as the Left button or Right button action of any of your tag items as desired. Triggering this function will refresh the slot data from the web.
8. (Optional) Assign the SlotHel / Slot Menu action as Left button or Right button action for detailed actions (currently no additional functions).
9. Close the departure list settings by clicking OK
SlotHel requests the JSON file containing all slot data from VACC-Austria Webserver (Default Path: [vacc-austria]https://www.vacc-austria.org/data/subsystem/slots/). As of current Version (0.0.1) it is a read-only request and therefore does not require any authorization. The slot data is parsed and displayed in the EuroScope column.
Per default the request intervall is 30 sec. to update the slot data. To change the intervall, see (#chat-commands). If there is no positive response from the webserver within the timeout-window (default: 3 sec.) no data is retreived and the intervall is started again.
TSAT = Target Start Up Approval Time -> UTC time, when the aircraft is allowed to start engines (and therefore usually will be commencing pushback)
CTOT = Calculated Take Off Time -> UTC time, when the aircraft will commence take-off
Info, dark grey
The plugin could not correlate a callsign with a slot, therefor, no data is available.
grey - if slot TSAT is more than xx min. (default 5) in the future
green - if slot TSAT is less than xx min. (default 5) in the future, but less than xx min. (default 5) behind current UTC.
Warning:
orange - if slot TSAT is more than xx min. (default 5), but less than xx min. (default 10) behind current UTC.
Info:
green - the aircraft has left the gate (EuroScope:TAXI, DEPA == Ground-Radar-Plugin: Taxi, Line-up or Take-off) and can depart within reasonable time. CAUTION: States from EuroScope r26 and GroundRadarPlugin V 1.4b4 Those are about to change with ES r27 or higher and may not yet be compatible.
Error: red - if slot TSAT is more than xx min. (default 10) behind current UTC, the slot is overdue and has to be rescheduled via the web-based Slotmanagement.
Tag items are used to display information about flightplans in aircraft lists, such as the departure or arrival list.
At the moment, SlotHel only adds one (optional) tag item to EuroScope:
The Slot tag item displays the correlated slot data for this callsign, according to previous mentioned formats.
Tag functions are used to trigger plugin functionality via a flightplan tag in aircraft lists, such as the departure or arrival list.
At the moment, SlotHel adds functions for processing FPLs which can be added as an action to any tag item desirable (although using them with the Slot tag item is recommended):
Triggers a manual reload of the slot data and updates all shown information. Can be used with auto connection on or off.
To change the default settings, the Plugin provides various chat commands, that can be entered into the EuroScope commandline.
Shows the current version and available commands in the Message-Chat of EuroScope.
Triggers a manual data update and retreives the slot data once. Same function as using the Tag-Functions above.
Default off
Toggles the auto connection, to retreive data automatically with the set rate (default 30 sec.)
If auto connection is activated, the current update intervall is printed to the user.
xx = intervall between updates in seconds. Default 30
Can be changed to any integer value equal or above 5 sec.,but low values should be used with caution to prevent blocking EuroScope.
xxxx = 4-letter ICAO of airport, to use the slots from. Default LOWW, in Vacc-Austria the following alternatives are valid: LOWW, LOWI, LOWS
Selection of unknown ICAO results in connection timeouts during data retrieval.
xxxx = the appendix of the URL after the ICAO, this is (for VACC austria) usually ".standard.departure.json"
Change accordingly, to retrieve data from the event slot-list.
Default off
Toggles extensive debug messages, can be used for development or manual checks which data is retreived and processed.
If you have a suggestion for the project or encountered an error, please open an issue on GitHub. Please provide a summary of your idea or problem, optionally with some logs or screenshots and ways to replicate for the latter.
The current development state as well as a rough collection of ideas can also be found in the SlotHel project board on GitHub.
Pull requests are highly welcome, feel free to extend the plugin's functionality as you see fit and submit a request to this repository to make your changes available to everyone. Please keep in mind this plugin attempts to provide features in a relatively generic way so it can be used by vACCs with different needs - try refraining from "hard-coding" any features that might just apply to a specific airport or vACC.
SlotHel currently has no external development dependencies aside Visual Studio. Initial development started using Visual Studio 2019, although later versions should most likely remain compatible.
To allow for debugging, the project has been configured to launch EuroScope as its debug command. Since your installation path of EuroScope will most likely be different, you must set an environment variable EUROSCOPE_ROOT to the directory EuroScope is installed in (not the actual EuroScope.exe executable), for instance E:\EuroScope.
Note: triggering a breakpoint seems to cause both EuroScope and Visual Studio to freak out, resulting in high resource usage and slugging mouse movements, thus only being of limited usefulnes. NEVER debug your EuroScope plugin using a live connection as halting EuroScope apparently messes with the VATSIM data feed under certain circumstances.
SlotHel is compiled using Windows SDK Version 10.0 with a platform toolset for Visual Studio 2019 (v142) using the ISO C++17 Standard.
This repository contains all external dependencies used by the project in their respective include and lib folders:
EuroScope: EuroScope plugin librarynlohmann/json: JSON for Modern C++ (v3.9.1, MIT License), used for parsing the airport config JSONlibcurl: Library for HTTP Requests in C++ (v7.76.1, Open Source), used for requesting the JSON file from Webserver