The Plugin Patterns Library provides classes for common tasks with the XPLM SDK for the X-Plane flight simulator. It is provided under BSD license.

Questions, support and pull request are handled through http://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?showtopic=49958

Usage examples can be found here.

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Library contents

Grouped by category

Sim interface

dataref.h Connects with existing datarefs

owneddata.h Creates new datarefs

command.h Observes and/or replaces existing commands or creates new ones

processor.h Simple wrapper for flight loop callback (i.e. simple 'update' functions

logichandler.h Abstract class for XP > FLCB > custom dataref processing

sharedobject.h Passes large objects as binary data to/from datarefs

User interface

messagewindow.h Displays pop-up message

onscreendisplay.h Draws a window on the screen

menuitem.h Adds item to plugin menu

menuaction.h Abstract base for menu items

Sound

alsoundbuffer.h Stores a sound file

alcontextmanager.h Manages the playing of sound buffers

alcontextchanger.h Changes AL context using RAII

OpenGL

overlaygauge.h Creates context for you to draw on the 3D panel and/or a 2D popup/VR window. This class contains some XP11-only features which have been crudely wrapped in #ifdef statements for XP10 compatibility.

texture.h Loads .bmp/.tga image for OpenGL drawing

fontmgr.h Loads .ttf/.otf font file for OpenGL drawing

vertexbuffer.hpp Wraps OpenGL Vertex Buffer Objects

Utility

pluginpath.h Platform-independent paths to various folders

logwriter.h Writes log message

log.h Set up logging

settings.h Load and save settings in a .ini file

basics.h Maths utility functions

smoothed.h Superficial smoothing - returns average of the last n assigned values

namespaces.h Prevents name collision on 32-bit systems

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Why this fork?

Key differences to Philipp's PPL are:

• OverlayGauge reworked a bit, replacing static functions with lambdas for callbacks, and making XP11-only elements optional so it works with XP10.
• OwnedData allows you to specify read and write callback functions, which are stored as std::function objects rather than function pointers.
• Add Command class (also gratuitously overusing std::function)
• Minor fixes prompted by compiler warnings, adding static_cast and nullptr
• Configured to use clang-format on new files only

Using this library

Include it in a plugin project as a git submodule. Using Qt Creator/qmake, you can set up a subdirs project containing your plugin, PPL, and any other libraries you'd like to use. This is demonstrated with [PPL-Demo] (https://github.com/JDeeth/PPL-Demo).