The Cockpit is the Maestro of the Cockpitdecks application.

It starts up the entire Cockpitdecks application. It establishes connection to the simulator, scans for existing decks connected to the computer, and load the aircraft configuration files. It listen to interactions that occur on the decks and listen to simulator changes to reflect deck statuses. It also monitors which aircraft is currently loaded in the simulator, and if the user changes aircraft, it loads the new configuration if any.

Aircraft Configuration

Decks are particular to one aircraft. All files necessary to Cockpitdecks are located in a single folder named deckconfig that is found in the folder of the X-Plane aircraft currently being used. In that folder, Cockpitdecks will discover all decks connected to the system and available to it.

All configuration files for Cockpitdecks are Yaml-formatted files. Yaml file contains a structured list of (name, value) pairs. The name is referred to as an attribute. The value can be almost anything: A number, a string, a list of things, or a list of other attributes.

The `deckconfig` Folder

The overall structure of the files and sub-folders inside the deckconfig folder is as follow:

<X-Plane Aircraft Folder>
  (.. aircraft files ..)
  ⊢ deckconfig
    ⊢ config.yaml
    ⊢ secret.yaml
    ⊢ resources
      ⊢ icons
        ⊢ icon-off.png
      ⊢ fonts
        ⊢ B612-Regular.otf
        ⊢ DIN.ttf
      ⊢ decks
        ⊢ images
        ⊢ types
      ⊢ docs
        ⊢ README.md
      ⊢ other-resource.py
    ⊢ layout1
      ⊢ config.yaml
      ⊢ page1.yaml
      ⊢ page2.yaml
      ...
    ...
    ⊢ layoutN
      ⊢ page1.yaml
      ⊢ page2.yaml
      ...

The deckconfig folder contains the following files and sub-folders:

Name	Description
config.yaml	Main configuration file
secreat.yaml	Serial numbers of decks used by Cockpitdecks
resources	Resource files used by this configuration. Resources are icons, fonts, images, etc.
layout(s)	A Layout is a folder that contains what is displayed on a deck. There can be as many Layout Folder as necessary for this aircraft. All remaining folders in the `deckconfig`folder are layout folders. There usually is one Layout folder per deck.

`config.yaml` File

The file named config.yaml in the deckconfig folder contains declarations for each deck that will be used and global, aircraft-level attributes.

# Definition of decks for Toliss A321
#
aicraft: Toliss 
decks:
  - name: XPLive
    type: loupedeck
    layout: live
    brightness: 70
# These attributes are default values at global level
default-wallpaper-logo: Airbus-logo.png
default-icon-color: (94, 111, 130)
default-label-color: white
default-label-font: DIN.ttf
default-label-size: 14
cockpit-color: lightblue

Attributes

The parameters apply to all decks for the given aircraft. Each individual deck will have the possibility to redefine these values if necessary.

Attribute	Definition
`aircraft`	Optional information. The name of the aircraft for this set of deck.
`cockpit-color`	Color for the cockpit. This color is used as the default background color for icons.
`cockpit-texture`	Name of a image file (JPEG or PNG) that will be used as the (default) background of icons. The `cockpit-texture` file will be searched at different places depending on where it is specified. The `cockpit-texture` file can be specified at the Cockpit, Deck, Page, or Button level. Cockpit-level default textures will be seached in the following folders (in that order): - `resources` - `resources/icons` If the AIRCRAFT is specified, Cockpit-level textures and all other levels textures will be searched in the following folders: - `AIRCRAFT/resource` - `AIRCRAFT/icons` If no texture is found, a uniform `cockpit-color` icon is used.
`default-wallpaper-logo`	Name of image file, located in the `resource` folder, to be loaded when the deck is not used.
`default-*`	Name of default values of several parameters, defined at the aircraft-level. These values will be used for all missing values. They can be raffined at Layout and Page level if necessary. If no aircraft-level global parameter values are not provided, Cockpitdecks will use its own internal default values.
decks	A list of Deck structure, one per deck.

Yaml allow for other attributes in the file. They are ignored by Cockpitdecks. You may include other attributes like aircraft name, ICAO code, descriptions, notes, even change log of your file.

`secret.yaml` File

The secret.yaml file contains the serial numbers of your connected decks.

If you have more than one deck of the same type (i.e. two Streamdecks, two X-TouchMini, etc.) this file is mandatory to distinguish between the two physical devices. Otherwise, it is optional.

# My decks and their serial numbers.
# Format:
# DeckName: Serial number
# DeckName must match name given in config.yaml.
XPLive: AAA0000000000000000000A0000

Resources

Resources are fonts, icons, other images, wallpapers, documentation, and texts used and related to that aircraft.

Folder	Content
icons	Folder containing all icon images for that aircraft. Images should be in JPEG or PNG format. Typical icon size is 256 × 256 pixels, RGB(A). Icons are named after their file name without the extension.
fonts	Folder containing all icon images for that aircraft. Images should be in JPEG or PNG format. Typical icon size is 256 × 256 pixels, RGB(A). Icons are named after their file name without the extension.
docs	Docs folder may contain documentation files, like explanatory images, and descriptive texts. Simpler text or markdown files are preferred.
decks	Cockpitdecks allow experienced users to add their own Web Decks specific to an aircraft.

Layout Folders

Next to the the above resources folder, there will be one folder per Layout for a deck.

Layout folders are explained separately.