Cockpitdecks is an application that connect decks to the X-Plane flight simulator. On one side, the application scans for decks connected to the computer and prepare them for use with X-Plane. On the other side, Cockpitdecks connects to X-Plane through the network to issue instructions to the simulator and listen to changes to reflect those changes on the deck device if it allows it.

To determine what to display on decks, which commands to issue to the simulator, etc. Cockpitdecks reads a set of configuration files on startup.

Configuration files are specific to an aircraft. Commands are different on a Cessna and on an Airbus. Things to display on the deck are different as well. That’s why configuration files are located in the folder of the aircraft being used because they are specific to it. Numerous other software like X-Camera proceed in a similar way, locating their aircraft specific configuration there as well.

The Cockpit is the Maestro component 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.

The following pages describe the necessary configuration files, their location and organisation, and their content. Configuration files are organized in structured folders, and this structure is explained as well.

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.

Cockpitdecks Configuration for one Aircraft

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 find all its configuration files.

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
`secret.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 it the main configuration file, It contains declarations for each deck that will be used, and global, aircraft-level attributes.

# Definition of decks for Toliss A321
#
aircraft: Toliss 
decks:
  - name: XPLive
    type: loupedeck
    layout: live
    brightness: 70
# These attributes are default values at global level
named-colors:
    COCKPIT_BACKLIGHT: darkorange
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 following attributes 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.
`named-colors`	Allows to introduce your own named color. You can then use this name as a color. The value of the named color can either be a 3 or 4 value tuple (r, g, b, a), or the name of a Pillow color. (See Resources.)
`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. Comments are also allowed in Yaml files.

`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. All these elements are organized into the resources folder.

Usually, the resources folder contains the following sub-folders:

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 fonts for that aircraft. Fonts can be Truetype or Opentype. Fonts are named after their file name with 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 create 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 later.

Decks

One of the most important attributes in the main configuration file is the decks attribute which defnies all decks available to Cockpitdecks..