PanelSight 1.3.0: Your phone or tablet as an extra screen

PanelSight 1.3.0 is a big release. Your phone, your tablet or another computer can now be an extra PanelSight screen, with nothing to install on it: you open a page in its browser, and it shows your panel, live, like a second monitor. This release also adds three Airbus aircraft, the A321LR, the A330 and the Beluga XL, redraws the airliner panels from their real cockpits, and makes update reminders much less intrusive.

Your phone or tablet as an extra screen

Any phone, tablet or computer on the same network as your PC can now show a PanelSight panel in its web browser. To the rest of PanelSight, it is a screen like any other monitor:

• It shows drawn instruments and live glass screens.
• Touch works as it does on a touchscreen monitor: press the buttons, and turn a knob with its knob dial.
• You choose what it shows, and it gets its own place in your custom layouts.
• When the browser comes back, it reconnects as the same screen, with what it showed before.

To set it up:

1. Open Settings, go to the Screens tab and turn on Browser screens.
2. On the phone or tablet, scan the QR code that Settings shows. Or type the short address shown there into the browser, then click Allow on the request that appears in Settings.
3. The browser now appears under Monitors, where you set its size and choose what it shows.

If the page does not open on the phone or tablet, click Page does not open?… in Settings for the steps. Windows may ask whether PanelSight can use the network: allow it on private networks.

We have tested browser screens thoroughly on desktop computers and Android devices, in Chrome and Firefox, and on iPhones and iPads.

The Airbus A321LR, A330 and Beluga XL

Three more airliners get a panel of their own. Like the A320neo and the 737 MAX 8, they are experimental, and their screens need Direct copy. On an NVIDIA graphics card, Automatic already uses it. On other cards, open Settings, go to the Glass tab and set Mirroring method to Direct copy (no pop-outs).

The airliner panels are also redrawn from the real cockpits. The A320neo and the A321LR now have their own autopilot panel (FCU), EFIS, MCDU and radio panels, and the 737 MAX 8's panels are matched to its own cockpit too.

CAP 10 and PA-28 Dakota

• Robin CAP 10: the panel now has its four-in-one engine gauges, both g-meters and the compass.
• Piper PA-28 Dakota: the panel now has its audio panel, so you can pick COM1 or COM2 and listen to stations from the panel.

Settings in four tabs

Settings used to be one long page. It now has four tabs: General, Screens, Glass and About. The glass screen options, including Mirroring method, are on the Glass tab, and updates are on the About tab.

Update reminders that wait until you land

• A reminder about a new version now comes up only while the aircraft is stopped on the ground, never in flight. It can also wait: After this flight updates PanelSight when your flight ends.
• Not now hides the reminder for 15 days. Don't show again hides it until the next larger update, for example from 1.3 to 1.4.
• You can also let PanelSight update itself: on the About tab, turn on Install updates automatically when I'm not flying. Updates then install only while you are not flying.

Fixes

• Direct copy screens could stutter at times, on a monitor or in a browser.
• A320neo: glass on a second screen could stay blank in some layouts.
• Picking an instrument with a screen switcher could sometimes change what another screen showed.
• GNS 530 (Dakota, DC-3, PC-6, Optica and Beaver): a thin strip at each side of its screen was cut off.
• A few keys on some aircraft did nothing, such as the Dakota's COM/VLOC push after the latest sim update.
• 737 MAX 8 and 747-8 CDU: the EXEC light now comes on when a change is waiting to be executed.
• Optica: the autopilot's altitude select works again after the aircraft's latest update.
• Settings no longer flickers when you drag it between monitors with different display scaling.

Who this is for

• If you have a phone or tablet nearby, it can now be an extra instrument screen, with no app to install.
• If you fly Airbus airliners, the A321LR, the A330 and the Beluga XL now have their own panels, and the A320neo's panels are redrawn.
• If you fly the CAP 10 or the Dakota, their panels now have more of their own instruments.
• If update reminders got in your way, they now wait until you are on the ground, or update for you.

How to update

PanelSight checks for new versions by itself. When one is out, a notice appears next to the PanelSight icon in the Windows taskbar. Click the notice, then click Update now in Settings. PanelSight downloads the update, installs it and starts again on its own. You can also run the installer from the download page again.

Updating always installs the newest version, which includes everything in this release.

For every change in 1.3.0, see the changelog.