Making a plugin

To make Copilot load your lua code, simply create a lua file with the name of your choice inside Copilot for FSLabs\copilot\custom. Copilot will load all lua files in that folder at startup.

If you have multiple files that you want to be loaded in a particular order, use the standard library require function. Since the custom folder isn't scanned recursively, you can have one main lua file at the top level and have the rest in subfolders. For example, given the following structure:

Copilot for FSLabs\copilot\custom\
  init.lua
  myplugin\
    file1.lua
    file2.lua

you can load file1.lua and file2.lua from init.lua (which will be loaded by Copilot) like this:

require "copilot.custom.myplugin.file1"
require "copilot.custom.myplugin.file2"

If you want to use Copilot with other aircraft, use the custom_non_fsl folder instead of custom (you'll need to create it yourself). If you have multiple add-ons, you'll need to write code that tells which aircraft was loaded. One way to do that is matching a substring in copilot.aircraftTitle.

Examples

See the examples in the sidebar that are prefixed with copilot_.

Monitoring the MCDUs

Copilot constantly monitors the PF's MCDU for certain variables (for example, the takeoff speeds). This is done on a background thread because the main thread may be blocked at any time by other code.

You can have the background thread additionally run your own code. To do that, create a lua file at a location of your choice and call copilot.addMcduCallback(filePath) from your plugin code. The file should return a callback that will receive the MCDU display data and store variables using the setVar function (it can also call getVar and clearVar). These variables can be retrieved and cleared from the main thread using the functions returned by copilot.addMcduCallback.

The parameter passed to your callback is a table containing the fields PF, PM, CPT and FO. Each one is an array of tables representing MCDU display cells. A cell table contains the fields char, color and isBold. Each MCDU table additionaly has an str field which represents the display as a string.

-- Copilot for FSLabs\copilot\custom\myplugin\mcdu.lua

return function(data)
  local PF = data.PF.str
  if PF:sub(40, 46) == "FROM/TO" and data.PF[64].color == "cyan" then
    setVar("FROM",  PF:sub(64, 67))
    setVar("TO",    PF:sub(69, 72))
  end
end

-- Copilot for FSLabs\copilot\custom\init.lua

local getMcduVar, clearMcduVar = copilot.addMcduCallback(
  APPDIR .. "copilot\\custom\\myplugin\\mcdu.lua"
)

copilot.addCallback(function()
  print(("FROM: %s TO: %s"):format(
    getMcduVar "FROM" or "????", getMcduVar "TO" or "????"))
end, nil, 1000)

copilot.events.chocksSet:addAction(function()
  clearMcduVar "FROM"
  clearMcduVar "TO"
end)

Bind {
  key = "A",
  onPress = function()
    -- use this function to find the display cell indices:
    FSL.MCDU:printCells() -- PM MCDU
    --FSL.PF.MCDU:printCells()
    --FSL.CPT.MCDU:printCells()
  end
}

Copilot for FSLabs 2.3.6

Contents

Manual

Libraries

Classes

Examples

Making a plugin

Examples

Monitoring the MCDUs