Checklist Reader – Your Voice-Controlled Copilot for MSFS 2024

Checklist Reader – Version 1.0.18.10 This release is about windows and monitors. A pilot flying with seven monitors at four different scalings ended up with a simulator window too small to use and no way to get it back. Every main window now has a Window menu, the setup adds a Start menu entry that puts the layouts right even when no window can be reached at all, and windows finally follow the scaling of the monitor they are moved to. Alongside that, Checklist Reader now mentions the optional Checklist Library Extensions inside the program instead of only on the download page, and the copilot answers your commands the way a second person in the cockpit would: by saying what he is about to do, not which switch moved. Important: Nothing needs to be done on your side. Every setting carries over. For hundreds of additional aircraft and checklist variants, download the separate Checklist Library Extensions package; Checklist Reader is the main application that displays and reads that optional library. -------------------------------------------------- NEW: A Window Menu On Every Main Window • Every main window now carries a Window menu, placed before Help. • "Move This Window to Main Monitor" brings the window you are looking at back to the upper-left area of your main monitor and keeps its size. • "Move This Window To" lists every monitor with its size, scaling and position, and numbers them on screen while the list is open, so you can see which one is which before you pick. • "Bring All Windows to Main Monitor" does the same for every open Checklist Reader window. • "Reset All Window Positions & Sizes" returns every window, every panel layout and the readiness lamp to its default. Checklists, voice and all other settings stay as they are. • "Show Saved Window Layout File" opens the folder that holds the layout file, for anyone who wants to look at it or send it in. • The setup adds a Start menu entry, "Reset Checklist Reader Windows", for the case where no window can be reached at all. • A reset now holds. The old settings file used to be read back in afterwards and brought the broken layout straight back; that import happens once and is then remembered as done. • A window whose minimum size does not fit on a monitor is no longer squeezed into it. It opens on the main monitor instead. • The support package carries the window layout files and a list of the connected displays, and every restored layout is logged with the displays that were attached at the time. -------------------------------------------------- NEW: Windows Follow Monitor Scaling • Moving a window to a monitor with a different scaling now rescales what is inside it. Windows Forms only does that when the program asks for it in two places at once, and Checklist Reader asked in neither. • The simulator window is laid out in pixels, so a scaling change converts its splitter distances, row metrics, tab headers, annunciator plates and derived heading fonts. The section search row is a grid now; as a fixed row it was what pushed the window off screen. • Saved layouts remember the scaling they were taken at and are converted when they are restored. • Each window remembers the size you chose for it, so a trip across a narrow monitor no longer shaves a little width off every time. • "displays.txt" in the support package now reports scaling, adapter, orientation and which Checklist Reader window sits on which monitor. -------------------------------------------------- FIXED: The Flight Calculator On A Differently Scaled Monitor • A window's splitter distances are pixels and stayed put when the window reached a monitor with different scaling, so the calculator's navigation column was too narrow and clipped its entries. Every registered window converts them now, which covers the map, the editor, the manual and the tour guide as well. • In the calculator the single-line input fields collapsed to a hairline on that move, because their stored size constraints survived the rescaling and clamped the new height. The fields now keep both their height and what you typed into them. -------------------------------------------------- NEW: Checklist Reader Points At The Library Extensions • The product is two downloads: this setup brings the Core Library, the aircraft bundles are the separate Checklist Library Extensions package. The download page says so, nothing inside the program did - so anyone whose aircraft was not in the list concluded that no checklist exists for it, when it was one download away. • A short note now appears below the aircraft list, in the Lite selector, at the top of the simulator status help panel and in the startup transcript. • Where the program can compare the available catalogue with what is installed, the note names the exact number of checklists you are missing. • One installed Extensions checklist is enough to stop the offer, so anyone who keeps only a handful of self-written checklists is never told to install something they already have. • The note can be switched off for good. Someone who flies one aircraft and cleared out the rest is entitled to that. • The Help menu keeps its entry "More Aircraft: Checklist Library Extensions" in every window whatever the note does, because it is also how you add bundles you skipped during setup. • Links are readable in the dark theme again. They used the Windows default colour, which disappeared into the dark background; that affected the two existing links as well. -------------------------------------------------- IMPROVED: The Copilot Says What He Will Do, Not Which Switch Moved • Switching a feature on or off used to answer with a state: "GSX ground services are armed", "Simulator connection established". That is a machine reporting its own flags, and the whole point of the program is a second person in the cockpit. • The four master switches - flight monitoring, route monitoring, the tour guide and GSX ground services - now answer in that voice: "Copy, I'll talk to the ground crew for you", "Copy, I'm watching the flight with you", "I'll show you around as we go". • Each of them has three wordings instead of one. Switching something off and on again used to play back the same sentence twice, which gives the trick away faster than any phrase does. • GSX had the most machine left in it. All twenty spoken order confirmations were rewritten, and so were the refusals - those are always spoken in full whatever your acknowledgement style is, so they are what you hear most. The parking brake advice now says what the ground crew will not do for us, rather than which GSX menu will not open. • The simulator link, the monitoring voice commands and the two enable-all and disable-all menu entries follow the same rule. -------------------------------------------------- FIXED: The EFB Route Import Survives Send To ATC And Avionics • This fix first shipped as the interim build 1.0.18.9 and is listed here for everyone coming from 1.0.18.8. • With a flight plan made of user waypoints - a generated sightseeing route, for example - the "Send to ATC and Avionics" button made the EFB bridge fail inside the simulator. Every route request afterwards went unanswered with "EFB Flight Plan Not Received" until the simulator was restarted, the map's automatic EFB preview included. • The bridge now checks each waypoint name before reading it. • The setup updates the "Checklist_Reader_EFB_Bridge" package. Restart the simulator once after installing so it loads the new one. -------------------------------------------------- IMPROVED: Two Corrections In The Manual • The troubleshooting chapter no longer sends you to an "ExportAllVoices" menu item. There is no such item: the voice list is rebuilt automatically every time the program starts. • It now states plainly that the Windows "(Natural)" OneCore voices are not SAPI 5 voices and never appear in Checklist Reader, no matter how often you restart. -------------------------------------------------- Community & Support The Checklist Reader is an actively evolving project, and feedback is always welcome. Join the community on Discord: https://discord.gg/EchPmVtueY For further support: simflightchris@gmail.com -------------------------------------------------- Disclaimer This release references third-party products and developers, among them GSX by FSDreamTeam and Microsoft Flight Simulator. Checklist Reader and Checklist Library Extensions are independent projects and are not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to any of those developers or to the aircraft manufacturers named in the checklists. All checklist content is for flight simulation only and is not approved for real-world aviation.