X-Plane Datarefs & Commands

Since version 0.9.24 SPAD.neXt will scan for datarefs and commands automatically for X-Plane 12, if X-Plane and SPAD.neXt are running on the same computer and it is not necessary anymore to create datarefs.txt/commands.txt files.

Unfortunately there is no standard way in X-Plane to add data and commands to an aircraft, so every aircraft developer is doing it differently, and there is no way for SPAD.neXt to query those for X-Plane versions < 12

Scanning for Datarefs

DataRef Tool

Download DataRefTool . Install it as a plugin. Then start X-Plane, load the aircraft. After exiting X-Plane there will be a X-Plane/preferences/output/drt_last_run_datarefs.txt and one for commands which should list all the aircraft ones. The files have to be moved to the aircraft folder (see below) and be renamed.

Adding the datarefs and commands locally.

Those are only available for the local installation

Commands

Create a file "commands.txt" in the directory of the ACF-File of the targeted aircraft. List all commands you wan to expose to SPAD.neXt in this file. The Format of the File is the same as the standard X-Plane commands.txt you can find in "X-Plane 11\Resources\plugins"

Format:

command[TAB]description (optional)

Datarefs

Datarefs can be announced by placing them into a file "datarefs.txt" in the directory of the ACF-File of the targeted aircraft. The Format of the File is the same as the standard X-Plane datarefs.txt you can find in "X-Plane 11\Resources\plugins" the First 2 lines of that file will be ignored (X-Plane Header)

Format:

dataref[TAB]type[TAB]writeable[TAB]unit[TAB]Description(optional)
sim/cockpit2/radios/actuators/com1_power	int	y	boolean	Com radio 1 off or on, 0 or 1.

dataref = name of the dataref e.g. sim/cockpit2/radios/actuators/com1_power type = Type of the dataref typically "float" or "int". For dataref arrays add the size of the array e.g. "int[12]" writable = "y" or "n" if the dataref is writable or readonly unit = the unit that dataref is in. This is used as a hint for SPAD.neXt to offer conversions to the user

Limits: * arrays are limited to 140 for performance reasons. * if a dataref is not yet known to X-Plane when the plane is loaded, the SPAD.neXt plugin will retry to find it regularly and announce it to SPAD.neXt

Both files will be read by the X-Plane plugin when the aircraft is loaded.

Contributing Datarefs to SPAD.neXt

You can publish the collected datrefs and commands to SPAD.neXt for global availability via the online services menu.