Pushback Florian allows for additional information regarding pushback and ground handling to be tracked in EuroScope.

This plugin stores and synchronises additional ground and pushback states of aircraft between all controllers, allowing for more fine-grained clearances and ensuring all users with the plugin loaded receive all information available.
Pushback Florian does not modify flightplans in a (user) noticable way, allowing for it to be utilised in combination with controllers not using the plugin.

• Getting started
  • Prerequisites
  • Installation
• Usage
  • Basics
  • Tag items
  • Tag functions
  • Chat commands
• Contributing
  • Development setup
• License

Since Pushback Florian was developed as an EuroScope plugin, it requires a working installation EuroScope. The initial development was started using EuroScope version v3.2.1.26, although the plugin should most likely also work fine with previous and later versions. As development continues, compatibility to the latest beta versions of EuroScope will be maintained as long as possible and feasible.

1. Download the latest release (PushbackFlorian.zip) of Pushback Florian from the Releases section of this repository
2. Extract PushbackFlorian.dll and place it somewhere as desired (most likely somewhere inside your EuroScope sectorfile/profile setup, where other plugins are already set up)
3. Start EuroScope and open the Plug-ins dialog in the settings menu (OTHER SET)
4. Load the plugin by selecting the PushbackFlorian.dll you extracted and ensure the proper version is displayed Pushback Florian will also confirm successful initialisation by logging its version to the Messages chat: [08:34:10] Pushback Florian: Version 1.0.0 loaded.
5. Close the plugin dialog and open the departure list columns setup dialog (small S at the left side of your departure list)
6. Add the Direction column to your departure list by clicking Add Item and selecting the Pushback Florian / Direction Tag Item type. Pick a Header name and set a Width of 3 or greater
7. Add the Line column to your departure list by clicking Add Item and selecting the Pushback Florian / Line Tag Item type. Pick a Header name and set a Width of 4 or greater
8. Assign the Pushback Florian / Direction Menu action as the Left button action of your Direction tag item. Triggering this function opens the direction menu, allowing you to pick the desired pushback (facing) direction
9. Assign the Pushback Florian / Direction Clear action as the Right button action of your Direction tag item. Triggering this function clears the pushback (facing) direction of an aircraft, resetting its direction state
10. Assign the Pushback Florian / Line Menu action as the Left button action of your Line tag item. Triggering this function opens the line menu, allowing you to pick the desired (taxiway) line for pushback
11. Assign the Pushback Florian / Line Clear action as the Right button action of your Line tag item. Triggering this function clears the assigned (taxiway) line for pushback of an aircraft, resetting its line state
12. Close the departure list settings by clicking OK

At the moment, Pushback Florian supports the following additional pushback states:

• Direction: allows for pushback direction ("facing") to be tracked and shared with other controllers.
• Line: allows for (taxiway) line assigned for pushback to be tracked and shared with other controllers.

If enabled (see Toggle setting of pushback state), Pushback Florian will automatically set the PUSH ground state for an aircraft once a direction or line has been assigned. Note that the ground state will only be updated if the aircraft currently has no state assigned or has been cleared for startup (ST-UP).

Tag items are used to display information about flightplans in aircraft lists such as the departure list.
At the moment, Pushback Florian adds two tag items to EuroScope:

The Direction tag item displays the selected pushback (facing) cardinal direction, abbreviated as a single letter.

The Line tag item displays the selected (taxiway) line assigned for pushback as a colored "line" (represented as ===).

Tag functions are used to trigger plugin functionality via a flightplan tag in aircraft lists such as the departure list.
At the moment, Pushback Florian adds several functions for assigning directions and lines which can be added as an action to any tag item desirable (although using them with the Direction and Line tag items is recommended):

Opens a selection menu containing all four pushback cardinal directions as well as an option to clear the current selection.
This actions is suggested the default left-click action for the Direction tag item as it provides the most flexible direction management.

Removes the currently selected pushback direction and clears its tracked state.
This action is also available in the Direction Menu tag function by default and allows for a shortcut to remove the direction state, making it the suggested right-click action for the Direction tag item.

Sets the desired pushback direction as north (N).
This action is also available in the Direction Menu tag function by default.

Sets the desired pushback direction as east (E).
This action is also available in the Direction Menu tag function by default.

Sets the desired pushback direction as north (S).
This action is also available in the Direction Menu tag function by default.

Sets the desired pushback direction as north (W).
This action is also available in the Direction Menu tag function by default.

Opens a selection menu containing all pre-defined (taxiway) lines assignable for pushback as well as an option to clear the current selection.
This actions is suggested the default left-click action for the Line tag item as it provides the most flexible line management.

Removes the currently selected pushback line and clears its tracked state.
This action is also available in the Line Menu tag function by default and allows for a shortcut to remove the line state, making it the suggested right-click action for the Line tag item.

Assigns the blue line for pushback.
This action is also available in the Line Menu tag function by default.

Assigns the orange line for pushback.
This action is also available in the Line Menu tag function by default.

Chat commands allow more fine-grained control of Pushback Florian's behavior and settings not available via UI elements. Every chat command is prefixed with .pbf and can be entered in every chat channel available. Executing .pbf without any additional commands prints the version loaded and a list of commands available.

.pbf debug

Toggles debug logging, displaying more messages about the internal state.

This setting will be saved to the EuroScope settings upon exit.

.pbf push

Toggles automatic setting of pushback ground state.

If enabled (default), Pushback Florian will automatically set the PUSH ground state for an aircraft after a direction or line has been assigned.

This setting will be saved to the EuroScope settings upon exit.

.pbf reset

Clears the plugin's list of tracked aircraft and their respective ground handling states.

If you have a suggestion for the project or encountered an error, please open an issue on GitHub. Please provide a summary of your idea or problem, optionally with some logs or screenshots and ways to replicate for the latter.

Pull requests are highly welcome, feel free to extend the plugin's functionality as you see fit and submit a request to this repository to make your changes available to everyone. Please keep in mind this plugin attempts to provide features in a relatively generic way so it can be used by vACCs with different needs - try refraining from "hard-coding" any features that might just apply to a specific airport or vACC.

Pushback Florian currently has no external development dependencies aside Visual Studio. Initial development started using Visual Studio 2019, although later versions should most likely remain compatible.

To allow for debugging, the project has been configured to launch EuroScope as its debug command. Since your installation path of EuroScope will most likely be different, you must set an environment variable EUROSCOPE_ROOT to the directory EuroScope is installed in (not the actual EuroScope.exe executable), for instance E:\EuroScope.
Note: triggering a breakpoint seems to cause both EuroScope and Visual Studio to freak out, resulting in high resource usage and slugging mouse movements, thus only being of limited usefulnes. NEVER debug your EuroScope plugin using a live connection as halting EuroScope apparently messes with the VATSIM data feed under certain circumstances.

Pushback Florian is compiled using Windows SDK Version 10.0 with a platform toolset for Visual Studio 2019 (v142) using the ISO C++17 Standard.

This repository contains all external dependencies used by the project in their respective include and lib folders:

• EuroScope: EuroScope plugin library

MIT License