Table

of Contents
Introduction 1.1
Acknowledgments 1.2

Donations 1.3

Installation 1.4
General 1.5

Usage 1.6

Menu and Options 1.7

How to report a Bug 1.8

Files 1.9
Acknowledgments 1.10
License 1.11

2
Introduction

Little Navconnect User Manual

Version 2.4

Little Navconnect is a small free open source application that acts as an agent connecting Little Navmap with a flight simulator
like FSX, Prepar3D and X-Plane. This allows to use Little Navmap on Linux or Mac and saves the the pain of setting up remote
SimConnect links.

More about my projects at www.littlenavmap.org.

Copyright 2015-2019 Alexander Barthel

Last updated Tue Oct 15 2019 17:24:17 GMT+0200 (CEST).

3
Acknowledgments

Acknowledgments
A big thank-you for all people supporting me, sending me their log files, screen shots, ideas for improvements, friendly messages,
donations and more.

A huge Thank you! to Paul Watts for his support, for testing, tips, links to incredible tools and for all his work on the manual.

Plenty of thanks to Hervé Sors for allowing me to include his updated magdecl.bgl file with Little Navmap.

A very special thank-you to Roberto S. from Switzerland for his valuable input and also helping with his capability to find the
most obscure bugs.

Thanks to Jose from fsAerodata for his kind support.

The French translation of the program was done by Patrick JUNG alias Patbest. Thank you!

Thanks to all beta testers for their effort, patience and ideas: Barry, Brian, Gérard, John, Remi and Sam.

Another big Danke! to Marc from Germany for all his great ideas and endless bug reports.

Thanks to all in the forums who patiently supported me and gave invaluable feedback during the public beta:

AVSIM, SimOuthouse, FlightX.net and FSDeveloper.com.

This project and my library atools would not exist without the fabulous documentation of the BGL files in the FSDeveloper Wiki.
So, here a huge thank-you to all the contributors.

Also a thank you to Ed Williams for his Aviation Formulary.

Without the open source Marble widget that allows me to access and display all the maps I would still be busy doing that myself
for years.

No Qt application framework and I could not even draw a simple button.

Let's not forget about all the services that provide us all the online maps for free:

Stamen Design, OpenTopoMap and CARTO.

And last but not least: If there were no OpenStreetMap and its thousands of contributors none of us would have any maps at all.

4
Donations

Donations
Donate to show your appreciation if you like my programs.

Spenden Sie, um Ihre Wertschätzung zu zeigen, wenn Ihnen meine Programme gefallen.

5
Installation

Installation
Note that Little Navconnect is bundled with the Little Navmap download.

Highlighted text is used to denote window, menu, button, file or directory names.

Little Navconnect for Windows is a 32-bit application and was tested with Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 10 (32-bit and 64-
bit).

The macOS and Linux versions are both 64-bit and were tested with macOS Sierra and Ubuntu Linux.

Updating
Delete all installed files of a previous Little Navconnect version before installing a new version. All files from the previous ZIP
can be deleted since settings are stored in separate directories. In any case do not merge the installation directories.

There is no need to delete the old settings directory. The program is written in a way that it can always work with old setting files.

Windows
Installation involves the simple copying of files therefore an installer or setup program is not required.

Do not extract the archive into the folder c:\Program Files\ or c:\Program Files (x86)\ since you will need administrative
privileges in some Windows versions. Since Windows keeps control of these folders other problems might occur like replaced or
deleted files.

Extract the Zip archive into a folder like c:\Own Programs\Little Navconnect . Then start the program by double-clicking
littlenavconnect.exe .

I recommend to install the Visual C++ Runtime Installer (All-In-One) v56 package from MajorGeeks.Com but only if you get
errors when starting Little Navconnect.

Other Simulators than FSX SP2

This program was compiled using plain FSX SP2 (no Acceleration) SimConnect version 10.0.61259.0.

You might have to install an older version of SimConnect if you use Prepar3D or FSX Steam Edition. If not sure about this
simply try Little Navconnect out. If it fails with an error message follow the instructions below:

Prepar3D: In the same directory as Prepar3D.exe is a redist\Interface directory (normally C:\Program Files
(x86)\Lockheed Martin\Prepar3D v3\redist\Interface ). There are multiple legacy versions of SimConnect available. You have

to install FSX-SP2-XPACK.msi for Little Navconnect.

FSX Steam Edition: The installation adds the folder C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\SteamApps\common\FSX\SDK\Core
Utilities Kit\SimConnect SDK\LegacyInterfaces where you can find the legacy SimConnect interfaces.

macOS
Extract the ZIP file and copy the Little Navconnect app to Applications or any other folder.

Linux
Extract the tar archive to any place and use the littlenavconnect.sh shell script to start the program from a terminal:

bash ./littlenavconnect.sh

6
Installation

X-Plane
Little Navconnect can only connect to X-Plane using the Little Xpconnect X-Plane plugin which has to be installed too.

The Little Xpconnect plugin is included in the Little Navmap archive but can also be downloaded separately. See the included
README.txt in the Little Xpconnect folder for installation instructions.

The plugin is 64-bit only and is available for Windows, macOS and Linux.

General
Little Navconnect acts as an agent that connects Little Navmap running on a remote computer with a flight simulator. This saves
the complexity of setting up a remote SimConnect link and also allows using Little Navmap to connect remotely to the Little
Xpconnect X-Plane plugin.

Little Navmap can connect to the flight simulator directly when running on the same computer as the flight simulator therefore the
Little Navconnect agent is only needed for connecting to a remote computer.

For X-Plane you need the Little Xpconnect plugin.

7
Usage

Usage
You will receive an error message if the protocol of Little Navmap, Little Navconnect or Little Xpconnect does not match. Make
sure to use the latest versions of all programs or use the ones included in the Little Navmap download archive.

Flying Computer
Install Little Navconnect on the flying computer. Start it and take note of the message that is printed in the logging window. You
only need the colored values. You can use the IP address or the host name.

The program will automatically connect to the flight simulator using SimConnect, if found. You can change the connection to X-
Plane and it will connect automatically to the Little Xpconnect plugin if X-Plane is running. If no simulator was found it will retry
in 10 second intervals.

Little Navconnect can print multiple IP addresses or host names depending on your network configuration. This can happen if you
have Ethernet plugged in and are connected using wireless LAN too, for example. You have to try all addresses if you are unsure
which one to use.

Picture above: Little Navconnect is running and waiting for a flight simulator. The FSX or Prepar3D and X-Plane buttons are
not shown on macOS and Linux or if SimConnect is not available.

Change the port in the Options dialog if you see an error message like shown below:

[2016-07-27 16:45:35] Unable to start the server: The bound address is already in use.

Client or Remote Computer

1. Start Little Navmap on the client computer.
2. Open the connection dialog in Little Navmap by selecting Main Menu -> Tools -> Flight Simulator Connection .

8
Usage

Picture above: Connect dialog with correct values to access the _Little Navconnect shown above._

3. Select Connect to a remote Flight Simulator .

4. Add the value for host name. This can be either the host name or the IP address printed by Little Navconnect.
5. Check the value for the port. 51968 is the default value and does not need to be changed usually.
6. Click Connect . The dialog will close and Little Navmap will try to establish a connection in the background which can take
some time, depending on your network. Your aircraft will show up on the map and on the Simulator Aircraft dock
window once a flight is set up and loaded on the simulator. You will see the message Connected. Waiting for update. in
the Simulator Aircraft dock window if no flight is loaded yet (i.e. the simulator still shows the opening screen).

Note that it sometimes can take a while until an error is shown if you used the wrong values for host name or port.

9
Menu and Options

Menu and Options

File -> Quit

Exits the application. Will ask for confirmation if there are still clients connected.

Tools -> FSX or Prepar3D / X-Plane

Chooses the simulator connection. These functions are also available on the toolbar.

Tools -> Reset Messages

This will re-enable all dialogs that were disabled by clicking Do not show this dialog again or similar messages.

Tools -> Toolbar

Shows or hides the toolbar.

Tools -> Options

Opens the Options dialog which has the following settings:

Update Time Interval : Allowed range is 50 milliseconds up to 1 second. Little Navconnect fetches data from Flight

Simulator and sends it to all clients (i.e. Little Navmap) using this time interval. Increase this value if you get a warning
message like shown below:

[2016-07-27 16:45:35] Dropped more than 50 packages. Reason: Missing reply. Increase update time interval.

Dropped packages can also appear if the Little Navmap cannot respond because a dialog is open.

Network Port : This can normally be left at default. Change this value only if another application occupies this port and you

get an error message like shown below when starting Little Navconnect:

[2016-07-27 16:45:35] Unable to start the server: The bound address is already in use.

Fetch AI or multiplayer aircraft and Fetch AI or multiplayer ships : Disables fetching of AI vehicles and the

transfer across the network. This can be useful for performance reasons if you use large amounts of AI but do not want to see
it in Little Navmap. Note that ship AI is not available on X-Plane.

Hide host name and IP in log window : Check this option to disable printing of host name and IP address on startup. This

can be useful for streaming sessions where Little Navconnect window is visible to others.

10
Menu and Options

Picture above: Little Navconnect Options Dialog with default settings.

Help Menu -> Contents (Online)

Shows the online help in your default web browser.

Help Menu -> Contents (Offline, PDF)

Shows the offline help PDF document in your default PDF viewer.

Help Menu -> About Little Navconnect

Shows version and revision number for Little Navconnect, also contains links to the configuration file, log file and the author's e-
mail addresses.

Help Menu -> About Qt

Information about the Qt application framework that is used by Little Navconnect.

11
How to report a Bug

How to report a Bug

If something goes wrong send me Little Navconnect's log file and configuration file which both can be located in the about dialog.
My e-mail address is shown in the about dialog of Little Navconnect as well. Please compress the log file in a ZIP archive.

Please add all steps that are necessary to reproduce the error.

If you're concerned about privacy when sending log files: The log files will contain all paths (like your Documents directory)
which will also include your username as a part of the path. They might also contain your computer's name IP address in your
network.

In no case file names from anything else than flight simulator scenery or configuration files are included. No names or content of
personal files is included in the log files.

I'd suggest to remove this information if you're concerned about it.

I strongly recommend to send the log files using a private forum message or by email and not attach them to forum posts where
they are publicly visible.

Files
Windows
Log files of Little Navconnect for Windows 7/8/10 are typically stored in the directory:

C:\Users\YOURUSERNAME\AppData\Local\Temp

The program keeps three log files and rotates these on each startup. So you can find up to three logs:

abarthel-little_navconnect.log , abarthel-little_navconnect.log.1 and abarthel-little_navconnect.log.2 .

All configuration files of my programs for Windows 7/8/10 are typically stored in the directory:
C:\Users\YOURUSERNAME\AppData\Roaming\ABarthel

There is one configuration file for this program:

little_navconnect.ini : INI style configuration file. Text file.

macOS and Linux

The configuration files are stored in $HOME/.config/ABarthel on macOS and Linux. Log files are stored in /tmp on Linux and
in /var/folders on macOS.

License
This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as
published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied
warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for
more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program. If not, see
http://www.gnu.org/licenses.

12
How to report a Bug

13