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KB Quick – Quick and Easy Kneeboards – Create/Edit/Organise/Publish


ShaunX

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KB Quick is an all-in-one app to quickly and easily create and edit kneeboards, organise them, associate them with aircraft, quickly select and publish them for specific training/mission requirements, and easily re-edit and re-publish them with a few clicks.

 

 

I realise there are other excellent kneeboard utilities, I developed this one for my own training needs and have decided to share it here in the spirit of DCS forums.

 

 Please download from here : https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/3315463/

 

 Features

  • All-in-one kneeboard creator/editor/manager/publisher
  • Rich Text editor (one or two columned)
  • Basic instant conversion to Night Operation versions
  • Kneeboards are managed as .rtf files and can be quickly selected and re-edited
  • Easy association of kneeboards with specific aircraft
  • One-click selection publishes or removes kneeboard image to/from appropriate DCS kneeboard folder
  • Snipping Tool-like, screen area capture directly into kneeboard page
  • Import existing kneeboard images

 The program is easy to use but I would highly recommend that you give the pdf manual, included in the download, a once-over before you start for detailed usage and configuration information.

 

 

 It does NOT access any DCS World folders other than your saved games Kneeboard folders only when you choose to write kneeboard images. All of its kneeboard data and configuration files are stored in the “KBQuickFiles” folder, which it creates in your “Documents” folder.

 

 

The software is and will always be free. All feedback is very welcome. Please report any bugs.

 

*** Version 1.1 Fixed minor bug in which the image of the message box which asks "Save changes before changing kneeboard?" gets captured into the kneeboard image.

 

*** Version 1.2 – Improved app appearance for displays using >175% Windows Text and App scaling (typically 4K monitors and high-resolution laptops). Thanks to Backy 51 for assistance.
    Added Context menu Functions:
        Undo : Undo last editing action
        Colour | Choose Colour : pick any colour for selected text/insertion point
        Highlight Colour: Pick any colour to highlight selected text
        Background Colour : Pick any colour as kneeboard background

 

Version 1.3 – Added unlimited undo/redo levels. Improved Snip! window edge visibility. Updated manual.

 

Version 1.4 –     Added basic table creation and editing
        Right-Click and “Insert Table” to create 2,3,4 or 5 column, single row table, sized to pane width.
        Tab past the last row cell to add a row
        Rows and columns can be resized by clicking and dragging their edges
        To delete a row, double click, just to the outside of row’s left or right-most cell to select the row, then cut.
        Updated user manual.

 

No need to update previous version, simply run the program from the KBQuick 1.4 folder. When you're happy with it you should get rid of the old KBQuick folder if you have one

 

 

 

KB Quick Pic 1.PNG

 

KB Quick Pic 2.PNG

 

 

KBQ Pic 3.png


Edited by ShaunX
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RYZEN 5900X | 32GB | ASUS Strix RTX3090 | 500GB NVMe OS 1000GB NVMe DCS | Warthog HOTAS | HP Reverb G2 | VA & ViacomPRO

My DCS Apps:    Radio KAOS for DCS      KB Quick - Quick and Easy Kneeboards

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34 minutes ago, VFA41_Lion said:

hey I like it so far, but is it possible to resize the text editor width-wise? I'm trying to import a kneeboard mission data card but the right hand section of it is cut off.

 

Depends on how you're importing it. If you're using the Snip! function to capture it, click the top right of its menu bar, where ist says "Normal". It will toggle to "Fit Kneeboard" and then "Fit Horizontal". Try one of those settings and press "take Snip!" again. Instructions for using Snip! are in the pdf manual.

RYZEN 5900X | 32GB | ASUS Strix RTX3090 | 500GB NVMe OS 1000GB NVMe DCS | Warthog HOTAS | HP Reverb G2 | VA & ViacomPRO

My DCS Apps:    Radio KAOS for DCS      KB Quick - Quick and Easy Kneeboards

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1 hour ago, ShaunX said:

 

Depends on how you're importing it. If you're using the Snip! function to capture it, click the top right of its menu bar, where ist says "Normal". It will toggle to "Fit Kneeboard" and then "Fit Horizontal". Try one of those settings and press "take Snip!" again. Instructions for using Snip! are in the pdf manual.

ahh heh, i actually copy/pasted it from an excel file directly and it worked alright, except as i mentioned, cut off on the right side

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As per the pdf manual, pasting from Excel won’t work well. The kneeboard pane is a rich text editor, not a spreadsheet I’m afraid. It will accept tabular data from Word, but I haven’t coded for Excel clipboard objects, they’re a bit beyond the scope of this app.

RYZEN 5900X | 32GB | ASUS Strix RTX3090 | 500GB NVMe OS 1000GB NVMe DCS | Warthog HOTAS | HP Reverb G2 | VA & ViacomPRO

My DCS Apps:    Radio KAOS for DCS      KB Quick - Quick and Easy Kneeboards

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Can you check the 3840 x 2160 resolution parameters?  The right side window chops off the text at the top of the page. I do like your concept!

 

 

KB1.JPG

 

 


Edited by Backy 51

I don't need no stinkin' GPS! (except for PGMs :D) :pilotfly:

[sIGPIC][/sIGPIC]

 

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6 hours ago, Backy 51 said:

Can you check the 3840 x 2160 resolution parameters?  The right side window chops off the text at the top of the page. I do like your concept!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

That's odd. I developed this at 3440 x 1440 and have tried to make is as DPI aware as possible. I've tested at every resolution my card supports and I can't get it to distort like that.

 

I can only simulate that problem if I increase text scaling above 150 % ("change the size of text apps and other items"in Windows Settings | Display). Are you using text scaling at 175% or above ?

 

RYZEN 5900X | 32GB | ASUS Strix RTX3090 | 500GB NVMe OS 1000GB NVMe DCS | Warthog HOTAS | HP Reverb G2 | VA & ViacomPRO

My DCS Apps:    Radio KAOS for DCS      KB Quick - Quick and Easy Kneeboards

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Folks,

 

I've noticed a minor bug in which the image of the message box which asks "Save changes before changing kneeboard?" gets captured into the kneeboard image.

 

I have fixed this and posted version 1.1 at the link in the first post.

 

To update from previous version , please just delete your KBQuick folder and replace with the new one in the zip file

 

 

RYZEN 5900X | 32GB | ASUS Strix RTX3090 | 500GB NVMe OS 1000GB NVMe DCS | Warthog HOTAS | HP Reverb G2 | VA & ViacomPRO

My DCS Apps:    Radio KAOS for DCS      KB Quick - Quick and Easy Kneeboards

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*** Version 1.2

 

Thanks to Backy 51 for highlighting  display issue with 4K monitors with >150% scaling, I've addressed and made the following updates

 

    Improved app appearance for displays using >175% Windows Text and App scaling (typically 4K monitors and high-resolution laptops).
    Added Context menu Functions:
        Undo : Undo last editing action
        Colour | Choose Colour : pick any colour for selected text/insertion point
        Highlight Colour: Pick any colour to highlight selected text
        Background Colour : Pick any colour as kneeboard background

 

Please update from the link in the first post

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RYZEN 5900X | 32GB | ASUS Strix RTX3090 | 500GB NVMe OS 1000GB NVMe DCS | Warthog HOTAS | HP Reverb G2 | VA & ViacomPRO

My DCS Apps:    Radio KAOS for DCS      KB Quick - Quick and Easy Kneeboards

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*** Version 1.3 – Added unlimited undo/redo levels. Improved Snip! window edge visibility. Updated manual.

 

Last update for a while but please do post feedback and report any bugs. Thanks.

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RYZEN 5900X | 32GB | ASUS Strix RTX3090 | 500GB NVMe OS 1000GB NVMe DCS | Warthog HOTAS | HP Reverb G2 | VA & ViacomPRO

My DCS Apps:    Radio KAOS for DCS      KB Quick - Quick and Easy Kneeboards

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*** Version 1.4 –     Added basic table creation and editing
        Right-Click and “Insert Table” to create 2,3,4 or 5 column, single row table, sized to pane width.
        Tab past the last row cell to add a row
        Rows and columns can be resized by clicking and dragging their edges
        To delete a row, double click, just to the outside of row’s left or right-most cell to select the row, then cut.
        Updated user manual.

RYZEN 5900X | 32GB | ASUS Strix RTX3090 | 500GB NVMe OS 1000GB NVMe DCS | Warthog HOTAS | HP Reverb G2 | VA & ViacomPRO

My DCS Apps:    Radio KAOS for DCS      KB Quick - Quick and Easy Kneeboards

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  • 4 weeks later...

How can I increase the screen size of the program? My picture is larger than the program screen allows ..

 

01.JPG


Edited by SMN

Окурок, выброшенный в урну, гораздо патриотичнее флажочка на автомобиле

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19 hours ago, SMN said:

How can I increase the screen size of the program? My picture is larger than the program screen allows ..

 

 

 

 

Create a new or select an existing kneeboard entry. With that selected, click "Snip!" in the top left corner. This will minimise the main window and give you the resizable, transparent "Snip!" window which you can place over the picture you want to capture,  drag its window edges so that your picture fills the transparent client area and click "Take Snip!".

 

The Snip! window has 3 capture settings in the top right corner you can change before you "take snip" to suit your requirement. Clicking on that cycles betwen "Normal" - captured picture is copied to kneebord at its original size, "Fit Kneeboard" - picture is resized to exactly fit kneeboard, "Fit Horizontal" - picture is resized so that it fits the kneeboard horizontally.

 

Full instructions are in the PDF manual.

 

Below, I've opened the Snip! window and placed and resized it over your picture. I'd now click on "Normal" to cycle the capture setting to "Fit Kneeboard", then I'd click "Take Snip!"

 

image.png

RYZEN 5900X | 32GB | ASUS Strix RTX3090 | 500GB NVMe OS 1000GB NVMe DCS | Warthog HOTAS | HP Reverb G2 | VA & ViacomPRO

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23.04.2021 в 19:21, ShaunX сказал:

 

Create a new or select an existing kneeboard entry. With that selected, click "Snip!" in the top left corner. This will minimise the main window and give you the resizable, transparent "Snip!" window which you can place over the picture you want to capture,  drag its window edges so that your picture fills the transparent client area and click "Take Snip!".

 

The Snip! window has 3 capture settings in the top right corner you can change before you "take snip" to suit your requirement. Clicking on that cycles betwen "Normal" - captured picture is copied to kneebord at its original size, "Fit Kneeboard" - picture is resized to exactly fit kneeboard, "Fit Horizontal" - picture is resized so that it fits the kneeboard horizontally.

 

Full instructions are in the PDF manual.

 

Below, I've opened the Snip! window and placed and resized it over your picture. I'd now click on "Normal" to cycle the capture setting to "Fit Kneeboard", then I'd click "Take Snip!"

 

image.png

Not. This will reduce the size of the original image! I just put the original image in the Saved Games \ DCS.openbeta \ Kneeboard \ A-10C_2 folder and it opens in the game in real size! It is impossible to make the real size in the KBQuick program!

Окурок, выброшенный в урну, гораздо патриотичнее флажочка на автомобиле

TM Wartrhog Stick + VPC MongoosT-50Base + VPC TMW Extension 150mm / TM Wartrhog Throttle / CH Pro Pedals / 2-VPC Deck Mount / TrackIR5/

__________________________________________________________

i5-10600K Over to 5.0MHz/32GbDD4-3200/RTX4070/System-SSD1 DCS-SSD2/32" 2560x1440

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9 hours ago, SMN said:

Not. This will reduce the size of the original image! I just put the original image in the Saved Games \ DCS.openbeta \ Kneeboard \ A-10C_2 folder and it opens in the game in real size! It is impossible to make the real size in the KBQuick program!

 

Sorry you're having problems. Please ensure to set the capture setting to "Fit Kneeboard" before you take the snip. This will cause whatever you have bordered with the Snip window to be resized to exactly fit the kneeboard. In my example above you can see that I've resized the Snip window to completely border the image you want to capture. Now I need to click on "Normal" in the top right hand corner. This will then change and now display "Fit Kneeboard". Then I'd click "Take Snip!" and the image will be captured and resized to fill the kneeboard.

 

 

 

RYZEN 5900X | 32GB | ASUS Strix RTX3090 | 500GB NVMe OS 1000GB NVMe DCS | Warthog HOTAS | HP Reverb G2 | VA & ViacomPRO

My DCS Apps:    Radio KAOS for DCS      KB Quick - Quick and Easy Kneeboards

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Really love this program
Interested to know if it's possible to create multiple pages under a single Kneeboard? Currently I can try snipping multiple pages, it does scroll thru them with Pg Up/Dn but the app only creates a single img from one page

 

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On 4/27/2021 at 3:08 PM, crispy12 said:

Really love this program
Interested to know if it's possible to create multiple pages under a single Kneeboard? Currently I can try snipping multiple pages, it does scroll thru them with Pg Up/Dn but the app only creates a single img from one page

 

 

Glad to hear you're enjoying it.

 

I'm not really sure what you mean. Do you mean scrolling through them in a DCS cockpit ?

 

Each kneeboard page you access from within a DCS cockpit with its kneeboard function is just a single .png image file, located in either the root kneeboard folder in your saved games\DCS(.openbeta) folder, or in an aircraft specific folder within that kneeboard folder (,the terrain/airfiled maps you see are from folders under the mods\terrains folders in you main installation but I don't touch those). My program just allows you to create and place those individual image files in those folders when you select them.

 

When you fly a mission, DCS builds the kneeboard by collecting the .png images from the the contents of the above folders depending on what aircraft you're flying (and what terrain you're in for the terrain/airfield map images)

 

Can you elaborate on what you're trying to do ?

 

EDIT: Ah, I think I know what you're doing. You're taking multiple snips into a single kneebord pane. Yes, the app will let you do that because the kneeboard pane is actually a rich text editor (like a word document), so each snip just adds to the bottom of the pane and you can scroll through them. I'm afraid that won't work though, because a DCS kneeboard page is just a single image of fixed dimensions, not scrollable, so only what you see in the kneebord pane will become a kneeboard .png image when you select it to write the image. You need to create a new kneeboard pane for each image you want to capture, then each pane will become a seperate kneeboard page in DCS.

 

An exception to this is if you're snipping small images and using the "normal" or "fit horizontal" capture setting to gradually build up a kneeboard page. However you use it, when you click the "KB" column box, whatever is showing within the kneeboard pane will become the DCS kneeboard image.

 

Hope that explains it.

 

 


Edited by ShaunX

RYZEN 5900X | 32GB | ASUS Strix RTX3090 | 500GB NVMe OS 1000GB NVMe DCS | Warthog HOTAS | HP Reverb G2 | VA & ViacomPRO

My DCS Apps:    Radio KAOS for DCS      KB Quick - Quick and Easy Kneeboards

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Yes, you understood me exactly. I get what you mean now. I think it would be awesome to have a Quick Add option to snip multiple pictures. This app is really great, I can take snips of briefings and odd images here and there or write a quick list of instructions.

 

I've been using it to take notes of my squadron discord briefings with good success.

 

Super useful!!


Edited by crispy12
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1 minute ago, crispy12 said:

Yes, you understood me exactly. I get what you mean now. I think it would be awesome to have a Quick Add option to snip multiple pictures. This app is really great, I can take snips of briefings and odd images here and there or write a quick list of instructions.

 

Super useful!!

 

That's an interesting idea, so there'd be a mode that would allow you to take multiple snips and each one would immediately create a new kneeboard panel, perhaps using a sequential naming pattern. I had been thinking about possible upgrades, including being able to have folders in the kneeboard name column, each of which could hold multiple kneeboards you might want to group together, and only be expanded when you clicked them. So with your idea, the multiple snips could create sequential kneeboards that would all be placed into one of those folders to group them together and prevent the main list from becoming too cluttered.

 

I'll give it some thought, though I'm mostly enjoying exploring 2.7 at the moment 😉

 

Thanks for your input.

 

 

RYZEN 5900X | 32GB | ASUS Strix RTX3090 | 500GB NVMe OS 1000GB NVMe DCS | Warthog HOTAS | HP Reverb G2 | VA & ViacomPRO

My DCS Apps:    Radio KAOS for DCS      KB Quick - Quick and Easy Kneeboards

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2 hours ago, ShaunX said:

 

That's an interesting idea, so there'd be a mode that would allow you to take multiple snips and each one would immediately create a new kneeboard panel, perhaps using a sequential naming pattern. I had been thinking about possible upgrades, including being able to have folders in the kneeboard name column, each of which could hold multiple kneeboards you might want to group together, and only be expanded when you clicked them. So with your idea, the multiple snips could create sequential kneeboards that would all be placed into one of those folders to group them together and prevent the main list from becoming too cluttered.

 

I'll give it some thought, though I'm mostly enjoying exploring 2.7 at the moment 😉

 

Thanks for your input.

 

 

Yes, that would really be perfect! 

The ease of use of the app - being able to toggle on and off, plus the ability to easily add new images as KB files makes this much more useful to me than the KB Builder app (which was rather clunky). Looking forward to your updates!

Enjoy 2.7 first!

 

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  • 4 weeks later...

This is great and exactly what I need - thank you ShaunX. Will this work in VR with the G2?

Now: Water-cooled Ryzen 5800X + 32GB DDR 4 3200 RAM + EVGA 3090 FTW3 Ultra 24 GB + Reverb G2 + Add-on PCI-e 3.1 card + 2x1TB Corsair M.2 4900/4200 + TM HOTAS Warthog + TM TPR Pendular Rudder  'Engaged Defensive' YouTube Channel

Modules: F/A-18C / AV-8B / F-16 / F-15E / F-4E (when it lands) / Persian Gulf / Syria / Nevada / Sinai / South Atlantic

Backup: Water-cooled i7 6700K @ 4.5GHz + 32GB DDR4 3200MHz + GTX 1080 8GB + 1TB M.2 1k drive & 250GB SSD drive 500MBps 4K 40" monitor + TrackIR 5

 

 

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2 hours ago, C3PO said:

This is great and exactly what I need - thank you ShaunX. Will this work in VR with the G2?

 

Glad you like it.

 

The app is purely for creating standard DCS kneeboard images. You don't run it while you're flying. So yes, the created kneeboards are accessable in VR with the G2 by bringing up the DCS kneeboard as usual from which the kneeboard images can be paged through.

 

Personally, I use it with the interactive kneeboard which is part of Viacom Pro which I'd highly recommend for VR.

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My DCS Apps:    Radio KAOS for DCS      KB Quick - Quick and Easy Kneeboards

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37 minutes ago, ShaunX said:

 

Glad you like it.

 

The app is purely for creating standard DCS kneeboard images. You don't run it while you're flying. So yes, the created kneeboards are accessable in VR with the G2 by bringing up the DCS kneeboard as usual from which the kneeboard images can be paged through.

 

Personally, I use it with the interactive kneeboard which is part of Viacom Pro which I'd highly recommend for VR.


Thank you — just been looking up Voice Attack and Viacom Pro … are there any performance issues using those you have noticed with DCS?

Now: Water-cooled Ryzen 5800X + 32GB DDR 4 3200 RAM + EVGA 3090 FTW3 Ultra 24 GB + Reverb G2 + Add-on PCI-e 3.1 card + 2x1TB Corsair M.2 4900/4200 + TM HOTAS Warthog + TM TPR Pendular Rudder  'Engaged Defensive' YouTube Channel

Modules: F/A-18C / AV-8B / F-16 / F-15E / F-4E (when it lands) / Persian Gulf / Syria / Nevada / Sinai / South Atlantic

Backup: Water-cooled i7 6700K @ 4.5GHz + 32GB DDR4 3200MHz + GTX 1080 8GB + 1TB M.2 1k drive & 250GB SSD drive 500MBps 4K 40" monitor + TrackIR 5

 

 

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3 minutes ago, C3PO said:


Thank you — just been looking up Voice Attack and Viacom Pro … are there any performance issues using those you have noticed with DCS?

 

I don't see any performance hit and I never fly without them.

 

Worth noting that with VA you can also define all of the 2 and 3 way warthog switch positions that DCS doesn't handle.

 

I see we have very similar rigs. Have you turned Ryzen Master PBO on ? I get a measurable performance bump with it in DCS.

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RYZEN 5900X | 32GB | ASUS Strix RTX3090 | 500GB NVMe OS 1000GB NVMe DCS | Warthog HOTAS | HP Reverb G2 | VA & ViacomPRO

My DCS Apps:    Radio KAOS for DCS      KB Quick - Quick and Easy Kneeboards

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No not seen that - will check it out tonight!

 

Now: Water-cooled Ryzen 5800X + 32GB DDR 4 3200 RAM + EVGA 3090 FTW3 Ultra 24 GB + Reverb G2 + Add-on PCI-e 3.1 card + 2x1TB Corsair M.2 4900/4200 + TM HOTAS Warthog + TM TPR Pendular Rudder  'Engaged Defensive' YouTube Channel

Modules: F/A-18C / AV-8B / F-16 / F-15E / F-4E (when it lands) / Persian Gulf / Syria / Nevada / Sinai / South Atlantic

Backup: Water-cooled i7 6700K @ 4.5GHz + 32GB DDR4 3200MHz + GTX 1080 8GB + 1TB M.2 1k drive & 250GB SSD drive 500MBps 4K 40" monitor + TrackIR 5

 

 

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