Kneeboard - persistent bookmarks

[markturner1960]

I have no idea why this apparently simple feature cannot be implemented, does any one know? 

[Tippis]

It's pure guesswork, but I'd probably blame it on kneeboards not being a static thing — you can add and subtract to them in a myriad of ways (dynamic pages that come and go depending on which data is available to be shown; waypoint pages that depend on the number of waypoints and their placement; mission kneeboards that can vary immensely  in number, and of course the user's own kneeboard pages), which makes them difficult to statically index in any reliable way to make sure the bookmark always ends up on the same page.

 

It wouldn't surprise me if the current bookmarks are just “page #whatever in the pile”, whereas persistent ones would have to be tied to file names and -locations so the whole bookmark system would have to be remade to deal with that. And even then, some pages — again, notably the dynamic ones — might not be indexable at all.

 

It would be neat, but given the number of contingencies and different scenarios it would need to be able to handle, it's very likely to be a fair bit more complex than it may at first seem.

[markturner1960]

Hmm, yes, but surely do able within the saved games folder structure for each aircraft? As this does not change? 

 

[Tippis]

Oh, sure.

The actual storage would be absolutely trivial to do — we already have all kinds of aircraft related settings such as snap views or the special options, to say nothing of the whole control bind file structure. If it were to operate on a logic of “this bookmark slot goes to this kneeboard file index”, i.e. just a key-value pair with each bookmark number corresponding to a key number, it would be far less complex than the snap view setups stored in your config\view directory.

 

The implementation problem would entirely be a question of defining and getting those file indices in a reliable manner.

[Cathnan]

One way to at least roughly sort them would be by folder where they're stored. Like one bookmark the default DCS Kneeboards, one for pages stored in the mission, and then for every additional Folder that contains kneeboard pages an additional bookmark. That should be rather easy to implement and would probably meet the needs of most people although not being as flexible as one would wish. But certainly better than slapping them all together and having to go through all for the info you need.

[lwalter]

Has anybody ever found a way to workaround this terrible DCS limitation?

Flying in VR, I ended up converting Chuck's guides into DCS kneeboards, but without persistent bookmarks, it's a real pain to go the often hundreds of pages they contain.