I like your idea a lot. I think this would go a long way toward giving the community a voice.
I also see your point here for commercial multirotors. Fixed-wing and VTOL aircraft aren’t in that situation though. There is not one commercially equivalent system that can beat arduplane in my opinion. Parrot is as close as it gets, and their equipment is very closed, expensive, and not adaptable. Maybe PICCOLO, but it’s so expensive.
There are so many AMA folks and similar that fly totally manual RC airplanes where a cheaper flight controller will expand their horizons with what is possible, so I understand and value the porting to more boards. I think the number 1 way to expand to the largest community (recreational flyers) is to make things easier/simpler for them while still being inexpensive. I want to show that community what is possible, and that’s why I think a more user-friendly Mission Planner should be a priority. Most of us that have stuck it through can deal with MP without changing, however I fear that we will lose a lot of people who turn away because of what they view as complexity. I almost feel embarrassed to point new users to mission planner because it doesn’t follow the same logic as most computer programs.
For example, when you open a text editor program, you probably have a few expectations. On the top will be a ribbon or drop-downs with options for text formatting, etc. On the bottom might be a few buttons like zoom, viewing options, etc. The left and right are generally open or where you might find a toolbar or two. MS Word, WordPad, Notepad, OpenOffice all share this generic layout.
Unfortunately Mission Planner doesn’t follow the same generic layout as any other program that I’ve seen. There’s main tabs on top (I can generally follow that), but some tabs switch to have additional sub-menus on the left (Config/Tuning). Some have sub-menus/tabs on a second window (flight data). Some are on the right and bottom (flight planning). Very useful features are in a menu that’s only accessible by Ctrl+F. The main tabs seem to be flight-stage oriented, but post-flight tools are under the VFR HUD. etc, etc, etc. The “flight data overflow” of Mission Planner cited by Intel’s report on GCS’s is something that won’t be helping our new friends.
On a high level, I think Ardupilot should be looking to expand its community to everyone. If I’m misinterpreting the developer mission statement ArduPilot aims to enable the creation and use of trusted, autonomous, unmanned vehicle systems for the peaceful benefit of all.
, please let me know. To me, Mission Planner is only catering/focusing development on what advanced users need. That’s not “all” to me.
If Mission Planner’s intent is only to be an advanced GCS for advanced users, I don’t see how that falls in-line with Ardupilot’s developer mission statement or the Versatile, Trusted, Open slogan.