Checklist Reader – Your Voice-Controlled Copilot for MSFS 2024

Checklist Reader – Version 1.0.19.3 This release expands neural voice support, improves reliability under competing foreground applications, and adds 259 TourGuide tours with detailed explanations and regional structure. The simulator status window gains a compact flight display, deployment infrastructure is hardened against false-positive virus detections, and the checklist library ecosystem is now safer through direct application-side library activation. Important: Checklist Reader 1.0.19.0 carried antivirus alerts from three engines on VirusTotal. This version (1.0.19.3) addresses the root causes: • The setup no longer runs PowerShell scripts: eliminating the Wacatac.B!ml detection from previous versions. • Inno Setup is pinned to version 6.4.3, avoiding detection from the 6.7 installer shell itself (APEX, DeepInstinct, Skyhigh). However, Microsoft Defender may still flag the setup as Wacatac.B!ml due to heuristic analysis of the installer structure itself, independent of Inno's version. This is a known limitation of heuristic scanning and affects many installers. • All detected vendors (APEX, DeepInstinct, Microsoft, Skyhigh) have been sent detailed false-positive reports. For Checklist Library Extensions compatibility, this application version is required. For hundreds of additional aircraft and checklist variants, download the separate Checklist Library Extensions package (1.0.11). -------------------------------------------------- NEW: TourGuide Expansion And Depth • 259 tours in the current library (216 place tours, 42 story tours, 1 procedure): 242 already present in 1.0.19.0, 17 new tours added to this release. Existing tours gain regional structure for better navigation and deeper explanations along routes. • Metropolis tours: Paris (Seine, Boulevards and the Historic Axis), Versailles, Vienna, Moscow, Delhi, Mumbai, Bangkok, Sao Paulo, Buenos Aires, Seoul, Toronto, Auckland. New story routes with narration of landmarks, history and geography. • German state tours (TG113): all 16 included tours now carry overview and landscape regions (58 regions, 174 explanations), with 22 factual corrections from English Wikipedia sources. • Depth pass: 117 points with single explanations expanded to three or four (254 additions). Flight-tested routes for Iceland, Nepal, Hawaiian Islands, Boston, Great Rift Valley and others. • Priority system: every sight now carries a priority 1–5; the planner tells highest priority first, complete, before lower priorities. Priority 5 and 4 sights pointed out from 8 and 4 nm ahead within 60 degrees of nose. • Tour Plan Review (new dialog): opened after flight plan match or from Check Tour Plan, shows which active tours overlap and compares narration time against flight time. A coloured banner indicates conflicts; tour panel shows a note when active tours interrupt each other. • Same-spot follow-on: a sight within 0.35 nm of the one just described follows on without a new direction, even behind the aircraft, improving tour continuity where points cluster. • Tour dataset kinds: general, story, procedure (required per research ledger); loader and content audit enforce the schema. Manuals updated (EN/DE). -------------------------------------------------- IMPROVED: Voice Support And Reliability • Neural voices now keep prepared speech and downloaded models across application restarts, not just across one session. Progress counts the whole work including earlier runs; the cache stores one folder per voice; old flat files are moved into their voice folder on first use. • Neural speech cache limit is a setting (NeuralSpeechCacheLimitGb, default 4 GB). Old files, other voices (least recently flown first), then current-voice spare audio are trimmed in order; the current work is never deleted. • Background preparation stops at the limit and trims periodically. NeuralVoiceUsage logs voice, aircraft, and time per real flight. Cleanup offers removing voices not flown for 30 days. • Speech pacing diagnostics (new [SpeechPace] log line): one line per spoken prompt records input → request, request → enqueue, queue wait, playback time, queue depth, and the foreground program. This distinguishes "our code was late" from "the synthesizer was late". • Recovered prompts: a SAPI prompt with no SpeakStarted, no progress, and 6 s of synthesizer idle is now rebuilt and re-spoken immediately (rule and recovery arithmetic tested). Other waiting or idle prompts are left alone to avoid disrupting audible speech. • Scheduler latency probe (new [Latency] log line): sleeps in 200 ms slices and reports wake-ups that ran 500 ms or more late, with the foreground program. A background process stuck waiting on the scheduler is invisible in every other log line. -------------------------------------------------- FIXED: Core Stability And Safety • Setups run no PowerShell script: both Inno Setup scripts now only copy payloads to State\Pending\<Starter|Extensions> and write ready.txt last. The application activates them on startup via Utils/ChecklistLibraryActivation.cs (SHA-256 check, backup, atomic swap, tier orphan retirement, no rollback, retry on next start). This eliminates the Wacatac.B!ml detection and lets the application own the transaction semantics. • Inno Setup pinned to 6.4.3: the 6.7 setup shell itself trips APEX, DeepInstinct, Microsoft and Skyhigh detection. The deployment console shows pinned tools as held and never upgrades them. A setup built by a different Inno version is never reused. • VirusTotal quota exhaustion handling: after the one-minute wait, a second 429 means the daily quota is gone. Every further file is skipped and the result carries quotaExhausted, quotaResetsAt, and a quota flag per file. Pipeline skips cross-checks, console shows quota status with the upload page and time to reset. • False "No Usable Microphone" when Beyond ATC auto-pause is on (1.0.18.4 regression): NAudio registers its own coclass for CoreAudio MMDeviceEnumerator, which made every other activation in the process fail with a type-cast exception. The Beyond ATC detector starts before the startup check and holds the enumerator for the whole session. Fixed by removing the coclass entirely; CoCreateInstance and GetUniqueObjectForIUnknown now coexist with NAudio's in either order. • Simulator Status freeze from a self-reposting splitter restore (1.0.19.2 regression): SplitterLayoutPersistence re-scheduled itself via BeginInvoke when a splitter had no room, causing the UI thread to spin forever on the queue without returning to its message loop. Fixed by retrying on the control's own SizeChanged instead. A full queue now reports as a stall instead of staying silent. • Aircraft selection window no longer opens automatically. The last-used aircraft (or Cessna 172/152/first-valid fallback) loads directly; the window opens only via Simulator > Select Aircraft or the voice command. This removes a place where the freeze could surface and is a usability improvement. • Simulator Status compact flight display (new window): shows altitude, vertical speed, heading, airspeed and ground speed in a cockpit-style layout. Window is dockable and shows live flight state. -------------------------------------------------- IMPROVED: Aircraft Selection And Checklist Matching • One-click checklist switch: when the simulator's aircraft does not match the loaded checklist, Simulator Status offers the right one. A "Load …" button appears for a clear match; Simulator > Checklists for the Simulator Aircraft lists every candidate for ambiguous matches (wheeled vs. amphibian Kodiak, etc.). The ranking remembers the pilot's own past choice for this aircraft, then their own checklist, then the preferred tier setting. • SimAircraftChecklistRanker scores each checklist against the simulator's type designation (title and ATC MODEL), manufacturer (ATC TYPE), add-on studio glued into the title ("FenixA320" = Fenix), and class/engine count as hard exclusion. The ranking feeds both the one-click offer and the big aircraft selection window, prefilling filters (manufacturer, developer, family, propulsion) to narrow without hiding a match. • Mismatch detector now asks the ranker, which knows ATC TYPE/MODEL, before claiming a mismatch. "FenixA320 CFM SL" loaded against "Airbus A320" checklist is no longer reported as a different aircraft. -------------------------------------------------- IMPROVED: Deployment And Diagnostics • Deployment console (new, Start.bat): a Node console showing the release workflow for current versions, live progress on test builds and publishing, a check list for all verifications, and toolchain status. The API key lives in .env only. • Setup stamps: setups carry SHA-256, build number, Inno version, and source fingerprint. Unchanged sources reuse an existing setup instead of rebuilding (byte-for-byte identical for bit-identical platforms). The publisher refuses a setup that no longer matches its stamp. • Get Support (Help > Get Support, new): one window for support package, email, and log folder. The package is written to %AppData%\Checklist_Reader_Support on open (last 5 kept) and can be dragged into any email. Outlook and Thunderbird get an attach button. Detailed logging is settable here with a warning; a start that finds it on for 24+ hours asks whether to switch it off (yes is default). • VirusTotal checks (Step 9b in pipeline): both setups are checked before the changelog is written. Detections hold publishing until approved as false positives; findings report every executable part on its own with one English message per vendor. The key lives in .env only; a missing key or "check only" mode runs VirusTotal checks without building or filing. • Detailed logging (Config.Debug): rolling at 10 MB instead of 8 MB while on. A start finding it on for 24 hours or longer asks to switch it off. Config dialog and Get Support both use the same setter. -------------------------------------------------- IMPROVED: Map And Basemap Handling • Downloadable detailed base maps: optional PMTiles files (Natural Earth relief to zoom 7, NASA Blue Marble satellite to zoom 8) are stored beside the app folder and survive updates. Maps are verified by SHA-256 and resumable. Beyond a map's sharpest level, tiles are enlarged with neighbour borders instead of placeholders. • Regional Sentinel-2 detail packs (CC BY 4.0): cover single regions, drawn over Blue Marble where installed. BasemapLibrary.ParseCatalog separates "details" from "maps"; detail packs have "extends" to stack with maps. Older program versions ignore packs they cannot use. • BasemapAreaMap (new): a small world map in the download dialog showing every offered/installed area as a rectangle. Click selects the smallest area under the pointer (country inside continent wins); wheel zooms, drag pans. Built for users unfamiliar with regional geography. • Map dialog layout: area map sits left of the list and takes exactly the width its height asks for, so the world fills it instead of sitting small in the middle. Larger default size, maximizable, minimum for old layouts. Progress bar now jumps to real value instead of lagging. -------------------------------------------------- IMPROVED: Checklist Library And Manual • Checklist library 1.0.19.3: 54 Core Library checklists including detailed Cessna 152 and 172S that were marked Starter but missing from starter.manifest.json (would have shipped 52 instead of 54). 473 Extension checklists become available with Extensions 1.0.11. • Five new checklists for German aircraft: Junkers F 13 (Standard, newly created), Dornier Do 31 iniBuilds Detailed (addition), Junkers Ju 52 Detailed (addition), Dornier Do X Detailed (addition), Dornier Do J Wal Detailed (addition). All from developer handbooks and official documentation; items not published by developers carry assumption markers. • Manual updates (EN/DE): voices chapter names SAPI5, Windows and neural voices; all run locally. Tour Guide section explains research approach, its limits and entertainment-only stance. New subsections on preparation, storage limit, cleanup, and the tip to keep one voice per aircraft. -------------------------------------------------- Community & Support The Checklist Reader is an actively evolving project, and feedback is always welcome. Join the community on Discord: https://discord.gg/EchPmVtueY For further support: simflightchris@gmail.com -------------------------------------------------- Disclaimer This release references third-party aircraft, products, developers and manufacturers. Checklist Reader is an independent project and is not affiliated with or endorsed by those developers or manufacturers. All checklist content is for flight simulation only and is not approved for real-world aviation.