Defining a custom `ContentSource` for activities

[MSFS 2020] Questions & Community Discussions Missions
1

We are trying to add an additional widget in the “Activities” page. We have successfully done so by creating a WidgetsActivities.xml file and populating it. The goal is to be able to display missions we create within it. We are looking at the “simplest” activity built-in that does this, which is the 40th anniversary missions. The base widget definition for that is as follows:

<WidgetDefinition>
  <PosAndSize>7;1;1;1</PosAndSize>
  <ContentPage>
      <ContentType>ACTIVITY_LIST</ContentType>
      <ContentSource>ANNIVERSARY</ContentSource>
      <Title>TT:MENU.MISSIONTYPE_40TH_ANNIVERSARY</Title> <!-- TT:MENU.MISSIONTYPE_BUSHTRIP -->
      <Image>vfs://widgets/Activities/40_01_2.jpg</Image>
      <Descr>TT:MENU.MISSIONTYPE_40TH_ANNIVERSARY_DESCRIPTION</Descr> <!-- TT:MENU.MISSIONTYPE_BUSHTRIP_DESCRIPTION -->
      <ButtonEvent>VIEW_CONTENT</ButtonEvent>
  </ContentPage>
</WidgetDefinition>

There are also two additional files, CategoryWidgetParams_ANNIVERSARY.xml and ActivityWidgetParams_ANNIVERSARY.xml. Each mission .FLT file has the following entry under the Main section: MenuHierarchy=ANNIVERSARY.

As far as we can tell, that’s the only real definition related to the anniversary content. Replicating this definition style in a custom package however, does not work. The widget page shows up but there are no missions.

This lead me to believe that there is a list somewhere defining what is included in the content source besides just the MenuHierarchy, however I was unable to locate that anywhere in the files. I confirmed this was the case by adding a new mission with the MenuHierarchy entry for anniversary, and it did not appear.

Which brings me to my question; is it possible to define a custom ContentSource for us to create custom pages?

1 Like