Newbie config question | MobiFlight | Page 1

lusty mango Jul 18, 2026, 2:35 AM

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I tried several things, and i think i have no clue on how to program it.
all I want to do is press a button, and show on the display some text.
when i press the same button, the text needs to go away or update.

like

press once: Beacon Light: ON
press again : Beacon Light: OFF

i'm sure i am doing something wrong, since as soon as i start it, it flickers or shows right away text.
and my top 2 rows with info, is gone.

Can someone explain on how to do this?
thank you

past vale Jul 18, 2026, 2:43 AM

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If it's flickering, generally you have conflicting outputs, one creating 1 message and something else creating another, same goes for leds flickering. Best to wait for the experts to be online. Are you sure your using a toggle?

rigid onyx Jul 18, 2026, 3:18 AM

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You need to use preconditions. See https://docs.mobiflight.com/guides/multiple-page-lcd/ for how to do it, although in your case you would only have two states and one of your display configs would just be empty.

Showing multiple pages on an LCD

Step-by-step guide to using preconditions to show multiple pages of content on an LCD.

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Instead of using a mobiflight variable though, I would use whatever the sim variable is for the beacon light so the state is managed by the sim

lusty mango Jul 18, 2026, 3:45 AM

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Thanks.. have a lot to lean for the programming part.

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i was reading that before, but confused with multiple pages.. does it mean multiple lines? it was confusing to me

buoyant moss Jul 18, 2026, 8:12 AM

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if you want to show just the beacon state you can also probably read beacon state from sim, use compare modifier to set it to either 'ON' or 'OFF'

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like to a string of text?

rigid onyx Jul 18, 2026, 11:30 AM

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lusty mango i was reading that before, but confused with multiple pages.. does it mean ...

It's multiple screens of info. In your case, one screen would be configured to have whatever you want to show. The second would be configured to show nothing.

lusty mango Jul 18, 2026, 10:42 PM

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buoyant moss like to a string of text?

I need to figure that all out how it all works.

fallen lava Jul 18, 2026, 11:05 PM

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lusty mango I need to figure that all out how it all works.

You can convert a numerical value to a text string with a transform like

if($=1,'ON','OFF')

lusty mango Jul 19, 2026, 12:19 AM

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thank you

lusty mango Jul 24, 2026, 3:07 AM

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i am really struggling with this.. and tried searching for some tutorials, but getting nowhere.

I have a 4 row display., and on row 1 it shows " AutoPilot"

When i show to show something on row 4 of the same screen like Beacon light: ON or OFF i do what i showed in the images a few comments above, but then the 1st row keeps flashing like crazy. i can't so find anything that it will skip that.

the website is not clear either, unless i am not looking right.

buoyant moss Jul 24, 2026, 5:35 AM

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are you trying to write to the same display from many output configs?

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you have one output config that displays things, and its own simvar is $$$$$$$$ - and any other data you display is brought in with. a config reference from other output configs that do not define their own LCD output

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you bring the other data in as config reference like ###### (placeholder character of an example reference)

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and then your LCD config can have plain static text and placeholders:

Beacon light: $$$$$$$$
Strobe light: #######

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and $$$$ will be replaced with your simvar content, and ### with your config reference simvar content

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so another example:

COM 1: $$$.$$$
COM 2: ###.###
XPDR:  !!!!

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only one config has the LCD output defined and all other sim data needs to be brought in via references, because the the whole LCD content is written at once, two outputs will flicker even if they would try to write to different areas of the lcd

#Newbie config question