Mach

Mach is an ultra-fast transpiler and bundler for use with MSFS (Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020) instruments. Unlike other bundling tools such as rollup or webpack, Mach has been built from the ground up with the sole purpose of serving the MSFS development community's needs.

Features

Mach currently supports bundling both JavaScript and TypeScript React instruments, along with any CSS or SCSS stylesheets and images that are included. Instruments built with the MSFS Avionics Framework are also supported, but require additional steps to ensure compatibility as described here.

Mach also allows you to create nested instruments, enabling you to bundle MSFS Avionics instruments separately and import them into your React instrument.

Usage

CLI

Options

• -c, --config <filename> specify path to configuration file (default: ./mach.config.json)
• -b, --bundles <dirname> bundles output directory (default: ./bundles)
• -f, --filter <regex> regex filter of included instrument names
• --output-metafile output build_meta.json file to bundles directory

mach build [options]

The build command will simply go through each instrument defined in your configuration, then output the bundles and package source files to the configured directories.

mach watch [options]

The watch command will first build each instrument in the configuration, and then watch the source files for changes in order to re-bundle the instrument. If there was an error while bundling the instrument in the beginning, the watcher will not run.

JavaScript

async function machBuild(conf: MetaConfig, filter?: RegExp)

This function has the same behavior as the mach build [options] CLI command.

async function machWatch(conf: MetaConfig, filter?: RegExp)

This function has the same behavior as the mach watch [options] CLI command.

Configuration

Whether you supply the configuration with the mach.config.json file to the CLI or with a JavaScript object to the API, the structure is identical.

interface MachConfig {
    /** Path to PackageSources directory */
    packagesDir: string;
    /** All instruments to be bundled by Mach */
    instruments: Instrument[];
}

interface Instrument {
    /** Instrument name, used as directory name for bundles and packages. */
    name: string;
    /** Path to directory containing instrument `config.json`. */
    directory: string;
    /** Entrypoint filename for instrument. Defaults to `index` value in instrument `config.json`. */
    input?: string;

    /** Imports to include in simulator export. */
    imports?: string[];
    /** Alows skipping simulator export */
    skipPackageSources?: boolean;

    /** Instruments to import as ESM modules. */
    modules?: Instrument[];
    /** Required for modules. Import to resolve to the bundled module. */
    import?: string;
}

Example

{
    "packagesDir": "PackageSources/html_ui/Pages/VCockpit/Instruments/a22x",
    "instruments": [
        {
            "name": "DisplayUnits",
            "directory": "src/instruments/src/DisplayUnits",
            "imports": ["/JS/dataStorage.js"],
        },
        {
            "name": "CTP",
            "directory": "src/instruments/src/CTP",
            "imports": ["/JS/dataStorage.js"]
        },
        {
            "name": "ISI",
            "directory": "src/instruments/src/ISI"
        }
    ]
}

MSFS Avionics Framework Compatibility

For compatibility with Mach, a modification must be made to the msfs-avionics source code:

# src/sdk/components/FSComponent.ts
- [357]   if (typeof type === 'function' && type.name === 'Fragment') {
+ [357]   if (typeof type === 'function' && type.name === Fragment.name) {

These changes are also available through the @synaptic-simulations/msfssdk npm package.