iFlag Core Overview
iFlag is the first of its kind visual race control system designed to indicate different track states and information in a visual manner through the use of a Visual Display Device. Originally developed and envisioned by Petr Vostrel, iFlag became a standard for use with iRacing. This version of iFlag a parallel release and is based on the original iFlag Open Source Development by Petr. This release is a ground up overhaul of the entire system by which iFlag was created upon. Approximately 98% of the code has been rewritten by Brion Sohn and Derek Menzies at Penguin r/c. Many of the features that have been incorporated in to this release of iFlag were discussed with Petr and the iFlag Community prior to the creation of this release.
We at Penguin r/c took on this extensive long term project for a few reasons.
#1 - We love the idea of the iFlag software and wanted the ability to incorporate the use of iFlag into our products. This is now accomplished through the Plugin Extension System incorporated into the Core program. With this development we have opened the opportunity for other Manufacturers or Creators to develop their own plugins for use with the iFlag base program.
#2 - We wanted to incorporate many of the long overdue requested features into the system. The most requested being the use of multiple devices from the same program instance. In addition to all the new features we have resolved many underlying issues that would cause flags to either be displayed in wrong situations or not displayed at all.
The creation of this version of the program is to bring iFlag into a current and highly useful state not only for Penguin r/c but for anyone who wishes to develop for iFlag without diminishing anything that was originally available in the original iFlag release. The original hardware, devices, and modules are known in this version as iFlag Classic.
Penguin r/c began development of this version of iFlag in April of 2020 by reaching out to Petr (the original creator) about incorporating iFlag into some new Products. Initially Petr was going to take on the daunting task of adding and updating iFlag with the Needed elements in order to get this done properly. Unfortunately work and other things got in the way of collaborative development so we at Penguin r/c had to begin work on further code development in House. In January of 2021 the Major rewrite began which created the parallel development of iFlag as the code is too far different to be incorporated as an update to the original. Due to this disparity this version is not linked or branched from the original iFlag GitHub @ https://github.com/simracer-cz/iFlag. The Core iFlag Program and the Default Extension remain under the original iFlag GNU-GPLv2 License and is free to use and comes with no warranty. iFlag extensions are not required by the core iFlag program to run and therefore can be released under whichever license the Creator of the Extension decides. The full text of the GNU-GPLv2 license and additional information for each installed Extension as well as the Core Program is provided within the iFlag Software about pages.
iFlag Name, iFlag Logo, and original source © Petr Vostrel, Svitavy, Czech Republic
