vice

vice

A cross-platform, open-source, possibly-future VATSIM client

Features

• Cross-platform: runs on Windows and Mac (and should work on Linux--untested)
• Open source: licensed under the GNU General Public License, version 3.
• Tiled window interface allows flexible use of multiple radar scopes for VATSIM's top-down controlling environment.
• Support for VATSIM's standard sct2 sector files and pof position files makes it easy to get started using vice.
• Full-featured: all of the basics necessary for ATC as well as more advanced features like automatic generation of miles in trail separation indicators for arrivals and converging runway display aid (CRDA).

See the vice website for more details about vice's features and capabilities as well as for information about getting starting using it. (The website source is on github as well.)

Note that it is not currently possible to connect to VATSIM and to control aircraft using vice; the system is a full-featured prototype at the moment and not an official client.

Building vice

To build vice from scratch, first make sure that you have a recent go compiler installed: (go compiler downloads).

Next, make sure that SDL is installed on your system. You may build it from source, though installing prebuilt binaries is easier:

• Windows: You can download prebuilt binaries from the libsdl releases page. You will then need to set the following environment variables, with INSTALL in the following replaced with the directory where you installed SDL2-devel:
  • CGO_CFLAGS: '-I INSTALL/SDL2-2.24.0/x86_64-w64-mingw32/include'
  • CGO_CPPFLAGS: '-I INSTALL/SDL2-2.24.0/x86_64-w64-mingw32/include'
  • CGO_LDFLAGS: '-L INSTALL/SDL2-2.24.0/x86_64-w64-mingw32/lib'
• OSX: If you have homebrew installed, running brew install sdl2 will install SDL2.
• Linux: On Ubuntu, sudo apt install xorg-dev libsdl2-dev will install the necessary libraries.

On Windows, you must also have the mingw64 compiler installed. Make sure that your PATH environment variable includes the mingw64 bin directory.

With all of that set up, run the following command in a shell:

go install github.com/mmp/vice@latest

When the build completes, a vice binary will be in your ${GOPATH}/bin/vice directory; if the GOPATH environment variable is unset then vice will be in go/bin/vice, where the go/ directory is in your home directory.

For vice releases, there are a few more steps in the build process so that the executable has an icon and that OSX builds are universal binaries that run on both Intel and Apple CPUs. See the scripts in the osx and windows directories for details. See also the github workflow for the Windows build for details about how the Windows vice installer is created.