CMDR Dashboard: an Elite Dangerous cockpit on the XENEON EDGE

CMDR Dashboard in the Large slot of a XENEON EDGE, drawn as near-black panels with orange headings, each panel with its top right corner cut. Page tabs along the top: Cockpit (open, filled orange), Route, Cargo, Modules and On Foot. Ship: SUPERCRUISE in big orange capitals, FSD ready, fire group A, panel No focus, legal Clean in green, HUD Combat mode, credits 48.3M CR. Fuel: 26.4 t in big orange figures over a bar of ten full orange cells, and the reservoir at 0.48 t in blue over a nearly full blue bar. Ship status, 3 on: a grid of sixteen square lights, Gear, Scoop, Hardpoints, Lights, Night Vision, Silent Run, FA Off, Shields, Mass Lock, Overheat, Danger, Interdiction, FSD Charge, FSD Cooldown, FSD Jump and Supercruise, with Lights lit orange and Shields and Supercruise lit blue. Pips: three columns of four, SYS, ENG and WEP, each at 2. Destination: next jump Thessa Drift, 4 jumps left, route to Kestrel Reach, 66.8 ly. Route: 4 jumps left, next Thessa Drift with a DA star badge, a red warning White dwarf: no fuel scooping, destination Kestrel Reach, 66.8 ly, not scoopable 2 of 4. — The cockpit in the Large slot, in supercruise on a plotted route. The commander, ship and star systems in these pictures are made up, drawn by the widget from test files.

Submitted for approval. CMDR Dashboard is waiting for review on the Elgato Marketplace. This page will link to the listing as soon as it is approved.

What it shows

The cockpit

Flight: the mode in big type (supercruise, normal space, hyperspace, docked, landed, glide), the FSD (charging, cooling down, mass locked), fire group, the panel you have open, legal state and HUD mode.
Pips: three columns of four, in half pips, the way your power distributor counts them.
Fuel: the main tanks against the most seen in them, the reservoir, low fuel and fuel scooping. The FAQ says why.
Sixteen status lights: landing gear, cargo scoop, hardpoints, lights, night vision, silent running, flight assist off, shields, mass lock, overheating, danger, interdiction, FSD charge, FSD cooldown, FSD jump and supercruise.
Destination and route: the next jump, the jumps left and the light years to go.
Near a planet: the body, your heading on a tape, latitude, longitude and altitude.
Cargo against the size of your racks, with limpets, stolen and mission cargo.

It follows you

Deploy the SRV and its own lights take over: handbrake, drive assist, turret, high beam and more.
Step out on foot and the suit shows oxygen, health, temperature, gravity and your weapon, with medkits, energy cells and grenades from your backpack.
Board again and the cockpit comes back. With page tabs on, boarding, deploying the SRV or stepping out turns the screen back to the cockpit from any other page.

The dashboard on foot in the Large slot: the first tab now reads Suit. Suit: oxygen 82% in big blue figures over a blue bar, health 93% in big green figures over a green bar, temperature -22 °C, cold, in blue, gravity 0.31 g, weapon Kinetic Rifle. Location: On a planet, body Vantor 3 a, position 12.4000° S 133.2000° E, heading 045°, legal Clean in green, credits 48.3M CR. Backpack: 3 medkits, 4 energy cells and 2 grenades in big figures, then goods 3, components 9 and data 1, and the ship locker holding Medkit 1, Shield Disruptor 1 and Frag Grenade 1. Planet: Vantor 3 a, heading 045° NE in big orange figures over a heading tape, latitude 12.4000° S, longitude 133.2000° E, gravity 0.31 g. Destination: No target, 6 plotted jumps, route to Kestrel Reach. — On foot on a planet: the suit, where you are, the backpack and the ship locker. The commander and the planet are made up.

The pages

Route: every system ahead with its star class, the stars you cannot scoop, and neutron stars and white dwarfs marked, with the length of each jump.
Cargo: every line in the hold.
Modules: the power drawn in total and by priority, and every module with its slot and power.
On Foot: the suit, where you are, the backpack and the ship locker.

The Route page in the Large slot, set to show that page alone. Route: 4 jumps left in big orange type, next Thessa Drift with a blue DA star badge, a red warning White dwarf: no fuel scooping, destination Kestrel Reach, distance 66.8 ly, not scoopable 2 of 4. Jumps from Col Aldren, 4: jump 3, Thessa Drift, star DA in blue, 17.0 ly; jump 4, Myrrhine, star G in orange, 15.8 ly; jump 5, Oruvan, star N in blue, 16.9 ly; jump 6, Kestrel Reach, star A in orange, 17.1 ly. Destination: next jump Thessa Drift, 4 jumps left, route to Kestrel Reach, 66.8 ly. Fuel: 26.4 t over ten full orange cells, and the reservoir at 0.48 t in blue. — The Route page on its own: a white dwarf and a neutron star ahead, in blue, so you know where you cannot scoop. Every system named here is made up.

When the game is closed or at the menu

The widget says what is missing instead of going blank, and the cockpit comes back by itself once you load in.

Waiting for Elite Dangerous: nothing from the game yet. Load into the game: the file the widget reads appears once your commander is in the cockpit or on foot.
Load into the game: the game is running, but your commander has not loaded in yet.
Still waiting for Elite Dangerous: nothing at all for a minute (see What it reads).
At the main menu: you are at the menu, or the game was closed.
No change for a while: after ten minutes without a change, the last state stays on screen with how long ago it changed.
Needs iCUE 5.51 or later: an earlier iCUE cannot let a widget read a file.

What you need

A Corsair XENEON EDGE, on Windows.
iCUE 5.51 or newer. Earlier versions cannot let a widget read a file.
Elite Dangerous on the same PC, Horizons or Odyssey, from Steam, Epic or Frontier's own launcher.
That is all: no mod, no companion app and no Stream Deck. A Stream Deck plugin for Elite Dangerous is on the way, but the widget does not need it.

What it reads

The game writes a few small files for third-party tools in %USERPROFILE%\Saved Games\Frontier Developments\Elite Dangerous\. The widget reads six of them, by name:

Status.json: the flight mode, lights, pips, fuel, fire group, panel, legal state, position near a planet, and on foot your suit's readings.
Cargo.json: what is in the hold.
NavRoute.json: the route you plotted.
ModulesInfo.json: power by module, and your cargo rack sizes.
Backpack.json and ShipLocker.json: what you carry on foot, and what waits in the ship locker.

It reads them only, and nothing else. It never reads the game's journal files in the same folder, and makes no network request: it reads the files already on your PC by their local file address and watches them for changes. Nothing leaves your PC.

Start the game once before you add the widget in iCUE. The game makes that folder the first time it runs, and iCUE only watches a folder that existed when the widget was added. If you placed the widget first, remove it and add it again, or restart iCUE.

The route appears once you plot one. Cargo rack sizes appear once you open the Modules tab of the right-hand panel in the game, since that is when the game writes ModulesInfo.json.

Sizes and settings

You choose the size in iCUE when you place the widget: Small, Medium, Large or Extra Large, across or upright. Every page is laid out for every size. A list too long for its panel says how many rows it holds; tap it to see the next ones.

In the widget's settings in iCUE you can:

Show the dashboard (it follows you, with page tabs) or one page (Ship, Route, Cargo, Modules or On Foot), so you can put one big dashboard on the Edge and smaller CMDR Dashboard widgets beside it;
switch the page tabs on the dashboard on or off. The Edge is a touchscreen, so a tap on a tab opens that page;
switch Follow you on or off: whether boarding, the SRV and stepping out turn the screen back to the cockpit;
hide your credit balance with one switch, handy when you stream;
set the text, accent and background colours, and the background transparency. The accent is orange until you change it.

What it can and cannot do

It reads six small files in one folder on your PC. No network, no account, nothing stored, and the widget writes nothing; nothing leaves your PC from the widget.
It never reads your journal files, which hold your chat.
It is read-only. It cannot press keys or change anything in your game. Taps only change what the widget shows.
It shows what the game writes to those files. Your ship's name, hull and the name of the system you are in are not in them, so they do not appear. Near a planet it shows the body's name, and on a route the systems ahead.

Frequently asked

Do I need a mod or a Stream Deck?

No. Elite Dangerous writes these files itself, for tools like this one, so there is nothing to install in the game. A Stream Deck plugin for Elite Dangerous is coming, but the widget works on its own.

It says Waiting for Elite Dangerous.

Load into the game: the files appear once your commander is in the cockpit or on foot, not at the main menu. If it then says Still waiting for Elite Dangerous, the widget was probably added before the game had ever run on this PC. iCUE can only watch a folder that already exists, so remove the widget and add it again, or restart iCUE.

Why does fuel say "seen"?

The game writes how much fuel is in your main tanks, but not how big they are: the core fuel tank is not in the files the widget reads. So the bar measures against the most fuel the widget has seen in the tank, and says so: 18.2 t of 32.0 t seen, for example. Fill up and the bar reads against a full tank.

Is this made by Frontier or Corsair?

No. CMDR Dashboard is an unofficial fan project made by TeaTime, not affiliated with or endorsed by Frontier Developments or Corsair. Elite Dangerous is a trademark of Frontier Developments plc, and XENEON EDGE and iCUE are trademarks of Corsair. No game art, logos or fonts are used: every picture is drawn in code, with panels, bars, square lights and simple line glyphs.

Something is still wrong.

Email support@teatimeservers.ca and tell us what the widget says.