Here's the problem guys. Today, I decided to start working on my detailed and semi realistic overhead for my Mike Stone Jetstar 2.  I had downloaded every Jetstar cockpit photo I could find from airliners.net.  I had a full overhead pic which I trimmed down to make a decent fitting window within FS.  When I opened CFG Edit and selected the .bmp I made I got an error message from CFG Edit stating "bad bitmap". It wouldn't let me use what I had created from the photo.  I know its possible, I already did it with a CRJ overhead pic wich I modified the Premier Crj with in order to get the start panel and other controls off the center ped. and on the overhead where they're supposed to be in the real plane.  Now, can anyone offer me any ideas why CFG Edit did not like the photo bitmap I had created for the Jetstar?  Thanks a bunch.

I'm not familiar with that problem but what Fireman said makes sense.  Irfanview http://www.irfanview.com/ is able to do a lot of these conversions.

Get rid of that "Window" and put another one in, this time double checking the size of the window. You may have to go through this proceedure a few times to get the size you want.

I have encountered this problem too when adding a bitmap of my own to a new Window or an existing one.

Once you have put one in there like you have already, you can't do much with it, although the "magnify" option in CFGEdit should have enlarged it to at least work with...I would think!!

Good luck anyway.

Gary, let me ask this. With your bitmap in there as a seperate window, i.e. Winow xx entry in the panel.cfg or are you adding this bitmap to the main panel of your acft?

I am not clear which you are doing.

Try this, open CFGEdit with your panel bmp you added loaded up in the screen. Now, click on the Windows heading above in CFGEdit, select the Set Default Position...... and see what it looks like as far as size and position. Make sure FS2000 is selected, this gives you more control on sizing and positoning the window. Try resizing it.  See what that does for you.

You might also try opening up your overhead panel.bmp in CFGEdit, then going through WINDOW/Properties and note the size of your bmp on the left. Then note the size of the background in MM on the right. With the 747-400 overhead, the size of the bmp on the left is 880X168 and the size of the background on the right in MM is 550.

Those are some areas worth looking at. Will also help you pick up more knowlege of CFGEdit and panel design.

I wished I could tell you EXACTLY what you need to do, but I only play with panels on rare occasion. Most of what I do is adding/changing gauges on existing panels, BUT I have run in to the same problem you are experiencing when I added a new Window and used my own bmp. But that was a long time ago and for the life of me, I can't remember exactly what I did to get it right. Sorry bud!

I know there are those here with a whole heck of lot more panel experience than me. Guess they just haven't ready your post yet. Ya think?? 

On the subject of BMP formats. Panel BMPs always used to be in 8 bit (256 colours). I'm not sure this is still the case in FS9 but the default panels are in this format. M$ Paint has the option to Save As in 256 colours.