Rant: Developers, wake up!

[simmerhead 885]

Since Prepar3D v3 add-ons should be made to install outside of the P3D folder structure, preferably in the folder of choice of the user. An xml file in the My Documents\Prepar3D v4 Add-ons folder is all that P3D need to make it work in the simulator.

Now, for some reason, some developers continue to make life miserable for the user by ignoring good practice by making a mess of the main P3D folders with completely unnecessary negative side effects. Many developers have been graciously awarding us with P3Dv3 and v4 upgrades, only to stumble on the finish line by providing us with poor install routines.

So what can be gained by following the prefered method of install add-ons outside of the main P3D folders? Here are some of the benefits:

1. In theory you can uninstall and delete the P3D folders without deleting the add-ons, hence making a clean reinstall simple and easy. When a new install of P3D is in place it will look up all the addons in the My Documents\Prepar3D v4 Add-ons folder and you’re back up and running WITH NO NEED TO REINSTALL THE ADD-ONS ALSO! Of course there are some exceptions to the rule, but stuff like aircraft, AI traffic, avatars etc. will have zero issues with this method.
2. You can delete an addon by simply deleting the folder where YOU chose to install it and the folder containing the xml file in the My Documents\Prepar3D v4 Add-ons folder. No need to track down files scattered all over the place… As most of us have experience, even those add-ons containing uninstallers can mess up or miss files that should have been deleted.
3. You can spread your add-ons over as many drives as you like with zero fuzz. We all know that with a lot of scenery the hard drive containing P3D fills up fast – even worse if you have a few more sims installed as well.
4. It is a nice to have add-ons that are compatible with more than one version of the sim gathered in one place.
5. You have too many aircraft or AI aircraft installed? Just move the folders from the My Documents\Prepar3D v4 Add-ons folder into a temporary folder. When you need them again, it's a simple drag and drop, no need to go through tedious install processes again, find those passwords and go through online license checks.
6. Last, but not least – It lets the user have full control over where files are stored on their own computer.

I’ve been slowly adapting to P3Dv4 since my P3Dv3 runs great with everything installed and tuned to perfection. However, I can’t escape the VAS issue, so over the last few weeks I’ve slowly started to install P3Dv4 add-ons side by side. ORBX is in place, and sadly they don’t use the external approach. However I know scenery is a bit more complicated to install, so I will leave them out of the rant for now.

The first aircraft I bought for P3Dv4 was the A2A T-6 Texan Accusim. It did just as it was supposed to do and put all the files in the add-on folder, although I wish I could have selected another external folder for everything but the xml file entry. I was also eager to try out the new Ultimate Traffic offering, UT Live. Flight1 has obvisouly both gotten the memo and read it. UT Live installed right where I wanted it to! HiFiSim’s Active Sky 2016 and REX Soft Clouds play nice too.

Sadly JustFlight and Carenado were big disappointments. My JustFlight Chipmunks and Carenado C208B Grand Caravan used the old “FSX-method” and messed up my nice and tidy P3Dv4 folders…

[sidfadc 1,344]

Agreed, I recently installed the new LatinVFR update for KSAN and it didn't create an addon.xml and was installed into the root of the sim folder.  I then had to mess about putting it in the Addon's folder where it should go in the first place.  I think LM need to force this on Dev's in the next update because it makes total sense.

[vgbaron 3,612]

Carenado can be installed to a unique folder outside of the P3D root. Then you can manually or use Lorby's AO to create the XML file. So it's not a complete failure to comply.

 

Vic

[simbol 5,819]

Well, it goes both sides.

I made my add-on  .xml method complaint and what I discovered after 2 months? Users overriding manually the P3D default files and deleting the add-on.xml file from their documents.

I had to put warnings all over the place in an attempt to stop this.

I guess not everyone is ready for this technique including users, but I am sure this will change with time.

Regards 

Simbol 

[corinoco 22]

Lorby-Si's excellent Addon-Organizer for P3Dv4 helps immensely; but the OP is right.

It really ticks me off when developers; and not just for P3D, this also applies to Windows apps, Autodesk apps (don't get me started); ignore published SDKs that make things crystal clear and go and do their own thing which ultimately screws up your entire system.

Example - Autodesk's insistence on using outdated DRM that relies dodgy block-level editing of your system disk, provided by an even more dodgy DRM provider with proven links to certain global intelligence organisations. Essentially it's a rootkit, which is why they tell you to switch off your AV when you install it, and on top of that all their software demands that your users must run as Admin (because it needs block-level disk access, right?). What could possibly go wrong with everyone running as Admin? (Ok, I got started).

LM P3D is utterly benign, and the default install is damn near perfect. 100+fps with default install at only mid-range settings on my mediocre rig and it still looks better than FSX:SE at max settings and IMHO looks as good as X-Plane. Actually better then X Plane - because I fly mostly in Australia.

My first attempt at installing P3Dv4 was disastrous when I simply installed all my addons - I was left with a glitchy P3D install that CTD's frequently and framerates in the low TENS.

I deleted the whole lot and started again, this time using a directory-change-management tool (FolderChangesView by NIRsoft) and Windows Shadow Copies for roll-back when addons inevitably screwed with stuff the SDK clearly tells you NOT to screw with. I used Lorby's Addon Organizer to build my own XML files; and guess what? I've got full ORBX, OZx, FS Global 2018 terrain, high-res textures, dynamic lighting, dynamic shadows, full Traffic X 360 at 50% for airliners and general av, detail levels at mid-range and I'm getting solid 30fps at busy airports, and solid 60+FPS at altitude / VFR country.

Who knew following the published SDK procedures would work so well?

[simmerhead 885]

9 hours ago, simbol said:

Well, it goes both sides.

I made my add-on  .xml method complaint and what I discovered after 2 months? Users overriding manually the P3D default files and deleting the add-on.xml file from their documents.

I had to put warnings all over the place in an attempt to stop this.

I guess not everyone is ready for this technique including users, but I am sure this will change with time.

Regards 

Simbol 

We all know how hard it is for old dogs to learn new tricks, but it's a poor excuse in my humble opinion. Someone has to lead the way and in the long run I thikn it will solve more problems than it creates.

[Reader 2,021]

In theory you can uninstall and delete the P3D folders without deleting the add-ons, hence making a clean reinstall simple and easy. When a new install of P3D is in place it will look up all the addons in the My Documents\Prepar3D v4 Add-ons folder and you’re back up and running WITH NO NEED TO REINSTALL THE ADD-ONS ALSO! Of course there are some exceptions to the rule, but stuff like aircraft, AI traffic, avatars etc. will have zero issues with this method.

With a little forward thinking this can be perfectly well achieved by careful file management

You can delete an addon by simply deleting the folder where YOU chose to install it and the folder containing the xml file in the My Documents\Prepar3D v4 Add-ons folder. No need to track down files scattered all over the place… As most of us have experience, even those add-ons containing uninstallers can mess up or miss files that should have been deleted.

Very few add ons scatter files "all over the place".

You can spread your add-ons over as many drives as you like with zero fuzz. We all know that with a lot of scenery the hard drive containing P3D fills up fast – even worse if you have a few more sims installed as well.

This can easily be done already, scenery can be placed anywhere and referenced in the scenery library.

It is a nice to have add-ons that are compatible with more than one version of the sim gathered in one place.

This is already possible using the scenery library, as above.

You have too many aircraft or AI aircraft installed? Just move the folders from the My Documents\Prepar3D v4 Add-ons folder into a temporary folder. When you need them again, it's a simple drag and drop, no need to go through tedious install processes again, find those passwords and go through online license checks.

Or just create a folder named say "Hangar" and drag the aircraft folders into that.

Last, but not least – It lets the user have full control over where files are stored on their own computer.

This is already the case.

[simmerhead 885]

If you got nothing better to do in life than micro manage files on your hard drive, be my guest...

[Reader 2,021]

Thank you, I will.

I was just pointing out a few reasons why people may not have jumped to adopt something "new".

[simbol 5,819]

1 hour ago, simmerhead said:

We all know how hard it is for old dogs to learn new tricks, but it's a poor excuse in my humble opinion. Someone has to lead the way and in the long run I thikn it will solve more problems than it creates.

Not sure if I understand your comment, I implemented the method as per your rant long time ago lol but sadly it was ignored by many simmers!.

All the best,
Simbol

[simmerhead 885]

1 hour ago, simbol said:

Not sure if I understand your comment, I implemented the method as per your rant long time ago lol but sadly it was ignored by many simmers!.

All the best,
Simbol

Sorry for being unclear. You seem to be one of the "good guys" and I see that you weren't making excuses, just pointing out that people seem to ignore your good practice :)

However, I hope developers won't use user mistakes as an excuse for not moving with the times.

From a usability perspective changes are challenging, especially for software that people have been using for a long time. I've seen some of the rants coming from Windows, Photoshop and Excel users when major changes have been done - I'm an economist and expert Excel user for 20 years. When the menu system was overhauled some years ago it took me one year to get comfortable in Excel again. Deleting and installing a new autopilot is hard for the brain ;)

However, some changes are for the better, and the less developers tamper with the main P3D folder, the better for all of us in the long run, even though putting the files in the "My Documents" folder is an odd choice. Maybe it would have been much easier if P3D just made a second folder on the root drive of the install called Prepar3D Add-ons - or let the user chose the folder during the install routine. I'm sure there are a lot of Prepar3D user that still have no idea that there is such a thing as the Add-on folder inside My Documents :)

In general third party software should stay away from using the My Documents and My Photos folders. They are MY folders after all... Who considers add-ons documents anyway?

[harrry 322]

Of course if you are keeping your C drive as small as possible either for it to be on an SSD or for regular cloning backups of the OS it is not very nice if people keep trying to fill it by hard wiring things into the C program files or the C:/user/docs folders.

Choice is fine but let the choice be ours, our Sim, our Money and our Time.

[virtuali 4,421]

It's nice that, after getting so much flak on June 1st 2017 (P3D V4 release date), when we provided proper V4 installers for all our products on Day 0, all using the add-on.xml method in the best way possible, and after being attacked everywhere by being the usual weirdos doing things their own way, people is starting to realize how much better the new system is.

Since P3D is getting fairly regular updates, it should have been obvious that, using the old ways was going to be a recipe for disaster, very soon. It might have worked, somewhat, since nobody ever patched FSX in 10 years (with the exception of a couple of minor Steam patches), but not today.

However, even those using the add-on.xml method, sometimes don't seem to get it entirely:

1) Why placing all files related to the addon in the Documents folder ??? That should contain ONLY the small add-on.xml, with <Path> comands pointing to the actual location of the files, which can be everywhere, even on a different drive. Placing everything in the Documents\Prepar3D V4 folder forces (again) users to have the addon files in the same folder as their documents, which usually is the boot drive, which might be a smaller SSD, compared to a larger (cheaper) external drive holding all the addons.

This might be explained because, by default, if there's NO path set in the <Path> line of the add-on.xml, the files are being searched in the folder directly below of the add-on.xml file itself. This way, installers would be easier, since they could just distribute a pre-made add-on.xml, without caring to set the actual paths in the <Path> lines of the XML. So it makes for an easier installation routine, even if it's worse for users

2) Even more wrong than placing the addon files in the Documents folder, is using the add-on.xml and continue to place stuff inside the SIM folder! Somebody IS doing this but...WHY ??? This can only be explained by not getting the whole idea of the add-on.xml concept...

 

[fatal 0]

Thank god some of they use the old method! While add-on.xml method would be fantastic, it has its downsides:

- Some add-ons install the whole stuff to the documents folder, which (at me, and some other users I think) on the C drive which is a small SSD for the system, and the sim is on an other (much larger) drive.

- In the Sim, add-on.xml entries order cannot be changed in the scenery library, so with a lot of addons it can made a mess, even with a couple sceneries as soon as the install order is not in a predefined way (e.g if I buy orbx vector after an airport scenery and both would use add-on.xml method it won't work because vector must be below airports). Of course it can be reordered by an external tool, but that's not the best for beginner simmers/IT beginners.

- In some cases addon sceneries overwrites some default files in the scenery/world folder (personally, I don't like this).

 

I personally put all sceneries to the ecosystem folder and add to the library by hand or modify the paths in add-on.xml and/or scenery.cfg and I think there is no problem with this until it can work and we have our choices. :)

[Christopher Low 5,353]

Quote

In the Sim, add-on.xml entries order cannot be changed in the scenery library, so with a lot of addons it can made a mess, even with a couple sceneries as soon as the install order is not in a predefined way (e.g if I buy orbx vector after an airport scenery and both would use add-on.xml method it won't work because vector must be below airports). Of course it can be reordered by an external tool, but that's not the best for beginner simmers/IT beginners

This is the part about the new system that I fail to understand. Surely, if you are going to introduce a system where the order of the scenery entries can't be changed, you need to eliminate the "some sceneries need to be higher than others in the pecking order" problem?