BGL file question

[kenthom]

I have a question that may be very elementary but it has me confused.

When I rename a scenery bgl file to "off" and then delete the "off" so as to reactivate the bgl file the visual icon of the bgl stays white or blank and does not reactivate.  Is that normal?  If so, is there a way to get that bgl file back?  Do you have to reinstall the whole scenery to get it back?

I thought that you could turn the scenery off and on by renaming it but it never works for me.  Am I missing a step in the process somewhere.

Thanks

[Mace]

If I am understanding you correctly...you are changing the file extension?   If you mean you change the extension to ".off" then yes, that will deactivate the bgl file.  To reactivate, you select the file then select 'rename' (or keyboard shortcut F2 in Windows Explorer), and add the bgl extension back in.

[IvanFel]

What Rhett said ^^^.

My icons .bgl icons never change after renaming. I usually rename the file to .org.  The file icon changes when the file type is associated with a specific application.

[Christopher Low]

Quote

The file icon changes when the file type is associated with a specific application.....

...and that's where problems can start. If the associated application is changed (either by accident or design), this can lead to problems when temporarily "switching off" files. This has happened to me in the past. When I tried to disable a BGL file by changing the suffix to ".OFF", I ended up with the ".OFF" part being added to the end of the filename itself....but it was still a .BGL file.

I never did work out how to resolve it...

[GEKtheReaper]

I read this topic and I'm confused...

What has the file ICON to do with the extension of BGL/OFF/ORG Files?

Your OS has some files that can be opened with double click: e.g. a .PDF file. Thus your OS will associate your .PDF extension files to e.g. Adobe so when you double click the file, Adobe gets launched and you see the content. For the user to be able to recognize such files, the OS changes the file icons (in this example a PDF icon of any kind).

A BGL is not a file that can be opened by double-click (as many other files) and such, does not have ANY file associations with it. The icon for such a file will be blank. The same goes for an .OFF file... (you have no application that will directly open an .OFF file nore an .ORG file) and the icon will be unchanged.

Some might try to change the association by mistake (right click -> open with -> other application -> mark the checkbox "always open such extensions with the selected application) and boom...the file type gets an association which will not work (but your icon would change). This can be undone but I will not cover it in my reply.

The second thing is: your OS can be set to HIDE the extensions of known file types: e.g. for a .PDF file your os will only display the file name (not the extensions) but you will recognize it is a PDF due to it's file ICON. In such a case you will be unable to change the extension of the files (because they are not shown) so you might end up in adding .OFF to the file name instead of the extension: e.g. FILE.OFF.BGL instead of FILE.BGL.OFF.

Anyway...you don't have to use the OFF to deactivate a .BGL. You only must change the BGL extension in something else not used by the sim and therefore will not be recognized and loaded by it e.g. FILE.BGL.CHUPACABRA.

[downscc]

8 hours ago, GEKtheReaper said:

Anyway...you don't have to use the OFF to deactivate a .BGL. You only must change the BGL extension in something else not used by the sim and therefore will not be recognized and loaded by it e.g. FILE.BGL.CHUPACABRA.

Agree with Gerald, .OFF is simply one way. You can change .bgl to bfd and has the same effect as removing the file.  The advantage to using .OFF is some developers will recognize it when running file updates or other housekeeping chores.  Orbx recommends that the .OFF be appended to the filename (e.g., EDGEOFUNIV.BGL.OFF) and the Orbx FTXCentral and installers will recognize that you have disabled that file and will not write a new EDGEOFUNIV.BGL file to the directory.  I wish FSDT would observe when I have turned off one of their ADE files because I am using my own modified ADE, but no they don't want to do that so everytime I run FSDT Updater I need to go through all their scenery folders and turn off and copy into the folder the file I chose to use.

[Bobsk8]

I just do it  this way... XXXX.bgl.b        That does it, and it is easy to spot.