Strict package law : feature request

[kmax59 213]

Hi Oliver,

We can only be greatful for the amazing work you have done over the years with P4AO and I could not manage my sim properly without it now.

After slowly converting and installing all of my new addons using the add-on.xml method, I've realized that disabling only the scenery components were slowing down the simulator startup as it creates content errors in P3D (as correctly explained in your user manual). This is even more visible now that orbx migrated to orbx central.
Unfortunately only the scenery components can be part of the groups of P4AO, meaning that disabling a group only disables the associated scenery components, instead of the full package.

Using the "Enforce strict package law" is the solution to this, but disabling a package needs to be done from the package page.  This prevents to use the powerful group feature to enable/disable 3rd party sceneries with this setting enabled.
Thus, I was wondering if something more user friendly could be done : would it be possible that disabling a scenery component would disable the entire associated add-on package? This would allow us to keep enabling/disabling our sceneries from the group page, but instead of disabling only the scenery component it would disable the entire corresponding package when the "Enforce strict package law" is enabled.

Would it be feasible and if so, would you be willing to look at this?

Thanks by advance 🙂

Edited August 12, 2019 by kmax59

[Lorby_SI 2,038]

Hello Maxime,

to be honest - P4AO is supposed to do that already. This sounds more like a bug in the Scenery Groups feature. I will investigate.

Edit:
I did a quick test, and for me it seems to work correctly. I activated "Strict package law", then I added a scenery package and a legacy scenery to a group. Doublclicking the group turned both of them red, and indeed, the package was disabled too. The other way round it worked the same - doubleclick again, both turn green, package is reactivated too. I usually press "Save" between actions.

Maybe I misunderstood your issue?

Best regards

Edited August 12, 2019 by Lorby_SI

[kmax59 213]

Hello Oliver,

Thank you for the quick answer. After trying again, it seems that indeed works, but partially.

For some reason some of the scenery components does not get re-enabled once it's been disabled using the strict law package, it also does not work with some layers. Weird but there must be an explanation behind this, I'll keep investigating as well and will keep you informed.

[kmax59 213]

Hi again Oliver,

Decided to take a quick closer look at it and it seems the fact it does not work properly is linked to the Activate / Deactivate all groups. If I don't use it and enable/disable all the groups one by one it seems to work. If I use "Activate / Deactivate all groups" once, the program seems to be confused and don't activate/deactivate the packages as requested.

[Lorby_SI 2,038]

17 minutes ago, kmax59 said:

Hi again Oliver,

Decided to take a quick closer look at it and it seems the fact it does not work properly is linked to the Activate / Deactivate all groups. If I don't use it and enable/disable all the groups one by one it seems to work. If I use "Activate / Deactivate all groups" once, the program seems to be confused and don't activate/deactivate the packages as requested.

OK, thanks. I will check what the difference between the two is.

Best regards

Edited August 12, 2019 by Lorby_SI

[Lorby_SI 2,038]

25 minutes ago, kmax59 said:

Hi again Oliver,

Decided to take a quick closer look at it and it seems the fact it does not work properly is linked to the Activate / Deactivate all groups. If I don't use it and enable/disable all the groups one by one it seems to work. If I use "Activate / Deactivate all groups" once, the program seems to be confused and don't activate/deactivate the packages as requested.

Yup, that was a bug. Fixed and ready for download, version 1.43 b10.

Best regards

[kmax59 213]

16 minutes ago, Lorby_SI said:

Yup, that was a bug. Fixed and ready for download, version 1.43 b10.

Best regards

Wow that was fast !
Many thanks 🙂

[kmax59 213]

Hi @Lorby_SI, this is working as it should.

I still have a small request if it's not too complicated to implement and not too risky:
Disbaling a scenery layer and a group of layer now works completely as it should and also disables the corresponding addon package when "Enfore strict package low" is enabled.

However :

• when disabling all groups it also change this line "AddOn.Component" into this :"AddOn.Component.Disabled" in the add-on.xml, thus it still create a content error in P3D.
• It does the same thing when disabling a scenery layer individually from the scenery tab.
• Disabling an entire group manually instead of using "all groups" or using the scenery tab does not change this line and does not create a content error, which is desired.

In order to solve conflicts between these 2 behaviours, I had to re-enable all groups and make sure all sceneries that were unticked in groups were correctly re-enabled using the scenery tab (so that ".disabled" is removed from every single add-on.xml). Then I disabled all the groups again individually, this made the entire associated packages being disabled but without that "disabled" addition to the scenery components. 
Now this has been done I don't need to worry about that again and I can manage everything from the group tab without creating content errors.

This is far from being a big deal, but if the behaviour of the 2 firsts points could be changed (only when "Enforce strict package law" is enabled of course) in order to make this work as enabling/disabling individual groups like point 3, it would be great.

That said I fear this could be a bit too complicated and could compromise the normal behaviour when this option is disabled, so if you think it's not a good idea, I guess we can live with how it is now 🙂

Edited August 13, 2019 by kmax59

[Lorby_SI 2,038]

7 minutes ago, kmax59 said:

Hi @Lorby_SI, this is working as it should.

I still have a small request if it's not too complicated to implement and not too risky:
Disbaling a scenery layer and a group of layer now works completely as it should and also disables the corresponding addon package when "Enfore strict package low" is enabled.

However :

• when disabling all groups it also change this line "AddOn.Component" into this :"AddOn.Component.Disabled" in the add-on.xml, thus it still create a content error in P3D.
• It does the same thing when disabling a scenery layer individually from the scenery tab. 
• Disabling an entire group manually instead of using "all groups" or using the scenery tab does not change this line and does not create a content error, which is desired.

 

This is far from being a big deal, but if the behaviour of the 2 firsts points could be changed only when "Enforce strict package law" is enabled in order to make this work as enabling/disabling individual groups like point 3, it would be great.
That said I fear this could be a bit too complicated and could compromise the normal behaviour when this option is disabled, so if you think it's not a good idea, I guess we can live with how it is now 🙂

Hello Maxime,

this is odd, it shouldn't do that. PackageLaw is implemented with if-else conditions, it is not intended that both actions happen. I will look into it...

Best regards

[Lorby_SI 2,038]

28 minutes ago, kmax59 said:

owever :

• when disabling all groups it also change this line "AddOn.Component" into this :"AddOn.Component.Disabled" in the add-on.xml, thus it still create a content error in P3D.
• It does the same thing when disabling a scenery layer individually from the scenery tab. 
• Disabling an entire group manually instead of using "all groups" or using the scenery tab does not change this line and does not create a content error, which is desired.

Hello Maxime,

since you have the test cases, would you mind trying this one?

https://www.dropbox.com/s/vclgj7u1u5izfa7/AddonOrganizer_1_43_b11.zip?dl=0

Best regards

 

[kmax59 213]

Sure I'd be pleased to, I'll let you know the results

[kmax59 213]

23 minutes ago, Lorby_SI said:

Hello Maxime,

since you have the test cases, would you mind trying this one?

https://www.dropbox.com/s/vclgj7u1u5izfa7/AddonOrganizer_1_43_b11.zip?dl=0

Best regards

 

Hi again,

Just testing this version, it now always add ".Disabled" to the scenery components in addition to disabling the packages, even when enabling/disabling individual groups.

EDIT: Sorry, I forgot the strict package law was disabled after installing a new version, after trying again, it seems to be working as it should in both cases

Edited August 13, 2019 by kmax59

[Lorby_SI 2,038]

3 minutes ago, kmax59 said:

Just testing this version, it now always add ".Disabled" to the scenery components in addition to disabling the packages, even when enabling/disabling individual groups.

Really strange, there must be something that I'm not seeing. Tends to happen in 20.796 lines of code... 🤨

Please hold the line...

Best regards

 

Edited August 13, 2019 by Lorby_SI

[kmax59 213]

3 minutes ago, Lorby_SI said:

Really strange, there must be something that I'm not seeing. Tends to happen in 20.796 lines of code... 🤨

Please hold the line...

Best regards

 

Sorry Oliver, I forgot the strict package law was disabled after installing a new version and I have not been fast enough to edit my previous post: after trying again, it seems to be working as it should in both cases, so it's now fine.

Thanks 🙂

Edited August 13, 2019 by kmax59