Organizing add-ons.cfg

[newtie 533]

Hi all-

I'm having great fun moving my photoscenery over to the addons menu. No problems with any of that and just have a few more to go.

Now, my PS in the addons menu is scattered all over the place. You can sort by title and directory but that seems to be an alphabetical endeavor.

Is there a way to group all of my Megascenery in the addon menu?  In the add-ons.cfg they are all back to back but the addons menu does not reflect this.

Any ideas?

[troyboy66 66]

1 hour ago, newtie said:

Hi all-

I'm having great fun moving my photoscenery over to the addons menu. No problems with any of that and just have a few more to go.

Now, my PS in the addons menu is scattered all over the place. You can sort by title and directory but that seems to be an alphabetical endeavor.

Is there a way to group all of my Megascenery in the addon menu?  In the add-ons.cfg they are all back to back but the addons menu does not reflect this.

Any ideas?

Perhaps using this if I understand you correctly: https://www.lorby-si.com/uploads/6/0/8/2/60827113/addonorganizer_1_45_b01.zip

[newtie 533]

I'm staying away from that for the time being. Doesn't cooperate with ORBX Central 4.

For the few sceneries I have, doing it by hand is fine and I'm learning a lot in the process as well, except getting them organized.

Cheers,

Mark

[F737MAX 5,560]

4 hours ago, newtie said:

I'm staying away from that for the time being. Doesn't cooperate with ORBX Central 4.

Guess I must be imagining Lorby-SI P4AO and Orbx Central 4 playing nicely with each other on my PC...

What I found works for me is having all of the add-on.xml scenery entries grouped together (no interdispersed scenery.cfg entries amongst them) in my scenery library list. 
Also, having all Orbx scenery added as scenery.cfg entries and installed to the main P3D folder - except that the Orbx folder that normally resides in the main P3D folder is actually a symbolic link to a location on another drive.

Haven't had any problems since Central 4.0.20 back in mid-October.
 

[Reader 2,011]

20 hours ago, newtie said:

I'm having great fun moving my photoscenery over to the addons menu.

Can you say what would be the advantage of doing this over simply adding them to the scenery library using the scenery.cfg file?

This is something that could be done using a very few clicks in the Scenery Config Editor

Edited February 23, 2020 by Reader

[newtie 533]

9 minutes ago, Reader said:

advantage of doing this over simply adding them to the scenery library 

Addons (xml) remain untouched during reinstall/update.

However, I see some folks have copy/pasted scenery.cfg after reinstall/update. Not sure if that actually works as I've never tried it.

[Lorby_SI 2,036]

2 hours ago, newtie said:

Addons (xml) remain untouched during reinstall/update.

That depends. This is only true if the addon has been installed outside of the core simulator folders in the first place. Just moving the scenery reference from scenery.cfg to add-on.xml does nothing.

Examples: a texture replacement addon or scenery with files in the simulator core folder (like effects, base layer altitude corrections, sounds) will be gone when you delete the sim.

Best regards

[Lorby_SI 2,036]

21 hours ago, newtie said:

For the few sceneries I have, doing it by hand is fine and I'm learning a lot in the process as well, except getting them organized.

Bear in mind that you don't have to create an add-on.xml for every single scenery. I would add all PR scenery that belongs together (for example a single continent) into the same add-on.xml. Then all of it can be turned on or off by just enabling/disabling the one addon package.

And also, please don't split the \scenery and \texture folders apart. You can reference a scenery area just like you used to: one single AddonComponent of category "Scenery" that targets the top folder where both \scenery and \texture reside.

Best regards

Edited February 23, 2020 by Lorby_SI

[Lorby_SI 2,036]

23 hours ago, newtie said:

In the add-ons.cfg they are all back to back but the addons menu does not reflect this.

Are you looking at the correct add-ons.cfg? There are two of them. 

Are you adding the packages on the autodiscovery path in \Documents or do you add them using the CLI? You should refrain from editing the two add-ons.cfg's manually, those files are handled by the sim or addon installers. Manual interference can go wrong (usually doesn't, they are simple text files. Still, please be careful.)

Best regards

[Reader 2,011]

This topic appeared to be about Megascenery but is yet again ranging far and wide from the subject.

Quote

Is there a way to group all of my Megascenery in the addon menu?  In the add-ons.cfg they are all back to back but the addons menu does not reflect this.

I would still be interested in what advantage there may be over the scenery.cfg file by using the add-ons.cfg fuile when adding Megascenery to the simulator. All this is based on the Megascenery not having been installed inside the P3D root folder and the question does not include  a texture replacement addon or scenery with files in the simulator core folder (like effects, base layer altitude corrections, sounds) 

 

Quote

However, I see some folks have copy/pasted scenery.cfg after reinstall/update. Not sure if that actually works as I've never tried it.

Users of the Scenery Config Editor to arrange their collection of addon scenery do this several times a day and it does indeed work.

Edited February 23, 2020 by Reader

[Lorby_SI 2,036]

28 minutes ago, Reader said:

I would still be interested in what advantage there may be over the scenery.cfg file by using the add-ons.cfg fuile when adding Megascenery to the simulator.

You can group them for example into one addon package per continent and enable/disable only those that you need by a couple of mouse clicks in the Add-ons menu in P3D. And add all the other stuff that belongs to that continent to that same package as well (mesh, AI, shaders, textures, planes, whatever). For example to save loading times. Other than that, there is no advantage, rather the opposite, since you can't change the layering of scenery addon packages from within the simulator.

Best regards

Edited February 23, 2020 by Lorby_SI

[Reader 2,011]

Thanks,

of course the Megascenery can also be grouped using the Scenery Config Editor and enabled and disabled in the same way. As I am sure you know, it cannot deal with Add-ons but is very good with scenery, wherever it may be installed.

I do not mean to disagree with anyone in this topic but I personally prefer the scenery.cfg method for my addon scenery, probably because I have years of experience with it and very little with the add-on method, which is of course my omission.

Edited February 23, 2020 by Reader

[newtie 533]

6 hours ago, Lorby_SI said:

Bear in mind that you don't have to create an add-on.xml for every single scenery. I would add all PR scenery that belongs together (for example a single continent) into the same add-on.xml. Then all of it can be turned on or off by just enabling/disabling the one addon package

Thanks for this Oliver. I will give this consolidation advice a try tomorrow!

Cheers,

Mark