What is the advantage or necessity of placing 3rd party airports in the Add-ons folder rather than within P3D itself?  I've been following the protocol of adding my airports outside p3d itself but wonder if this is entirely necessary.  Thanks.

The main reasons I see are to save space on the drive where your root folder is. With the amount of add ons available these days it can quickly fill up, especially if you have complex scenery like Orbx TE. If you have do re-install it is a lot quicker to link P3D to existing files rather than reinstalling your add ons too. Finally if you are troubleshooting it is easier to switch addons on and off to find a culprit. 

Edited March 21, 20206 yr by Ian S

A lot easier to manage the add-ons installation in P3D.

For example, consider installing an AI package. In the standard way, you would have flightplan bgl files in the Scenery\World\Scenery folder, aircraft models in the SimObjects folder and Effects and Sounds in the Effects and Sounds folders of the sim, spread everywhere. With the add-ons.xml method, all the elements of the AI package (including the flightplans, simobjects, effects and sounds) can go in a single entry that could be easily activated/deactivated or uninstalled if you wish to do so.

Cheers, Ed

 

In a default installation (=as intended by the manufacturer) P3D itself is in a UAC protected folder (in C:\Program Files), that the end user can't (rather: shouldn't) access just like that. So normally you would be forced to manage your addons externally anyway.

That would be the main reason IMHO. It is a safeguard to prevent people or installers from screwing up the base simulator installation. For me personally it has the great advantage that I can see what is installed and what is active. In the old FSX days, finding out what addons are there was mostly guesswork. This is especially bad when addons just overwrite default files in the sim directory - when you wanted to get rid of those you had to reinstall/repair the sim itself - breaking many other addons in the process.

Best regards

Edited March 22, 20206 yr by Lorby_SI

The only problems  I have encountered are with addons that have been installed outside the main P3D folder (and by that, I mean using the addon.xml method). I do have some addons installed outside the P3D folder (on a separate hard disk), but these have all been added to the Scenery Library using the tried and tested scenery.cfg method.

Edited March 22, 20206 yr by Christopher Low

48 minutes ago, Christopher Low said:

The only problems  I have encountered are with addons that have been installed outside the main P3D folder (and by that, I mean using the addon.xml method). I do have some addons installed outside the P3D folder (on a separate hard disk), but these have all been added to the Scenery Library using the tried and tested scenery.cfg method.

The "addon xml method" spans all types of addons, not only scenery.

Remembering the time when I tried to remove a texture replacement addon from FSX (FScene vs. GEX vs. UltimateTerrain), I instantly appreciated the fact that in P3D addons can be installed without having to destroy default simulator assets. Now I can switch between several different texture replacement addons simply by activating/deactivating addon packages. Let alone the fact that you never know if you "got it all" when you uninstall a complex addon that has embedded itself in the default folders.

Plus: no more messing around with various .cfg files, DLL.XML or EXE.XML - all that became irrelevant. The times when you had to know which file to manipulate to make your addon work in the first place are finally over. This doesn't sound like a problem if you are the end user, doing it yourself - but imagine that you have to write an installer that does this automatically on every system out there - even the most scrambled ones.

Best regards

Edited March 22, 20206 yr by Lorby_SI

2 hours ago, Lorby_SI said:

The "addon xml method" spans all types of addons, not only scenery.

Is there a guide step by step to use this method?

11 minutes ago, reecemj said:

Is there a guide step by step to use this method?

Not sure about guides, but the specification is in the "Learning Center.chm" file in your main P3D directory:

P3D Learning Center -> Software Development Kit (SDK) -> Add-ons -> Add-on Packages

Or you use a tool like P4AO, which makes life a lot easier. There are a couple of threads (pinned and otherwise) in the Lorby Freeware forum here on AVSIM about various procedures.

Best regards

Edited March 22, 20206 yr by Lorby_SI

35 minutes ago, Lorby_SI said:

Or you use a tool like P4AO, which makes life a lot easier.

Probably the best freeware ever that should have come built into the sim or been charged for...