Hello Oliver, because you are one of those big "cracks" in case of programming and that stuff and i wouldn´t know how to live without your great Add-On Organizer, i would like to ask two important questions to you.

1. Do you know the reason, why there are 2 add-ons.cfg, one in the popular roaming folder but a second in the less polpular ProgramData folder, about not everyone is aware of?

2. Which one of these two add-ons.xml is changed by the add-on organizer with what operation? It seems to me, that the Scenery management is all written to the xml in the roaming folder but the "other add-ons" and packages is written to the other one in the ProgramData.

May you can bright up that a little if you want.😽

Edited June 10, 20205 yr by Lorby_SI

 

• "Users\you\AppData\Roaming\..\add-ons.cfg" lists all packages on the default autodiscovery path "Users\you\Documents\Prepar3D Vx Add-ons". This file is refreshed by the simulator every time that you start P3D. It is done that way, because addons on the default autodiscovery path are only accessible to your current user account, so the config file managing them is also local to your account "C:\Users\you"
  (btw: you could put a personalized copy of every .cfg file into \Roaming\... to override those in ProgramData - has always been that way, even with FSX)
• C:\ProgramData\...\add-ons.cfg is for addons that have been installed with the P3D CLI, or that are on additional discovery paths (which are also listed in this file). This config file should only contain addons that can be accessed by every user account on your computer.

When you add packages with P4AO it will always use the first method, default discovery path, no matter what. They should never end up in the CLI config file, only when their installer puts them there in the first place. The distinction into scenery and other addons is irrelevant, because you always keep all assets that belong together in the same package. So if there are effects, simobjects or shaders to go with a scenery, they should be in the same add-on.xml file, and that package can only be in one of the cfgs.

You can delete and change the package order in both files on the Packages tab. What you cannot do is move a package from one cfg file to the other with P4AO - as it would be very very wrong to do so.

A bit of trivia: "AppData" or "ProgramData" is not about popularity. They are selected according to use case. Stuff that needs to stay local to your user account goes into AppData, "global" assets go into ProgramData. Since P3D can use both, you have both options. So generally speaking, you could have two completely different simulators with one and the same P3D installation if you create an additional user account and only use the default autodiscovery path in \Documents\ for referencing addons. Each user account could have totally different addons, texture replacements, shaders, - different everything.

Best regards

 

Edited June 10, 20205 yr by Lorby_SI

Thank you very much for your brief explaination. That makes it more clear. It´s just a little bit confusing because it seems that some add-ons write their reference into the appdata and some other into programdata and some in both. (in addition to the others which still write into the scenery.cfg) To know how all these work together can make it easier to find a culprit if something isn´t as exspecteted. 

I prefer to have it under control to keep all that clear and clean, which is best to prevent from crashes etc. And therefore your tool is pure gold and it also works perfect in conjunction with OrbX FTX i. e.

Thank you much for all of that.👍

25 minutes ago, BerndB said:

some add-ons write their reference into the appdata and some other into programdata and some in both.

That shouldn't be the case. Generally speaking, all assets that belong to a single addon should be in the same package (=the same add-on.xml). And a package can only be in one of the .cfg files.

The main difference is, that you can delete the add-ons.cfg in \AppData and it will be rebuilt. But if you delete the add-ons.cfg in \ProgramData, the addon references are lost and can't be rebuilt by the sim. 

-> I have edited the thread title and your post so it correctly refers to the add-ons.cfg files. I hope that is OK with you?

Best regards

Edited June 10, 20205 yr by Lorby_SI

4 hours ago, Lorby_SI said:

-> I have edited the thread title and your post so it correctly refers to the add-ons.cfg files. I hope that is OK with you?

Of Course, Sir!