Another tool to organize your MSFS addons easily

[patrice_bambou 85]

Hi Bad_T,

Thanks a lot for the 1c update. A big step forward compared to the 1a version.

As usual, we have always other suggestions: My new ones may be the following ones::

- Allow to store the presets where we want (via a standard windows dialog),

- Preset management (around the Presets list window)

       -- We select one preset and we can rename it, delete it or load it.

      -- We select several presets and we can delete them.

- When creating a new preset, it would be useful to see what are the current list of stored presets, this can help in naming the new one and avoid use a name already in use

These suggestions are optional as usual.

Thanks a lot for your work.

 

[Bad_T 581]

thank you TheJAG for the comment and suggestion.

just to make sure i understand correctly, you have created some links via the tool, and then renamed the links that were created by the tool in the community folder ? or is that what you were doing before using the too ?

Renaming links will work (the link will still be valid). What doesn't work is to rename the source folder via the Windows Explorer, that would create and orphan link (that's why i added a rename function direclty in the tool so that the link can be maintained after the renaming operation)

if you have renamed the link manually, you can already see both name in the columns (see pic below)

and yes i've already been thinking about letting the user choose the name of the link in the community folder but I have some doubts though on how to do it properly and to maintain links when a new version comes out because there are so many different possible situations. I will probably send you a little private msg when i can write something decent and undestandalbe to have your input. (i tried now but i deleted everything just before posting because it was not very clear at all 🙃😋🙃)

----

Patrice thanks for your suggestions as always, here are some info :
- maybe you found that out already, the presets (very simple small text files) are saved here : C:\ProgramData\MSFS Addons Linker\Presets
- if needed, i can easily add an option to let you specify a custom location for the storage of presets if they bother you in that c:\ folder. Or were you meaning a kind of 'save as' windows dialog every time you save one ? Then you would need a 'load from' option because the program wouldn't know were to look for presets because you could have have saved them in different places. I'm not sure a 'save_as / load_from' is needed for such tiny little files as it would just make the user click a lot more.
- you can already delete presets from the screen (DEL key), or select one with a double click
- renaming is missing, i will add that
- i can certainly add multi-selection to delete several presets at once
- adding a new preset with a visible list of current presets below is also probably something i can add.

i'll check those things out soon 👍

 

Edited October 10, 2020 by Bad_T

[cobalt 798]

4 hours ago, Boomer said:

Pray tell, what addons?  Theres Jack I know of.

You are joking, right? Or have been in a coma for 6 weeks?

[patrice_bambou 85]

 

3 hours ago, Bad_T said:

- if needed, i can easily add an option to let you specify a custom location for the storage of presets if they bother you in that c:\ folder. Or were you meaning a kind of 'save as' windows dialog every time you save one ? Then you would need a 'load from' option because the program wouldn't know were to look for presets because you could have have saved them in different places. I'm not sure a 'save_as / load_from' is needed for such tiny little files as it would just make the user click a lot more.
 

Hi Bad_T

To solve the problem of the location of the presets folder, you can add a setting for this (like the community and addons folders) and use it afterwards.

Patrice.

[Bad_T 581]

yes Patrice i have added that option to select another folder, also multi-selection in the preset screen and a button to delete and rename. For multi-deletion you would still have to use the DEL key.

i will post a new version soon (maybe those little changes are not enough yet for a new version, will see if i can think of something else 🙃)

someone suggested that i upload the tool to flightsim.to. Would that be a good idea ? Maybe it would be easier to manage updates than posting links in this forum ? I'm a bit reluctant because there is a huge audience there (there's always that guy that will come saying the tool destroyed his PC) but more than that there are 2 or 3 tools that seem to do the same kind of things than mine. I haven't tested any of those tools so if for sure didn't copy anything, but well, i'm the only one aware of that 😜. One of them 'Payeem' has been updated today and seem to go pretty much the same direction as mine and the developper seems a bit more professional than me (so if it's better there's probably no need for two, i make no money with this, it's just for fun and to learn something so it's no prob 😁)

Thank you.

[JimBrown 596]

54 minutes ago, Bad_T said:

someone suggested that i upload the tool to flightsim.to. Would that be a good idea ? Maybe it would be easier to manage updates than posting links in this forum ? I'm a bit reluctant because there is a huge audience there (there's always that guy that will come saying the tool destroyed his PC) but more than that there are 2 or 3 tools that seem to do the same kind of things than mine. I haven't tested any of those tools so if for sure didn't copy anything, but well, i'm the only one aware of that 😜. One of them 'Payeem' has been updated today and seem to go pretty much the same direction as mine and the developper seems a bit more professional than me (so if it's better there's probably no need for two, i make no money with this, it's just for fun and to learn something so it's no prob 😁)

Please do upload it to Flightsim.to. I've tried yours and Payeem, and actually prefer yours. In addition, with Flightsim.to, they have a "My Downloads" page which keeps track of what you have downloaded, including the version. If there is a new version, checking that page will show that. Makes it super easy to keep on top of new versions. I consider it to be one of the best download sites I've tried.

58 minutes ago, Bad_T said:

Thank you.

No, thank you!!

...jim

 

[kaosfere 3,115]

1 hour ago, JimBrown said:

Please do upload it to Flightsim.to. I've tried yours and Payeem, and actually prefer yours.

Agreed.   As both an avowed scenery collector and a mod developer with my fingers in a number of pies I do a whole lot of swapping mods in and out one by one and wholesale.   Your tool is a dream come true for managing that, much better than JSGME or that generic one from (I think) DCS World that kind of had MSFS support crammed into it.

Edited October 11, 2020 by kaosfere

[TheJAG 57]

13 hours ago, Bad_T said:

thank you TheJAG for the comment and suggestion.

just to make sure i understand correctly, you have created some links via the tool, and then renamed the links that were created by the tool in the community folder ? or is that what you were doing before using the too ?

Renaming links will work (the link will still be valid). What doesn't work is to rename the source folder via the Windows Explorer, that would create and orphan link (that's why i added a rename function direclty in the tool so that the link can be maintained after the renaming operation)

if you have renamed the link manually, you can already see both name in the columns (see pic below)

and yes i've already been thinking about letting the user choose the name of the link in the community folder but I have some doubts though on how to do it properly and to maintain links when a new version comes out because there are so many different possible situations. I will probably send you a little private msg when i can write something decent and undestandalbe to have your input. (i tried now but i deleted everything just before posting because it was not very clear at all 🙃😋🙃)

Thanks for trying to dissolve my request Bad_T!

So what I would in fact like to avoid is renaming any folder at all! 🙂 The reason for trying to avoid it is when any updates to addons are released it is much easier to find the addon that needs updating in the source folder.

Rather - could you allow the user to "rename" the source folder name without updating the actual folder name itself? Really what I'm asking here is to create a label I guess.

I can see the issue of where you would store the equivalence the user is creating (from source folder name to label) but I suppose a config json / yaml could help here. If the equivalence between source folder name and "Name" (the label) is not found, then just display the source folder name.

In the screenshot above, in my world:

• the actual folder names would still be "apts_engm" (both source folder name and linked folder name)
• therefore the "Target link" would show "apts_engm"
• the "Name" could have been / be renamed by the user:
  • If that's the case (the entry therefore is in some kind of config file) then that name will be shown (like "engm" in your example)
  • if not then the actual folder name will be shown, i.e. "apts_engm".

Hope this makes sense!

[Bad_T 581]

thanks for the input guys.

TheJAG, yeah good idea, just a custom name/description that the user could enter for each existing folder without renaming folders, that would be fairly simple i guess (i was thinking about something a bit more complicated 🤪).

for saving the data i would just create an internal 'db' with the real folder name and its matching name/desciption. I'll try something like that, should be quickly done, and hopefully it will do what you need(if not let me know)

 

Edited October 11, 2020 by Bad_T

[Bad_T 581]

little update as promised :
- different tweaks to the presets screen
     - added 'remove' and 'rename' button
     - added multi-selection so you can delete several presets at once (use the DEL key)
- you can now choose where to save your presets (options screen)
- added a new column 'description' in the list of addons, you can set your own data in there using the 'set custom description' options in the 'right click menu'.

people are suggesting that it could be a good idea to upload it flightsim.to so i will probably do it today (hopefully i didn't add any bugs in this version, let me know please if you see any). Even if it ends up on flightsim.to, i'll still support it in this forum for those interested.

it's still very simple and some options might need a bit of polishing, but it should be functional. A little options that i'd like to add is the possiblity to save the columns order so everyone could set them as they wish.

Thanks again everyone for your inputs. ❤️

http://www.mediafire.com/file/goe0ww2go2tzwso/AddonLinker_Test_v1d.zip/file
http://www.filedropper.com/addonlinkertestv1d

[Kai-Uwe Wei 8]

First of all, thanks a lot for your tool! It is exactly that what I was looking for! Starting times of my sim are shortly again because I don't need the whole stuff everytime and I can easily switch through my addons.

Just a short question: I sorted my addons in countries and continents. Everytime when I open the tool the whole tree is expanded and I close all to have a better overview. Is there a way to opne the toll with a closed tree already?

 

kai

[Bad_T 581]

hello thanks for the comment Kai, i will add an option that will let you specifiy to have the 'nodes' collapsed to folder level by default (like when you use the option in the right click menu).

 

 

Edited October 11, 2020 by Bad_T

[Kai-Uwe Wei 8]

Thanks a lot Bad_T🙂.

 

Kai

[Bad_T 581]

as recommended by some members, i have now posted the latest version to the flightsim.to website 🤞

https://flightsim.to/file/1572/msfs-addons-linker

The version there is slightly different than the 1d posted earlier today (it includes Kai's request + the possiblity to organize the columns as you wish and save them)

i will continue to support it here, so feel free to ask if you have questions or if you have ideas.

huge thanks to everyone who helped me with your nice comments and ideas ! 😍

 

 

Edited October 11, 2020 by Bad_T
typos typos typos

[Kai-Uwe Wei 8]

Well done, thanks a lot again!

 

Kai