Another tool to organize your MSFS addons easily

[patrice_bambou 85]

5 hours ago, patrice_bambou said:

Hi Bad_T,

What is missing also is activate all the items of a pointed folder (for example, all airports that are in a « airports » directory) provided we point to the folder name.

The 1a version allows activating all add-ons, but not those under a particular folder only.

As example, if I have a « Europe » folder, I could activate all the included add-ons for Europe in one action if I want to fly over Europe. And I could refine more by use of folders related to countries in Europe if I want to fly over a particular country, etc.

Thanks.

Patrice.

 

A suggestion to make this (mark all items in a folder) may be to add a check mark on the folder line, in regard to the folder name and by ticking it, all entries in the folder are automatically activated / deactivated.

Edited October 6, 2020 by patrice_bambou

[Bad_T 581]

thanks guys for the comments and suggestions 🤩

yes i will try improve the multiselection (new menu to let you activate all visible addons after a filter or a search and try to implement the suggested checkbox on the folder level that would select everything below).

The filtering process will also be changed. For example, if you select your 'Europe' folder, it will show everything below and not only the Europe folder itself. I will also add an option to let you select if you want to view the lists in 'vertical' or horizontal' mode (after a lot of tries, i still couldn't figure out if it's better vertical or horizontal so i'll add an option and you will be able to choose 🙃)

i might be able to work a bit on it in a few hours and post a little update before the end of the day.

cobalt, if the link can not be created, the checkbox will reset to the unchecked state (but you should get an error message saying that you probably don't have enough right on your PC) can you maybe do a little video showing what's happening and see me a link to it via a private message. If i can see what happens maybe i can determine the cause. I will also check in the code to see if maybe something can cause that without specific message.

Edited October 6, 2020 by Bad_T

[Bad_T 581]

hello here is a little update if anyone is interested :

main differences compared to version 1a :
- completely redone the checking algorithm, selecting a folder is now possible and it will automatically select every addons inside it
- added possibility to switch the view in horizontal mode (options screen)
- the community folder list will now show invalid links (light red backcolor)
- the community folder list will now show links that are not monitored by the tool (light blue backcolor). You should not move those files, they are probably there installed by another program
- The caption of the header will turn red if the content of the monitored folders has been changed manually (for example if you add a new addon in the folder or delete something). This indicates that a manual refresh is needed to show the current state of the folder
- added some columns : creation date / size / number of files
- tweaks to the filters and search on the addons list (filtering on a folder will show everything below)   
- new options in the context menu to enable or disable with 1 click all the addons that are visible on the list   

main link : http://www.mediafire.com/file/g4qn5xwb286094w/AddonLinker_Test_v1b.zip/file
alternative link if you have problems with mediafire : http://www.filedropper.com/addonlinkertestv1b

will leave soon and won't be around for the next 17-18 hours so hopefully i didn't break anything (previous version link is still available if needed).

😉

 

[patrice_bambou 85]

Hi Bad_T

Thank you for the new version of the tool.

I tried it. Big improvement from the initial version. I will inform you If I see some more improvements.

Very efficient tool..

Thanks again.

Edit:

Some suggestions / enhancements I see:

- On folder lines, change the aspect of the tick (grey for instance) if only partial items have been activated in thie folder (for instance, folder Europe, If I have France and Gb and only France activated, put the tick in grey (like in X-plane X-Organizer manager)

- The ability to save a given configuration of add-ons, thus allowing managing pre-configured sets and naming them. Thus I can have a set named "France with A320" or "GB with 787", etc. If I want to recover a set I load it and maybe a button allows activate it or it may be activated automatically just at loading with a warning box. If new add-ons have been added since the set was created, they are not activated but maybe the user is informed that new add-ons have been added, letting the user choose what to do (update the set for instance). I know that this is a complex feature but it allows very fast switch of configuration. It is a kind of feature we can see in the tool "Scenery Config Editor" for P3D/FSX.

- Maybe a button to collapse / expand all items in one click (in order to see only the first levels folders).

As I write, these are suggestions. No problem for me if they are not added.

Thanks again Bad_T for this great tool.

Patrice.

 

 

Edited October 7, 2020 by patrice_bambou

[johnbla 31]

 

2 hours ago, patrice_bambou said:

Some suggestions / enhancements I see:

- On folder lines, change the aspect of the tick (grey for instance) if only partial items have been activated in thie folder (for instance, folder Europe, If I have France and Gb and only France activated, put the tick in grey (like in X-plane X-Organizer manager)

- The ability to save a given configuration of add-ons, thus allowing managing pre-configured sets and naming them. Thus I can have a set named "France with A320" or "GB with 787", etc. If I want to recover a set I load it and maybe a button allows activate it or it may be activated automatically just at loading with a warning box. If new add-ons have been added since the set was created, they are not activated but maybe the user is informed that new add-ons have been added, letting the user choose what to do (update the set for instance). I know that this is a complex feature but it allows very fast switch of configuration. It is a kind of feature we can see in the tool "Scenery Config Editor" for P3D/FSX.

- Maybe a button to collapse / expand all items in one click (in order to see only the first levels folders).

As I write, these are suggestions. No problem for me if they are not added.

Thanks again Bad_T for this great tool.

 

Agree, I was about to write something similar. Thanks again.

[flyblueskies 142]

11 hours ago, Bad_T said:

hello here is a little update if anyone is interested :

alternative link if you have problems with mediafire : http://www.filedropper.com/addonlinkertestv1b

will leave soon and won't be around for the next 17-18 hours so hopefully i didn't break anything (previous version link is still available if needed).

😉

 

Very nice! Thank you for all your hard work!

[Ixoye 1,813]

What does "<error reading manifest.json file>" mean? The latest C-152 mod (V-16) shows that warning to me but seems to work anyway.

[cobalt 798]

On 10/6/2020 at 12:24 PM, Bad_T said:

cobalt, if the link can not be created, the checkbox will reset to the unchecked state (but you should get an error message saying that you probably don't have enough right on your PC) can you maybe do a little video showing what's happening and see me a link to it via a private message. If i can see what happens maybe i can determine the cause. I will also check in the code to see if maybe something can cause that without specific message.

I think the link problems I was seeing were false alarms. In any case, after I emptied the Community folder and started over, using the new version of your program that allows activation/deactivation of entire geographical regions (a great feature), and then activated my  regions in stages, all the error messages and link failures disappeared. So everything now appears to be working. 

Again, many thanks for this extremely useful tool!

Cobalt

 

[Bad_T 581]

thanks for the commments

patrice/john thanks for the suggestions, i will certainly look to see if i can implement those features. Wont have much time tonight but for for sure i'll check in the next few days

ixoye : you don't need to worry too much about that, it just means that the program could not read the manifest.json file that is included with the mod. That file is only used to fill the 'creator / version / name' columns. The enabling / disabling of the addon will still work. I will install that addon and check why the manifest can't be read, probably it contains some entry that the program was not expecting. I should probably write 'manifest.json file could not be read' instead of 'invalid' because 'invalid' sounds like an error even if there are none.

cobalt : thanks for your feedback and cool if it works fine now

 

 

[bszuch 95]

As the volume of addons grows steadily, I went to a mlink approach pretty early.  The one advantage, that I don't think you've taken advantage of yet

is the ability to organize/simplify the name of the mlink itself that is refrencing the addon that is often named with:   the maker-the name of the maker's cat-airport-version #, etc. etc.

Ideally by keeping the mlink file's name consistent   example:   airportOH-Kxxx   for airport Kxxx in Ohio,   would allow for the second part of my request.

The ability to active/ inactive by groups or search field of the MLINKS    NOT THE ADDONS. This takes all the crazy naming that authors employ in the addons out of the equation, and lets the user control their naming of the mlink itself.   This will eventually allow us not to have everything load (much like the addon editor for P3D) and to organize by type of addon, state, country , etc... to turn on only what is needed for a given flight.

Keep up the great work

[Bad_T 581]

hello bszuch, thank you for your input

yeah renaming the link is something i have been thinking about but i'm not really sure yet about the best way to do it.

there could be an easy option to select a link name foreach addon, but maybe what you want is something more generic like setting a prefix on the folder itself and all addons below would get that same prefix automatically.

let's take your example, you have created 2 folders (1 folder and 1 subfolder)
- Airports
     - Ohio

inside 'Ohio' you have 3 airports named by their authors in very different ways
- john_kcle_v1
- columbus_international_airport_v1.2
- msfs_dayton

so if the tool would allow to set a prefix for each folder, you would set 'airports' and 'OH' to the folders, it would then create links like this by default
- airportOH-john_kcle_v1
- airportOH-columbus_international_airport_v1.2
- airportOH-msfs_dayton

obviously you could also rename your airports when you install them in the addons folder to KCLE, KCMH, KDAY and then you would have an even better organized naming convention ( or you could also rename them AirportsOH-xxx when you install them and then the tool would not need to do anything 😜😜). Is that more or less what you are looking for or was your idea a bit different ?

if the tool allows links to have a different name than the original folder, then i would add a column with the name of the link in the addons list. With that, you would be able to filter/search on that value and activate/deactivate the matching results in a single click.

i will think about this, thank you for the idea 😉

[bszuch 95]

I think that would accomplish what I'm looking for.  I believe you just taught me something..  I wasn't aware that I could randomly rename the addon directory without modifying any

of the files inside.  If that is the case, then the renaming to suit a naming convention of the mlink could certainly be done by the user at the time of addon download and placing in the holding directory.  The main purpose I see for a tool like this besides creating the mlink ( I have a increasingly growing BAT file that makes the creation, and then I REM out files that have been created) is to have the ability to activate / deactivate by group (for me, probably the state(s) I'll be flying).  Sounds like you have most of that functionality, my earlier point was to control the on/off by the mlink, but I guess it could work either way, as long as naming control and organization can be addressed by the user.  To your example above, probably would name OHairport-....   so that all items (cities, scenery, etc) with OH prefix could be activated at once...  I don't know how your search query works though.

thanks again for your work

[motishow 122]

i have some files thet where working when i had them into comunitty folder but now the don't work "error reading manifest.json file", what's the reason if they worked ok inside the comunitty folder?, how can i solve it? thanks 

 

[Noooch 1,084]

I don't notice any change in loading times with or without addons.

[bszuch 95]

1 hour ago, Noooch said:

I don't notice any change in loading times with or without addons.

That would be a good definitive question/ answer from Asobo.  I know this was an issue with P3D startup / loadtimes.