Help Organizing with Addons Linker

[ryanbatc 12,857]

Computer software usually comes easy to me...but I'm just not finding this app intuitive.

Can someone help me figure out how to make different categories for my 400+ community addons?  Which buttons do I need to press?

Addons Linker help by Ryan Butterworth, on Flickr

[kiki 89]

I have just subfolders under my storage folders. Like ”Liveries TBM”, ”Sceneries Spain” etc.

[stefaandk 84]

You still need to make your own folders manually then you can organise it very well, mine is looking like this, not a full list 😉

 

 Aircraft
  PA44
  Seminole

 Liveries
  PA44
  Seminole

 Scenery
 North America
     Canada
         Airports
         Bridges
         Landmarks
         Others
     USA
         Airports
         Bridges

South America
    Country folders
Europe
Scandinavia
Middle East
Oceania

Payware
Orbx
Aerosoft

Utilities
I put toolbar addons in here
 

 

[ryanbatc 12,857]

22 minutes ago, stefaandk said:

You still need to make your own folders manually then you can organise it very well, mine is looking like this, not a full list 😉

 

Do you mean I just make folders in Windows Explorer where this app reads my community addons?

[Glenn Fitzpatrick 3,798]

The trick with addon linker as already mentioned is sort your addons into folders by category  on your hard disk where you store your data.  The linker will let you enable or disable entire folders at a time.

For example if you create the following data structure on your drive:

 

• [games]
  • [MSFS ADDONS] 
    • [SCENERY] 
      • [EUROPE]
        • [FRANCE]
        • [GERMANY]
        • [IRELAND]
        • [ITALY]

 

... and you were flying from Munich to Cologne, you could enable the France and Germany folders and disable the Ireland and Italy Scenery you do not need for the next flight.

Edited June 4, 2021 by Glenn Fitzpatrick

[TheJAG 57]

This might help?

[stefaandk 84]

1 minute ago, ryanbatcund said:

Do you mean I just make folders in Windows Explorer where this app reads my community addons?

Yep, I just made a folder called MSFS_addons, you can put it anywhere really but I would put it outside of the actual Flight Simulator folder, in there I made the above structure and I still drag the contents used by certain installers using an exe and installing directly into the community folder also into this msfs_adddons folder where I have a separate payware folder.  The only exception would be the FBW A320 and Aerosoft's CRJ which have still their own folders in community.

[ryanbatc 12,857]

Thanks and I'll checkout that video at work tomorrow...I need to get paid while watching this stuff LOL.

[Glenn Fitzpatrick 3,798]

It is worth noting that if you have something like Orbx or Just Flight store installs and you move them and then use addon linker to enable them, the update software from those stores still works as they treat the link as if it was a real folder and just update your products as if they are still in the community folder.

Edited June 4, 2021 by Glenn Fitzpatrick

[hangar 661]

17 minutes ago, ryanbatcund said:

Do you mean I just make folders in Windows Explorer where this app reads my community addons?

No...I don't actually use the linker thing so im guessing here,  but I i think the purpose is so that you can place and organize all your addons in a different folder other than the Community one...even on another drive somewhere if you wish and organize them into subfolders with names that make sense to you (leave your community folder empty I guess)...then the linker sees all those addons organized in your new folders wherever you decided to put them and then creates community folder inks so that fs will still see and load them even though the addons are not actually in your community folder. 

Edited June 4, 2021 by hangar

[Glenn Fitzpatrick 3,798]

31 minutes ago, hangar said:

No...I don't actually use the linker thing so im guessing here,  but I i think the purpose is so that you can place and organize all your addons in a different folder other than the Community one...even on another drive somewhere if you wish and organize them into subfolders with names that make sense to you (leave your community folder empty I guess)...then the linker sees all those addons organized in your new folders wherever you decided to put them and then creates community folder inks so that fs will still see and load them even though the addons are not actually in your community folder. 

Pretty much.

But it is not just organising.  You can also with one click disable all scenery and other addons except those relevant to say South America if that is where you are flying today,  and then next flight disable South America again and enable the US scenery and other addons like US liveries.

Another handy thing you can do is flip easily between modded and unmodded default aircraft, or between different mods of the same aircraft or even compare different patched versions of a payware aircraft you own.

 HOWEVER one proviso is you cannot do that reliably on the fly, as you do definitely need to log out of MSFS before changing what addons are enable and disabled.

Edited June 4, 2021 by Glenn Fitzpatrick

[Adamski_NZ 952]

Try this (my own methodology):
https://flightsim.to/file/14298/msfs-addons-linker-general-procedure

 

[Bad_T 581]

yeah @ryanbatcund, the tool will just read the folders/subfolders that you create yourself to organise your addons the way you like. It looks like you have just put everything in the same folder (like you would have done in the real community folder because the real community folders doesn't support subfolders).

With the tool you can put your addons in subfolders and it will make management easier, the tool will show your folder structure in the left panel in a 'treeview' like on can see on badGamr video or @Adamski_NZ pdf file. If you don't put them in subfolders, you're using the tool only at 50% of its capacity because having liveries mixed up with sceneries and other things is probably a bit annoying when you start to have a lot of addons 😜

Feel free to message me if you need more help, i can replace the missing manual by some direct support if needed 🙊

and thanks to the other posters for their suggestions 🍻

 

 

[Adamski_NZ 952]

Aha! A reply from the man himself!!! 👍😎

Like many computer-related things, taking a little time to get it right from the very start reaps great benefits over time. I put a fair amount of thought (and planning) into setting up the Linker at first - but it's really paid back in terms of ease of use and is a real time-saver.

Though I rarely fiddle with it now (mainly to isolate clashing addons), it's still my default/basic MSFS "launcher". A couple of clicks to select where you're likely to be flying and you're away.

Unlike Bad_T, who's far too modest, I'm free to say what a tremendous piece of work the Linker is!

[Andreas Stangenes 1,628]