MSFS Addons Linker - organization idea tips

[109Sqn 1,584]

Just about the only useful thing it can't do is successfully activate an add-on whilst the sim is running, but that's a limitation of the sim, not Add-on Linker.

[FalconAF 213]

I use it and it works like a charm.  But I wouldn't get too anal about trying to micro-categorize stuff to limit what you try to load or not load for a flight.  It will just raise your blood pressure and stress levels too much.

Here's what I did as far as creating categories:

1.  Aircraft Categories:  Yes, definitely.  Ideally, you would only want to load the individual aircraft you will be using for you flight session.  Or no more than a couple different ones at most if you wanted some flexibility.  If I'm going coast - to - coast at FL450 in the Longitude, that's all I'm gonna load.  If I'm gong lower and slower like to scope out a new local scenery I just added, then I'll load say a helicopter (hover capability) and a slower GA fixed wing prop to go sightseeing.

2.  Geographical Areas: I have Continents, Countries, and Regions (like North America, Canada, Eastern USA, Southern USA, Western USA, United Kingdom, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, etc).  Creating 50 individual States (for someplace like the USA) is normally going to be massive overkill.  If your computer is taking forever to load an entire Region consisting of only something like 10 States (or several smaller Countries in someplace like Eastern or Western Europe), you have more things to worry about as far as your computer performance is concerned.  Plus, the last thing I'm ever going to do is try to "figure out" which of 50 separate United States I "need to load or not" for a coast - to - coast flight.  That would drive you nuts.  If I'm going coast-to-coast in 5 flight hours over the USA, the whole darn country is gonna get loaded. I'll "turn off" the REST of the world in the Add-On Linker.   

3.  Create subfolders for items that would be in the same geographical areas in #2 above...Scenery, Airports, maybe even Cities if you want.  You can then "not install" a whole Continent, Country, Region, etc with one folder click if you aren't going to be anywhere near it. For instance, I have an Eastern USA\Cities\New York (the CITY, not the STATE)\...with an Airports and Bridges subfolder under the New York folder.  I also put any city sceneries for New York City there, like the payware SamScene New York City Times.  If all I'm gonna do is cruise around looking at the pretty buildings, everything but Eastern USA will get "turned off" and there should still be no problem with "excessive load times" scenery-wise.  

Are you afraid you won't be able to keep track of all of it?  That's what the DESCRIPTION COLUMN in Add-On Linker is for.  🙂  You can use that column to name the addon ANYTHING you want to call it (without changing the actual filename of the addon).  ALL my airports in the Description Column are named by the ICAO code of the airport as the first item in each description of it, followed by the real airport name (or whatever else you may want to call it).  It doesn't matter what the FILENAME of the addon is that MSFS will load.  The Description Column can be used just like a spreadsheet and you can sort and search it alphabetically, etc, to let you "see" everything you have installed in an easy manner.  So you created numerous "Airports" folders under numerous different geographical location folders?  Do a search using "Airports" in Add-On Linker, and you will get a list of ALL the airports in ALL the different "Airports" folders you created all over the world.

It all depends on how you want to do it.  But I'm seeing people creating what appears to be way too many smaller "main categories" to start with.  Just because I'm only going to be flying in Nevada today doesn't mean I NEED to have 49 other State folders so I could turn California, Utah, and Arizona off.  Heck, I'd spend more time turning stuff on and off than the small increase in the loading times the sim will take if I don't turn them off.  Think a bit bigger in creating and loading your category boundaries.

Or, if you do want hundreds of individual categories, at a minimum create PRESETS for region-sized geographical areas you can turn on/off with one click. 

There's no "one size fits all" method.  Do what will work for you.  Bottom line is the Add-On Linker is an INCREDIBLY powerful management tool...IF you take the time to learn how to use ALL of it's capabilities.  Take the time to do that and your MSFS life will be a whole lot simpler.         

Edited August 22, 2021 by FalconAF

[captain420 3,099]

In the situation above, I rather much use the dependency feature of the app. This will give you more flexibility as to where you want to store the addons.

So you can select as many dependencies as necessary for any particular addon. So for example if I were to activate let's say KJFK, you can add dependencies to that addon, such as Samscene NYC for example. So whenever you enable KJFK it will automatically enable Samscene NYC. It's a really awesome feature.

[Waldo Pepper 1,953]

PSA:  Just noticed this new app today,   https://flightsim.to/file/8349/mfs-addon-locator

[FalconAF 213]

@captain420,

Yup.  There are many different ways to get similar results using Add-On Linker.  The biggest challenge is learning what they all are to begin with.  Then you can use the method that works best for you.

Edited August 22, 2021 by FalconAF

[FalconAF 213]

1 minute ago, Waldo Pepper said:

PSA:  Just noticed this new app today,   https://flightsim.to/file/8349/mfs-addon-locator

The thing I don't like about that product is that it can be dependent on what the developer of the addon decided to call or "name" things.  For instance, which "tags" did they decide to use?  Heck, even with the Add-On Linker, the version number of the download displayed in Add-On Linker doesn't agree with the actual version of the file downloaded in many cases, because the developer never changed the version number in the file download after the update.  There is not enough "standardization" in file conventions yet, let alone following the SDK, by a lot of freeware developers still.  

[JYW 2,989]

I use these categories:-

• Avionics Mods
• Aircraft Mods
• Payware Aircraft
• Libraries & Misc
• Aircraft Liveries
• Sound Mods
• Regions (subfolders: Eg. UK, Canada, USA, Denmark, Hungary, Tanzania, etc, etc)

This pretty much does it for me.  I landed with these categories based on what I changed more often.  Eg. I will only ever have 1 avionics mod installed at a time; so I use the first category to enable eg. WT GX, or PMS GTN750 or PMD GNS530 etc.  I do the same with the aircraft mods.   Eg. If I'm about to fly the Caravan, I activate only the Caravan Improvement Mod in the second folder, same for example if I'm about to fly the DA62X Mod.   The Sound Mods folders has the sound packs in from FT+Sim, and again I only enable what I am about to fly in.   This means I run Addon Linker before every flight session, but I'm ok with that. It's worth the 10 seconds to enable what I need, in order to improve stability.

As someone else above said, one of the things I love most about this fantastic tool in the addon scenery map.   I use that all the time to plan flight between addon airports and scenery.  😎

[JYW 2,989]

[Double post. Apologies]

Edited August 22, 2021 by JYW

[flyinpilot212121 724]

Finally got around to trying this out…Can’t beleive I haven’t been using this till today..This is a FANTASTIC program, and for free!!! Cheers to the developer of this!!

[P2A_Friend 4]

I wonder, is there a way of automatically knowing which library a certain scenery needs as dependency (except for reading the readme-file)?

[TheJAG 57]

Readme's mostly, yes. However, in a fair few cases when using flightsim.to the developer will have filled out the "Dependencies" tab.

[captain420 3,099]

I love the dependency feature of this app!

[kaosfere 3,115]

On 8/21/2021 at 8:50 AM, Mace said:

Yes.  To my understanding Addon Linker puts a "symbolic link" in the Community folder.  The add-on thinks it's still installed there.  A "symbolic link" is a file-system item that's been around since ... I think NTFS started back in the mid-90's.   NTFS was the "Windows NT File System" which came about with Windows NT in about 1995.  It was a better file system than FAT and that's why it caught on I suppose.  That's probably TMI -- Too Much Information  😜

Hehe.   Even more TMI here, but I think that Addons Linker primarily uses directory junctions -- or, at least, that's how it looks on my system.  These, along with hard jinks and symbolic links, have only been in NTFS since roughly the time of Windows XP/2000/Vista.  (They came in at various points along there.)

The concept of filesystem links themselves, though, goes way back to at least the time of minicomputers and early versions of Unix and related operating systems.    To go into the difference between directory junctions, hard links, and symbolic links would be way too digressive even for me, but is left as an exercise to interested readers.   (Assuming there are any.  😁)

Edited August 28, 2021 by kaosfere