Content.xml Editor?

[Nemo 1,305]

Do we have such an editor available? Getting more and more add-ons and tweaks like "remove static aircraft of XXXX" it becomes necessary to adjust the priority of add-ons. As far as I understood, the lower the entry of an add-on in the content.xml, the higher is its priority.  As I have read on a Flightbeam support page, some of their add-ons require such adjustments.

Edited November 26, 2021 by Nemo

[sightseer 895]

it should open with notepad.  xml files are just text files I think.

[pmb 5,138]

Not sure if this works. I am afraid, the file will be rewritten as soon as you install another addon.

Kind regards, Michael

[Nemo 1,305]

50 minutes ago, pmb said:

Not sure if this works. I am afraid, the file will be rewritten as soon as you install another addon.

Kind regards, Michael

If you add a new add-on it is just added at the end and becomes highest priority. That's how I understood. @sightseer I know that notepad++ can do this but there might be better solutions which could keep the order you entered automatically, something like Lorbys add-on organizer for P3D. Perhaps add-on linker could add such a feature?

Edited November 26, 2021 by Nemo

[dobee51 349]

I haven't looked at my content.xml file for a long time, but now I see that it contains a lot of sceneries that I removed or haven't used for ages.

Most of them are controlled by Add on Linker. Doesn't Add on Linker remove the entries for sceneries you want unchecked?

[Bert Pieke 7,592]

3 minutes ago, dobee51 said:

Most of them are controlled by Add on Linker. Doesn't Add on Linker remove the entries for sceneries you want unchecked?

I do not believe it does... but AFAIK, you can delete the file and MSFS will rebuild it at next startup.

[pmb 5,138]

The Addon Linker has a feature outside the UI to delete content.xml upon start of MSFS (of course only, if you start it via the Linker).

Locate "MSFS_Addons_Linker.ini" under

C:\ProgramData\MSFS Addons Linker

and set

FlightSimulator_LaunchDeleteContentsXml=True

There is also another one I have active:

FlightSimulator_LaunchDeleteSceneryIndexes=True

Kind regards, Michael

Edited November 26, 2021 by pmb

[dobee51 349]

Makes you wonder what the content.xml actually does...

[mamu82 278]

44 minutes ago, dobee51 said:

Makes you wonder what the content.xml actually does...

It is the exact order the Sim loads base packages / official Packages / community Packages

 

If a Community scenery Needs to exclude something, the loading order Is vital: last loaded package has highest priority above first loaded package

 

 

 

[Nemo 1,305]

38 minutes ago, mamu82 said:

It is the exact order the Sim loads base packages / official Packages / community Packages

If a Community scenery Needs to exclude something, the loading order Is vital: last loaded package has highest priority above first loaded package

 

That's how I understood it too. But as I said, with more and more complex add-ons we will probably need a kind of organizer.

[pmb 5,138]

I think I read somewhere it's organized alphabetically. First come the Asobo/MS packages, and all 3PD addons are arranged alphabetically afterwards. So, this is similar to the way scenery_packs.ini is organized in X-Plane.

I just checked mine and this seems indeed to apply. If this is true, you can give packages a priority by naming them correspondingly, i.e. rename "my-city-addon" to "ZZZmy-city-addon" (again, as it is done in X-Plane).

Kind regards, Michael

[mamu82 278]

Actually, xplane does It in reverse order than msfs

Also, naming Is not a guarantee that your addon Will be loaded in the correct order, only when the content.xml Is deleted you Will be sure that a "zzz-" Will be loaded last (on top of other packages). 

Otherwise, Is you install a "zzz-" and After a "abc-" in the same areaz the "abc-" Will be on top of the "zzz-" 

 

Back in time, gave Asobo some ideas to work on, no answer yet

https://devsupport.flightsimulator.com/idea/2712/exclusions-and-contentxml.html

Edited November 26, 2021 by mamu82

[sttovo 10]

I'm not sure if this will help anyone, but I'll try anyways 🙂

Here's how I manage my Content.xml. Note that I do use Addon Manager to load whatever I need at the time.

1) All of my Community addon folders have specific naming that correlate to naming in my Content.xml. So, A-[KABC]-nameofaddon for airports, S-[LasVegas]-nameofaddon for sceneries (buildings, etc). But also, for my purchased addons that I always want to load before any other freeware, I add an underscore to the folder name. Also I have other naming for things that need to come last (zzz) or first (___) 

2) After deleting the Content.xml, I start MSFS. fly, then exit.

3) Go back to Content.xml. open in Notepad++ (required), I select/highlight the section of my Community folders that were added, and goto the menu and select Edit -> Line Operations -> Sort Lines Lexicographically (you can pick whatever you want here based on how you setup your folders). This forces the addons to sort in a way that puts my purchased airports/sceneries first, then freeware, then whatever I need with ZZZ.

This results in something like:
fs-base-stuff
_A-[KABC]-addon
_S-[LasVegas]-addon
A-[KDEF]-addon
S-[LA]-addon
zzz-addon

4) Some addons like the payware Meigs seem to need to be loaded at the very top of Content.xml to load properly. I just move that manually to the top and leave it there.

I hope this helps.

[kt069 570]

On 11/26/2021 at 8:33 PM, Nemo said:

If you add a new add-on it is just added at the end and becomes highest priority. That's how I understood. @sightseer I know that notepad++ can do this but there might be better solutions which could keep the order you entered automatically, something like Lorbys add-on organizer for P3D. Perhaps add-on linker could add such a feature?

As far as I know, Lorby has an organiser for MSFS, as well.But I did not try it.

https://www.lorby-si.com/downloads.html

[Bad_T 581]

On 11/26/2021 at 7:33 PM, Nemo said:

 Perhaps add-on linker could add such a feature?

i can probably add something in addon linker for the content.xml file if needed. But to be honest i'm not really sure what is the purpose of that file except maybe to disable some addons from being loaded (like for example the 'fs-base-nav' entry gets to active=false after you install the navigraph database).

It could maybe :

- show what active and what's not (with the possibility the change the value)

-  identify addons that are not installed anymore and remove them from the file

- move up / move down (just by reading this thread i don't understand if it would make a difference though 😳), i thought it was just the alphabetical order of the addon that gave its priority and the content.xml would not change anything about that, but maybe i'm wrong, never investigated much about this file.

- other ideas ?

It's a bit of work but nothing to difficult i guess, just not sure if it's useful or not because maybe that file has not a big impact on anything even if it contains old entries.

🥂