Content.xml Editor?

[pmb 5,138]

5 minutes ago, virtuali said:

It's not a matter of being "wise" or not. The SDK dictates that, in order to be accepted on the MS Marketplace, a package should follow a specific naming convention that for airport sceneries (which are the ones affected by the loading order ) is: developer-airport-icao-airportname

So, unless airport developers will all start renaming themselves with a Z, relying on the package name is not a solution, also considering the automatic sorting triggered by removing the CONTENT.XML will result in areas in the Official folder always getting a lower priority than areas in the Community folder so, what if you have an add-on bought from the Marketplace that *must* stay on top of something in the Community to work ? Its name won't help so, rearraging the CONTENT.XML would be required in any way, regardless how the two packages were named.

Yes, we (and many other developers ) are trying to convince Microsoft/Asobo an UI like FSX had is required in the sim but, until then, it might be useful having an utility doing that, for those that find difficult editing the file manually.

Thanks @virtuali, as always an enlightening statement. Please, keep trying to convince MS/Asobo we will need an official sorting mechanism/tool. It escapes me that they didn't understand this form the outset, even more, as other FSX/ESP-based sims provides this.

Kind regards, Michael 

[Bad_T 581]

1 hour ago, Dazzlercee23 said:

I have a number of water fix files showing as ACTIVE in the actual file when opened with notepad, but they show as AVAILABLE through the new tool.

It should be correct but maybe the 2 columns are confusing.

the 'active=yes' columns means it has the active=true value in the content.xml file (no matter if the addon is really active or an old one you have deleted months ago). So the 'Active' only shows what is inside the content.xml file.

Then the tool will look for the addon in your folder to fill the 'Type' columns in the following order :

• If it  finds it in the official folders it will show 'Official'
• If it finds it in the community folder it will show 'Community' (no matter if it's a real folder or a link created by addons linker)
• if it finds it in your 'addons linker' folders it will show 'Available'. That means it's not currently activated and seen by the sim, but it's ready to be used if needed.
• if it doesn't find it, it will show 'not found'

Feel free to send me a private message if you still have doubts about it or if you think there is an error somwehere. Thank you 🍻

I will try to post a little updated version tonight after work to auto-select the file also for MS-Store users.

Edited December 6, 2021 by Bad_T

[fppilot 4,389]

On 11/29/2021 at 8:50 AM, jrw4 said:

OMG, this is starting to sound like the scenery.ini nightmare of X-Plane. Some of us just want to fly, not edit text files that then need to be edited again the next time one wants to make a change.

I continue to be amazed at all of this.  I take a few minutes before each flight with Addons Linker to spec in only those addons I need for that next flight.  I rarely if ever come anywhere close to filling one screenful of Addons Linker, much less enough that the screen would scroll like I see in posts in this topic. 

Yesterday in the RY Turbo Bonanza with my choses Bonanza livery, I flew from Ft Lauderdale to Hilton Head, and then completed another flight from Hilton Head to Easton, Maryland.  I have countless liveries and almost 600 scenery mods.  Here is all of what I needed for the two flights.  Why load more than what is needed?  Makes managing much easier and Addons Linker makes it quick.  I had two aircraft mods, one livery, and 9 scenery mods loaded.  And I believe half or more of those scenery mods loaded were insignificant from my cruise altitudes of 9,000 and 11,000 respectively, with a mostly broken cloud layer at 5,000 ft.

I have for years and still do the same with the aged SceneryConfigEditor for FSX.

Why load fuel to capacity for a two-hour flight..........

Edited December 6, 2021 by fppilot

[jrw4 626]

1 minute ago, fppilot said:

I take a few minutes before each flight with Addons Linker to spec in only those addons I need for that next flight. 

This^

And if an add-on does require manual editing of config files, it might be.a good idea to give it a pass until the developer can figure out how to do its installation safely.

[Dazzlercee23 68]

4 hours ago, Bad_T said:

It should be correct but maybe the 2 columns are confusing.

the 'active=yes' columns means it has the active=true value in the content.xml file (no matter if the addon is really active or an old one you have deleted months ago). So the 'Active' only shows what is inside the content.xml file.

Then the tool will look for the addon in your folder to fill the 'Type' columns in the following order :

• If it  finds it in the official folders it will show 'Official'
• If it finds it in the community folder it will show 'Community' (no matter if it's a real folder or a link created by addons linker)
• if it finds it in your 'addons linker' folders it will show 'Available'. That means it's not currently activated and seen by the sim, but it's ready to be used if needed.
• if it doesn't find it, it will show 'not found'

Feel free to send me a private message if you still have doubts about it or if you think there is an error somwehere. Thank you 🍻

I will try to post a little updated version tonight after work to auto-select the file also for MS-Store users.

Thanks, I'll check again, probably just confused.

Another idea I had was to be able to delete the content.xml automatically (as an option) when a new pre-set is selected in Linker so you always have a clean'ish content.xml file relevant to the actual addons being used.

I know you can do this through the ini file, but it does it every time rather than just when addon files are changed.

[Bad_T 581]

here is the little update that should automatically load the content.xml file also if you have the MS-Store version  -> https://gofile.io/d/ivYRoo

@Dazzlercee23 I wrote your suggestion down thank you. I'm not sure how useful it would be though, i don't think you will notice decreased loading times or things like that just because you have less invalid entries in that file, if you clean it once in a while to eliminate all those very old addons you installed a long time ago it's probably good enough. If the option to auto-delete is hidden in the INI file, it's also because i'm not sure it's a good idea to do that for some users. For example, if you use navigraph-navdata, its installer will disable the 'fs-base-nav' entry in the content.xml file, if you delete the content.xml file, the sim will create it again and that entry will be enabled again until you run the navigraph installer again and that might cause some conflicts (not sure if it really does but well if navigraph disabled it there's probably a reason i guess)

ALL : off topic, but for info, that new version (the one from yesterday already includes that) lets you increase a bit the fonts for the 2 main views (left and right), it's also in the INI file (search for the word 'scale' and enter a value like 1,2,3,4, test what's better for you, the default value is 0). It's just a test but well it was requested a few times for people having big monitors where things might be a bit smallish to read if you are not in your twenties anymore 🤓 (i'm not either 😱) . It's just a test for now, that feature will probably make it into the official options screen one day. If you make change to the INI file make sure you do it only when the tool is closed, otherwise it won't be overwritten next time you close the tool.

🍻

Edited December 6, 2021 by Bad_T

[Barnes 192]

34 minutes ago, Bad_T said:

here is the little update that should automatically load the content.xml file also if you have the MS-Store version

Works for me on MS-Store version. Thanks

[HemiPilot18 16]

Microsoft used to have an XML file editor available on their website named "XML Notepad 2007" but they have apparently taken it down.  Just sayin'.