What is the purpose of Addon Linker that everyone raves about? Is it just to reduce loading times by a bit? I just can't see what the big deal is because you must have to spend time fiddling with it every time you want to fly in a different region?

Edited February 8, 20224 yr by jarmstro

1 hour ago, jarmstro said:

What is the purpose of Addon Linker that everyone raves about? Is it just to reduce loading times by a bit? I just can't see what the big deal is because you must have to spend time fiddling with it every time you want to fly in a different region?

If you have tons of freeware mods it's easy to organize by region and it's a great tool for troubleshooting mods. When it's time to update you clear the entire community folder with one click. It's not that you have to constantly use it. It's more for people like me that have too many add-ons and want an easy way to organize them.

Update: I failed to mention that my add-ons are all located in a different folder outside the community folder. You can put your add-on folder anywhere you want and the linker will then create the hyperlinks. Very useful!

Edited February 8, 20224 yr by DJJose

In a sense, yes. I have my add-ons set up in a hierarchical folder structure, with top levels being continents. Any mesh or continent level addon is located in this folder. Second level is country (in Canada, provinces). Any addon for this level is located in appropriate folder. Third level is same folders, example, airports, poi etc. that are region specific. 

With the linker I can turn on any level of granularity by turning on the appropriate folder level. If I fly from France to Spain, I can click both these on. I also have top level folders for Bijan, dc6 etc. 

46 minutes ago, jarmstro said:

What is the purpose of Addon Linker that everyone raves about? Is it just to reduce loading times by a bit? I just can't see what the big deal is because you must have to spend time fiddling with it every time you want to fly in a different region?

In addition to the organization features mentioned by others, it also makes it dead simple to keep all of your add-ons anywhere you wish instead of the default location for the Community folder (a different HD, a different folder on your main drive... wherever you want).

No matter where your add-ons are located, Addon Linker will make sure that the correct shortcut is added in the default Community folder location for the addon you want active.

Edited February 8, 20224 yr by salasnet

11 minutes ago, salasnet said:

it also makes it dead simple to keep all of your add-ons anywhere you wish instead of the default location for the Community folder (a different HD, a different folder on your main drive... wherever you want).

This is also important. To further this, I have two main folders on root of additional drive. One for the source zip files, and the second where I do the extraction to. When I find an addon for a region I don't have, I create the sub directory structure in the source folder, then replicate in the extraction folder. The two folder trees are identical to each other, one with source, the other with extracted. The linker folder only points to the extracted folder. Very easy to update source, a bit of effort to initialize, but easier for me to maintain. 

4 hours ago, jarmstro said:

What is the purpose of Addon Linker that everyone raves about?

how about using the plethora of information that is already there:

https://www.avsim.com/forums/topic/608218-tutorial-managing-addons-with-msfs-addons-linker/?tab=comments#comment-4638020

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O68u05JZXL8

 

Edited February 8, 20224 yr by turbomax

4 hours ago, jarmstro said:

What is the purpose of Addon Linker that everyone raves about? Is it just to reduce loading times by a bit? I just can't see what the big deal is because you must have to spend time fiddling with it every time you want to fly in a different region?

 

Perhaps this will simplify it.  Adons Linker only stores Windows shortcuts in your Community folder.  Those shortcuts tell MSFS where your Addons really are, which is somewhere else.  With Addons Linker you can very very quickly place those shortcuts into or remove them from your Community folder.  Allows you to manage where you have the actual files stored, and allows you to position only those addons you need for an upcoming flight or flights.

 

Frank @fppilot is right, one main point is that you can store your add-ons wherever you want. I have made 6 main folders: Aircraft, Libraries, NAM-SAM, EUR-AFR, ASI-OCE and World-Diverse. Usually I have  Aircraft+Libraries+World-Divers always on plus one of the other three. Sometimes when I know I'm flying only in a very specific region, e.g. France, I can choose the corresponding folder in EUR-AFR, which reduces load time significantly. As mentioned, if an add-on makes trouble and you don't know which, it is easy to track it down without much effort.

Edited February 8, 20224 yr by Nemo

It's not only the sorting stuff, but you have add on version numbers and other info handy.  (if the esteemed developers update their manifast.sjon, that is)

Here are two different views of how well you can organize your addons.  The top image is from Windows Explorer and shows the file structure I have created for my addons.  The second image is how it looks in Addons Linker.  The files in the right window of the Addons Linker are all of the shortcuts that I have in my Community folder this afternoon.  All I needed for where I flew. You can see the checkboxes in the left window. And as hansb57 pointed out you also see the version numbers in that right hand window.

It takes just seconds to drill into the organized structure in Addons Linker to select or unselect addons.  Just way too easy.

 

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Edited February 8, 20224 yr by fppilot

Addon linker automatically stores a thumbnail images of the addons which have them available. And provides other information about all the addons with some mouse clicks. If you like you can provide the URL of the market you purchased them from and linker keeps that information organized.

I like Addon Linker and yet I almost always have all addon's linked to and valid every time I fly. I use the program for organization, not so much to reduce the overhead that MSFS preloads when booted up.

The information that AL provides will be useful in case of a drive failure or other catastrophe. You can recover from such a conflagration much faster.

By the way it's been only 2 days since I downloaded and started using Addon Linker. I had misgivings about its usefulness, but not any more.

I want to add anther reason.

The user can fast launch MSFS as well as other programs.

I start FSUIPC, AIG TC, & littlenavmap, & fast launch MSFS with one click.

I may have to use it once my drive begins to get full. There's another option on fightsim.to called Addon Collector. No idea what the difference is though?

31 minutes ago, jarmstro said:

I may have to use it once my drive begins to get full. There's another option on fightsim.to called Addon Collector. No idea what the difference is though?

2 completely different mods. Take a few minutes to read the description & reviews.