How to layer scenery with new Addon Manager

[Wise87]

Question, with the new add-on manager how do we layer our scenery in P3Dv3. As I see it now everything is greyed out and there are no entires in the Scenery.CFG so I can't move scenery up or down in the layers.

[virtuali]

Why you want to move layers in the first place ? Airports should always be on top. In any case, that would be more of a question for LM, if they could add the ability to move Add-ons added with the new system, in a future upgrade.

I wanted to clarify this better, because from your subject title, you seem to assume this is an "Addon Manager thing". It's not, it's the official way and suggested way to install any addon in Prepar3D, that we never used so far, only because it came to a full realization with P3D 3.3, so quite late in the developement stage.

But with the V4 release, we took the chance to use it, because it offers lots of advantages, so you won't ever want to go back to the old method. This is why the new installation method is much better, and the way to go in the future:

- Each add-on can have its own private Scenery, Texture, Effects, Sounds and Simobjects folders, and they can all be added without touching any of the global configuration files. If they have executables modules, like we do, they'll also have their own private configuration file so, the sim main scenery.cfg, dll/exe.xml, prepar3d.cfg the Simobjectspaths lines in it, will not have to be touched by an installer.

- You can Enable/Disable an add-on very easily from the "Options->Add-ons" menu.

- If you reinstall the sim, the add-ons installed this way won't have to be reinstalled!

- We can keep a single shared folders across all supported sim, for a big space saving.

- You install only once, and all sim will be configured in one go, for a big time saving.

I expect and I HOPE many developers will switch to this system as soon as possible, because it will greatly improve the experience for everybody, users and developers alike, so we won't have to chase strange bugs, because another rogue installer has corrupted the dll.xml or the scenery.cfg...each one has its own private configuration files that is responsible to maintain, and nobody is required to touch any of the default config files of the sim.

[Wise87]

Priority order has always been a key feature in the FS World. So your saying were not able in V4. Only your new update does not allow this yet the option is still included in P3D. Did P3Dv4 remove this option?

[virtuali]

Priority order has always been a key feature in the FS World. So your saying were not able in V4. Only your new update does not allow this yet the option is still included in P3D. Did P3Dv4 remove this option?

Nobody took away the priority system, which is still there. What's not there, is the ability to rearrange sceneries installed in the "new" (proper) way, together with sceneries installed in the "old" way from the sim UI.

I'm not fully sure why LM has chose to do so, I guess it's because mixing and rearranging files coming from different places might cause issues but, as I've said, it's really a question for LM, about why they decided to not allow to rearrange sceneries from the sim UI.

If you REALLY want to re-arrange sceneries, because you are sure there's a conflict, you might have a look at the P3D V4 Learning Center help file, in the SDK->Add-ons->Add-on Packages chapter, it explains the format of the add-on.xml file, which contains a Layer parameter that you can add, if you find a conflict between two sceneries.

Our add-on.xml files are located in the default and suggested folder for add-ons, which is Documents\Prepar3d v4 files, each one under its own folder, very nice and tidy.

[FalconAF]

Why you want to move layers in the first place ? Airports should always be on top.

Most of the time that may be true.  But even if I DO have all my 3rd party airports at the very top of my Scenery Library list, I STILL want to be able to "sort" them in the list in a way that makes it easy to see what's there.  For instance, I have (er...HAD) FORTY THREE addon airports in my P3Dv3 install, all at the top of my Scenery Library.  But they were also named (I had edited the Scenery Area Title of them) to begin with their ICAO, and then "sorted" them priority-wise alphabetically.  Made it very easy to see what was there 'cos they were sorted by the country they were in.  Now, the list is solely dependent on the order I INSTALL the airports.  And even after that, I can't use the "EDIT" button in the GUI to rename the darn Scenery Area Title name.  I'm stuck with whatever the darn installer decides to name it.  If I want to enable/disable it in the sim using the "Options/Addons" menu, the list of airports I see looks like a cluster f*rt of airports with all kinds of different names, naming conventions, etc.  KLAS might be number 32 in the list, between an airport in Mexico (MM something or other) and EDD-whatever in Europe.

I can't believe nobody during the pre-release beta testing didn't encounter any of this.  Especially with the number of addon developers who WERE beta testers, trying out all there different v4 installers.

And PLEASE...if a developer is going to release a new P3Dv4 installer that is going to do something as dorky as this did to P3Dv4, please, PLEASE, don't let the SAME installer do the SAME thing to a perfectly good working installation of P3Dv3.  Now my Scenery Config Editor utility program can't even sort my P3Dv3 scenery.cfg file anymore, because the FSDT and Flightbeam airports don't even show up in the P3Dv3 Scenery Library List of the utility program (I'm assuming because they aren't listed in the scenery.cfg file anymore).

Note:  I'm not PO'd at any particular developer, so don't take anything personal in this post.  I'm just totally dumbfounded that LM, any developer, or whoever might have a role to play in it, would allow the kind of things to happen like this.  NOBODY during the beta testing saw any of this and went "Huh?  Houston, we have a problem...".  And if they did, they still released the product to the paying public, with NO warning, like, "Hey, if you do this with these new installers, here's what's gonna happen.  And it's gonna happen to your perfectly good P3Dv3 installation too."

I don't mind paying to be a beta tester for P3Dv4.  But please don't have me unknowingly do things that will hose up my P3Dv3 installation in the process (and any 3rd party utility programs for it that don't work with it anymore now).

[virtuali]

And PLEASE...if a developer is going to release a new P3Dv4 installer that is going to do something as dorky as this did to P3Dv4, please, PLEASE, don't let the SAME installer do the SAME thing to a perfectly good working installation of P3Dv3.

"dorky" ? The installer simply used the new and proper addon installation system, which has too many advantages to mention (I'll do a detailed post about this), so it did the correct and proper thing for the sim.

Now my Scenery Config Editor utility program can't even sort my P3Dv3 scenery.cfg file anymore, because the FSDT and Flightbeam airports don't even show up in the P3Dv3 Scenery Library List of the utility program (I'm assuming because they aren't listed in the scenery.cfg file anymore).

That's just because that utility hasn't been updated to support this system, which has been introduced in P3D V3 but, until now, not many used it, so they probably didn't feel the urge to update their utility to support it.

So, you should try to suggest the author to support this method, so you'll then be able to sort, rename, rearrange using it, exactly like you did before.

I'm just totally dumbfounded that LM, any developer, or whoever might have a role to play in it, would allow the kind of things to happen like this.  NOBODY during the beta testing saw any of this and went "Huh?  Houston, we have a problem...".

I guess it's just because some developers were just happy the old system still worked, so nobody really complained.

But, for example, as soon as I mentioned the issue to SODE, Jeffrey Stahli, the author of the software, immediately understood how much BETTER this system is, so he quickly added support for it in SODE.

And if they did, they still released the product to the paying public, with NO warning, like, "Hey, if you do this with these new installers, here's what's gonna happen.  And it's gonna happen to your perfectly good P3Dv3 installation too."

Nothing happened to you perfectly good P3DV3 installation. In fact, it has been greatly improved and rationalized, so now you have only a single place where you have all your FSDT stuff, and you can even uninstall and reinstall the whole sim ENTIRELY (clean install), without having to reinstall the sceneries ever again, because they will automatically re-appear after you reinstall the sim after a fresh reinstall.

Once you'll fully understand what's possible with this new method, you'll never want to go back again to the dark ages of the shared scenery.cfg and it's issues.

You only lost the ability to rearrange them manually, something that you wouldn't have done in any case, but I'm sure you would have used a configuration utility, which is what you seems to do.

So, your real only issue doesn't have anything to do with us, or LM. Your problem it's JUST that you are using an utility that doesn't understand this system yet, but I'm sure it will be eventually updated, otherwise it won't work with lots of things in the future.

I'll try to do a better example:

If FSDT released a Scenery Configuration Utility as a product, and it still didn't support this new add-on installation system, even 2 years after it was added to Prepar3D, users would have every right to complain to us, if we advertised it as a full P3D compatible product.

[MXP]

Good afternoon,
I have P3D V3 and V4 installed.

After the installation of the new scenery KCLT inside the V3 and V4, I have a problem with P3D V3 for any scenery FSDT and Flight Beam installed, because P3D crash.

I think the problem is the new position for the scenery, because the layers are identical at other scenery.

Attached there are all the pictures and text for my problem.

It's possible to help me.

Sorry for my english

[MXP]

Umberto,
sorry for the precedent post.

This evening (Italy time), I have fixed the problem with a new installation of GSX.

Maybe the problem was SODE version 1.42.

After the new installation all is ok.

Thankyou and continue with other beatiful sceneries or tools addons