MFS AddOn Locator v2.0

MFS AddOn Locator v2.0

Before you rate this app low, please consider the fact that there’s a human being behind it, who has worked hard & for free on it & also take into account that it’s a work in progress, therefore bugs may occur & some functions may still be lacking: i’m willing (and actually glad) to fix those issues on request & implement new ideas.

“MFS Addon Locator” automatically extracts, analyze, tests, tags & updates your addons collection including airports, aircraft, sceneries, liveries, bush trips & flight plans, dividing them into meaningful categories based on their types, features, location, developer, creation date, version, relevant tags, problematic issues etc, associating them in a usable way, testing if they well behave, install the ones you select into the simulator, automatically composing the most compact flight plans between their locations & presenting them as pins on a map, categories on a tree & thumbnailed information blocks in a list.

Although “MFS AddOn Locator” is a standalone app, it is based upon “MFS Addon Collector” infrastructure & includes all its functionality, while improving its tag structure, its workflow, its UI & adding to it a zoomable interactive world map with location symbols to indicate your addon’s areas of interest, pins to indicate their airports & tacks to indicate their flight plan’s routes: Clicking an addon category on the left panel (e.g. Locations/Asia/Israel) zooms the map to present all its addons, while clicking an area on the map itself, selects the left panel’s addon category it belongs to (double clicking selects the closest found addon). Of Course you can navigate the map yourself panning & zooming in & out of areas of interest. Also, there are around 25 map styles you can choose from, using the map’s right click context menu. A slider under the map lets you dissolve to & from the old information blocks list representation of “MFS AddOn Collector”.

To install (or uninstall) the application, just execute its installer & follow the instructions; On first execution, the app searches for your addons library folder (though you can provide it yourself), and starts dynamically tracking, organizing, extracting & converting on the fly, existing & newly added addons & archives: The app would automatically identify & extract zip, rar, tar, gzip & 7z addon archives you add to your library (or drag & drop into the app’s window), adding it to your collection & updating old versions by new ones; Also kml, kmz & fpl files added are automatically converted into Microsoft flight plan (pln) format, so you can use them from within the simulator.

The “Fly” button executes the simulator, with the selected addons and flight plans available for use (-You can find those Flight Plans, from within the simulator, by selecting the ‘Load/Save Flight Files’ option of the World Map). The “Test” checkbox next to it, starts a long series of tests to verify no addon prevents the simulator from executing. The tests also measure the maximum addons size your configuration can handle, so it won’t let it run with more addons that it can manage: Checkboxes of addons & addon categories that can’t be loaded due to such constraints are marked red, while selected & verified addons are marked green; unselected addons are marked blue & categories that include both red & green addons, are marked gray. The app decides on its own what addons to exclude (starting with the less referenced & larger ones to minimize exclusions, and avoid exclusion of those you more specifically selected); You may deselect installed items yourself, until you reach the sim’s measured memory limit, so the app won’t have to exclude any addons at all.

The user interface is composed of two panels: A hierarchical view to the left lets you select & manipulate addon categories, while a list view to the right displays the addons linked to the selected category: Each addon & flight plan is presented by detailed information such as its title, routes, airports & their world coordinates, continent & country, version, developer, coverage radius, creation date, relevant tags, disk folder, verification state & a thumbnail; A checkbox on this thumbnail lets you link the addon to or unlink it from the selected left panel category, while the checkboxes next to each left panel category lets you choose whole addon categories that would be installed & available for use in the simulator. Location categories can also be selected on the small world map, under the left panel. Most addon’s details can also be clicked to open their left panel category & review other similar addons. To open the disk folder an addon is located in, you can just double click its presentation in the list view.

Right clicking the left or right panels opens a contextual menu relevant to the item the mouse is pointing at, or to the whole panel if the mouse is not pointing at any particular item. These menus let you manipulate the categories tree & the addons list – renaming, inserting, merging, copying, cutting, pasting, deleting, deselecting, searching, refreshing categories, filtering & sorting according to one or two chosen keys. You can use the left panel menu “Link” option to add other addons source folders – this option is available only under the ‘Folder’ sub category. Searching a panel for an item, can also be done simply by pressing its name’s first letter on the keyboard while the panel has focus.

To load or save your settings, including tags & selections into files, you can use the load & save buttons on the lower left part of the app’s window, though saving is not necessary because those tags & selections are auto saved by default.

Some notes:
1. The ‘Fly’ button & ‘Test’ checkbox, should run the simulator; If they won’t, just drag & drop (once only) the desktop shortcut or the executable file you use to run the simulator into the AddOn Locator app’s window.
2. On first executions, while extracting & tagging addons, building thumbnails & converting flight plans, the application might work a little slower then usual & the user interface may be a little less responsive.
3. Depending on the amount of addons you have, the test series (if you decide to take it) might take hours, during which the simulator will start and stop automatically. Starting the sim, unchecking the ‘Test’ checkbox or closing the application, will stop those tests temporarily & they would proceed from where they had stopped if you restart them.
4. Temporary freezing of the map when zooming out long distance is currently a known unresolved issue.
5. Bug reports & suggestions for improvements are welcome.

Regarding the checkbox color codes the application uses: The important thing to know is that immediately after clicking the ‘Fly’ button, green checkbox addons & categories would be linked & available from the simulator, While red ones won’t; More specifically:

In the Addons panel (to the right):
1. Addon with a green checkbox will be linked (to the sim) – because one of the categories they belong to is selected (in the categories panel to the left).
2. Addon with a white checkbox won’t be linked – cause no category they belong to is selected.
3. Addon with a red checkbox won’t be linked – even though they belong to a category which have been selected, because you selected too many addons & the simulator can’t run with so much.

In the Categories panel to the left:
1. Green checkbox means ALL its addons are linked to the sim, because of your selections.
2. Red checkbox means NONE of its addons are linked, even though they are selected.
3. White checkbox means NONE of its addons are linked, just because they are not selected.
4. Gray checkbox means SOME of its addons are linked & some not – You may go down the tree by opening its leaves to see which are which.

As for the Checkmarks (-V):
1. Bold checkmarks means you selected it yourself.
2. Lighter checkmarks means the category has been auto selected as it is a child node of a checkbox that you selected yourself.
3. Faint checkmarks means the category is partly selected, because you selected one of its children yourself.