Comments on: scenery_packs.ini: What Was I Thinking?

By: vonhinx

vonhinx — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 01:15:14 +0000

In reply to Aussi. Best of luck; this is going to be tricky but then you know all about it :)

By: Aussi

Aussi — Tue, 17 Jul 2012 18:50:39 +0000

In reply to Ben Supnik. Cheers guys, I'm glad it's useful :) I'm just working out an elegant way of migrating existing scenery packs from the old '(disabled)' folder to the new ini file method. Then will take a look at building a nice UI for ordering. There are some other big new features coming in the next version too.

By: Ben Supnik

Ben Supnik — Tue, 17 Jul 2012 18:22:38 +0000

In reply to Chuck. Yeah Aussie does good work. :-) This change is friendly to third party managers in that it lets them "manage" by data and not by taking a whack at the file system.

By: Ben Supnik

Ben Supnik — Tue, 17 Jul 2012 18:21:59 +0000

In reply to Andreas.

You can’t link to an “outside” scenery DIRECTLY with this file.

You can make a symlink to another location though.

By: Chuck

Chuck — Tue, 17 Jul 2012 16:03:25 +0000

Aussi’ XplaneManager is oh so easy. But sounds like Aussi is working to
integrate his manager with the new scheme. That’s good as I rely on his
manager a lot to keep me out of wrong scenery troubles, unlike another flight
sim that I had lo so long ago and is now gathering dust.

Chuck

By: Andreas

Andreas — Tue, 17 Jul 2012 15:54:27 +0000

This file looks nice. Is it now also possible to place sceneries outside of the Custom Scenery folder?
Maybe an entries like this
SCENERY_PACK AerosoftScenery/EDDM/
Would be inside the X-Plane root or better somewhere else
C:\Users/myUser/mySceneries/EDDM/

By: Ben Supnik

Ben Supnik — Tue, 17 Jul 2012 14:22:51 +0000

In reply to PascalL.

Yeah that’s what I was thinking too – some way to hint that ‘this is a base mesh, put it near the bottom’ vs ‘this is overlay, keep me on top’.

By: Greg

Greg — Tue, 17 Jul 2012 13:52:08 +0000

Rather than asking newer or inexperienced X-Plane users to venture into the game’s file structures and delete a file (*where they could blow out a lot more than just the .ini), perhaps a button somewhere in-sim which will delete the .ini file and restart the simulation on the fly?

A quick “Scenery Management” menu item off the top can initially contain this “Reset Ini File” button, and in the future perhaps contain the proper UI for manipulating scenery pack priorities.

Granted, if a user is adding scenery they are probably comfortable with going into the file systems, but it could make tech support requests a bit easier.

The new .ini file also opens the doors to a resourceful freeware developer to whip up a quick little external utility to manage the file for you, too.

By: PascalL

PascalL — Tue, 17 Jul 2012 10:46:06 +0000

Sorry, my mistake, this is correct:

“Now, X-plane just have to load first all files marked with “0″ priority from top to bottom , then 1, etc…”

By: PascalL

PascalL — Tue, 17 Jul 2012 10:39:08 +0000

Ben, the idea of a simple file is fine, but I see one problem to you approach: Scenery makers can’t suggest a default priority any more. By default, a new scenery will be added at the top of the list. This requires manual editing of the file by the user for each “low priority” scenery (eg. photo scenery that shouldn’t cover other object sceneries).
My idea would be to add a “priority” parameter in the file, after the folder’s name. A single digit (eg. 0-9) would be enough. On top of that, allow the scenery makers to add a file in their folder which contains the “preferred” priority parameter. When X-plane loads new scenery, it adds the scenery at the top like now, with a medium priority (eg. 4) by default, or the number found inside the scenery folder if it exists. Now, X-plane just have to load first all files marked with “0” priority in alphabetical order, then 1, etc…
This way, no manual editing would be required from the users, and scenery makers don’t have the hassle to explain how to edit the ini file in their readme.