“MFS Addon Collector” Automatically Extracts, Analyses, Tests, Tags, Rates, Updates, Links and classifies your addon collection into Airports, Aircraft, Bush Trips, Checklists, Cores, Discovery Executables, Flights, Enhancements, Executables, Flight Plans, Landing challenges, Liveries, Missions, Panels, Sceneries, Sound, Textures, Training flights and Weather, divides them into meaningful categories you select, based on their types, features, location, developer, creation date, version, relevant tags, source archive, problematic issues etc, associating them in a number of useful ways with their dependencies, source web pages, etc, tests them to make sure they don't prevent the simulator from loading, organizes their disk folder hierarchy as you specify, link the ones you select to the simulator (based on their specific title, category or your presets), automatically compose the shortest flight plans between their locations and statically presents, dynamically tracks and visually logs (in a web page) your flights among them on one of 50 styles of maps, letting you also drag and drop your aircraft anywhere on face of the earth.
For easy accessibility this information gathered is presented either as a categories tag tree, a thumbnailed information blocks list, an editable, sortable, searchable, multi-filtered grid, a simple edit form, and as location pins, path tacks, object buttons and area symbols on a map.
Start using the Collector in two minutes
the general principles of using this app
In the upper part of the user interface there is a list of tabs. You can hover the mouse cursor over a tab so a popup with the tab’s function appears. On initial execution of the application, open the Settings tab (if it’s not already opened), press the "Source" button to open the "Select" dialog and select your source folder where all your addons backups and archives are located (not the sim's community folder which the Collector itself is supposed to link to your addons). After selecting this source folder, the Collector will start building your addons library - which you can start using immediately, but may take many hours to complete.
When the Collector starts processing addons, you can use the tree panel (in the left side of the user interface) to select specific addons or addon categories (e.g. Location/North America/United States/Florida): Ticking the checkbox for an addon or an addon’s category, makes them available in the sim (by linking them to the sim’s Community folder), while just selecting an addon or an addon's category, would display various views of them in the tabs to the right:
The first three tabs to the left are the List tab, the Grid tab, and the Gallery tab, which shows an information box for each addon in your library. You can click on any bit of information inside every such information box (e.g. developer, tags, locations, etc) to further re-select a tree node which is relevant to it. For example, pressing the addon's developer name would select this developer in the tree panel which would show all the addons this developer created.
The forth tab to the left is the Grid tab which presents the selected addons information in an editable table with editable form under it, which displays detailed information about the addon which is currently selected in the table.
The fifth tab to the left is the Map tab which presents all your localizable addons as pins on a map, also drawing lines between flight plan and mission's POIs.
The sixth tab to the left is the Recommendations tab which presents an ordered list of the most popular addons used by the Collector’s users. In the upper part of the page you would find a combo box where you can select the type of an addon you are interested to see recommendations for.
All those six tabs mentioned also have context menus you can open using your mouse right button: When right clicking a specific addon, the menu would suggest activities relevant to the addon clicked, while when clicking an empty area of the tab, only general commands are seen - commands relevant to all addons or to the tab itself.
The other tabs will be more useful to you letter on and you can read about them elsewhere in the manual.
When you are ready to fly - press the airplane button in the upper right corner of the user interface.
Thank you for this super app
2 months ago
1 months ago
shaykatzir
YBau
nvm fixed it. It works!
5 months ago
Zakii
I'm loving the app.
I'm a sucker for seeing information, especially when an app is doing something in the background. while the Log tab/button is nice, I'd really like to be able to tail an actual log in progress. See exactly what the app is doing. The pretty version is nice and the limited title bar info is good, but I'd love to see more.
6 months ago
Either the app's windows title bar shows which addon is being processed, extracted or analyzed, and also the lower part of the setting bar show. More detailed information appears in the System log tab.
6 months ago
shaykatzir
SonjaMichelle
hi, it's all too complicated to me, i did try linker, there even more complicated😊 i start your addon, it found my source on f where onestore and community and start do something after my confirmation, show 4h left. there target default msfs instead my community folder, and i have some dirs where disabled addons, hope it will not touch them and not put them in target, so i have to stop that, or i have to wait and then change target or change target in msfs itself settings... i know what you thinking i have to use nootrops, or something like that😊 so, what situation i will got after process will complete? for now i have, as i said, on f:\ onestore and community i have msstore version and collector use default native dirs as targets, i just did nothing, only confirm your addon can do it's job... so this 4 hours will waste time and drive resources or after all i'll be ok?
so, i get it so. after addon collector will create symblinks to msfs default community, i just will must to change it in msfs and no other way without reset with move all my addons somewhere and targeting to my f:\community? btw is no problem if links will on default, but collector can change msfs settings after do this job? because i don't know how to change settings, then, will it linking onestore addons or only community? best way is video with step by step if people have custom config, and would be cool if program will found where msfs setting up addons...
6 months ago
You should manually select the Source folder in the Settings tab, as the directory you are putting your addons collection. That's all! Immediately after you select it, the application will start to analyze your addon collection.
6 months ago
shaykatzir
einherz
Good Morning Shay
You don't seem to have had many comments recently, so I thought that I might drop in a couple of very minor requests just in case you had run out of things to do 😊
1/ Is there any way to make the app re-open in the same place (and size - although it might already do this as I don't seem to have to resize it every day) that it was closed down? It currently always opens in the same place, but not where I want it! It currently starts on the far left of screen 1, and I then have to move it back to screen 2 each morning (I mention this just in case it is the screen number that is causing the issue).
2/ Is there any way to make the opening splash screen smaller? Maybe without all of the pictures?
Anyway, I hope that you are keeping well and thanks as always for all the effort and work that you put into this.
Regards
Peter
7 months ago
Hi,
Its true i havnt been done any updates lately: I didnt find any importent thing to add or fix.
The app should keep its exact position even with two screens. My system has two screen and the position is kept. If your system doesnt keep it, it may be because of some external factors that take control or some wierd bug i cant replicate because it is specific to your system.
The splash screen is 800x600 which is not so big relative to typical flight pc and i believe you can just expand other windows on top of it so it won't bother you while loading.
7 months ago
shaykatzir
pjglewis
Message from the developer: Since 22.3 access to the global database is denied and therefore collective addon's information couldn't be fetched. As of release 8.2.99 - the issue is fixed. Pls download & install it. In order to reflect all addon's info, it is recommended that at least all addons that have been added since 22.3 would be refreshed.
8 months ago
shaykatzir
Hello,
Could it be possible to have the possibility to "link" two package together (when I select a folder which have a linked package, the linked package folder is automatically loaded with it). I'm thinking especially the sceneries which requires librairies like mike.at assetpack.
I load regularly my 2 or 3 GB of library since I forgot which mod needs what.
It could be useful !
8 months ago
But the app knows dependencies by itself and loads them automatically: Watch the Dependencies root category in the tree panel on the left side of the UI or right click an addon and look at its dependencies in the lower part of the context menu (you can even select them to go to the addon's web page).
Or you can just add a new tree category e.g. "MyPreset" and put there all dependencies you need for each flight. There are many ways to add a preset - all mentioned in page 52 of the manual.
8 months ago
shaykatzir
YBau
First of all thank you for your big app... Ok it's a bit messy sometimes 😉 but far less than doing it manually 😀 AND that's an insane amount of work for a single dev! Mmmh... I guess you might be single lol. Joking aside, I have two issues though.
Since a few updates I no longer have the logs, I get the text: "Flight Logs Index
During flight, key points are automatically recorded, containing navigation information, aerial maps and through the cockpit snapshots. Here you can select your past flights logs." And that's it. I have a firewall that go crazy with local address, did you change the way it accesses the database? In the past I had to reauthorize Edge web view each time...
My second issue is that I still have a lot of archives in my archives source despite asking to delete the source after unpacking and despite having some, but not all, properly appearing in my available mods. Is there a way to clean-up things? Also is there a way to check for verbose errors to identify what went wrong like a text log? Or as the system log seems to suggest, you also put it in a database?
Thank in advance for your feedback and again for your great job!
8 months ago
Hi Hana,
Thanx for rating and your empathetic laughter :-)
If you have an idea how to make the data less messy ill be happy to hear - after all, the way the data is structured can be manually set by the user using the setting's tab parametrized fields.
Since around a week ago (release ~8.2.95) I moved the database access from the main UI thread to parallel threads created & destroyed on the fly, in order to avoid the UI from temporary freezing. Are you saying it causes the app to communicate with the database using different local address each time? Can't you allow the app itself to communicate (using your FW)?
Anyway, I don't think it has anything to do with your logs index disappearing because the logs are stored locally on your machine and are not dependent upon external DB. Please check the following folder and its sub folders for the log files and tell me what you find there and are they still registered while flying: C:\Users\[Your User Name]\AppData\Roaming\MFSAddOnCollector\Flight Logs
Especially look for index.html or default.html files - you can open them in a browser without using the app at all. Feel free to delete this folder completely, cause it would be recreated after restarting the app and may solve the issue. If it won't pls contact me so we could analyze it further. Also check your Logs setting in the Logs section of the Settings tab.
The system log is also kept on your local machine - you can find it in the following folder, but it is formatted as HTML and keeps track of some thousands lines only, deleting old ones: C:\Users\[Your User Name]\AppData\Roaming\MFSAddOnCollector\System Log
I think deleting archives after extraction is generally not a good idea - why won't you keep them as backups? you can even command the app to place them in different directories according to the addons type they contain and even sub-directories according to sub-types. I didn't debug this option cause I didn't think anyone would use it, but now that you mention it, I had tested it and it works fine, except for archives that are not extracted and being ignored due to either all addons already exists in an extracted form, no addons inside the archive at all, or error raised during extraction. If you'd ask the app to reposition your archives instead of deleting them (by unticking "Delete archives after extraction" & ticking "Reposition Extracted archives" options in the settings tab) you'd find all those three types of misbehaviors under [Your Source Folder]\Archives\Ignored
If you can't find a solution to this FW issues, pls let me know so I'd test with you returning the DB interaction to the UI main thread to see if it fix the issue.
Further contact me regarding those issues @ [email protected]
8 months ago
shaykatzir
hana
Updating this every couple of days is getting old. I'm about to pull the plug and uninstall it. Is there's a way that I can 100% delete this and not show that I ever had it installed?
8 months ago
You don't have to update the app at all - it is updated automatically.
To completly uninstall it you can use Windows Add/Remove programs in Window's settings.
Are you giving this app a 2 stars rating because I am updating it frequently with new options for all users to benefit from it? I believe it is a reason to give it 5 stars. Please consider removing your rating, as it 1. Ruins the app's average rating. 2. As I said - the app is updated automatically so you don't have to update manually at all. 3. I believe the app, or me, havn't done any wrong to you. 4. This app is a product of thousends hours of work, it is useful for many peoples, and is absolutly free of charge.
8 months ago
shaykatzir
jvazquez53
Hello and congratulations again for your application! Would it be possible to add a "script" to remove the ground services (the line Airportservices) in the "Layout.json" file of the airports in the form of an active button or a tick, to continue to have access to these services in all the airports ? I do everything by hand, and my old age is fast approaching! THANKS
9 months ago
Please email me a download link to such an addon + the updated layout.json you had manually done for it.
Also pls let me know if there are other tweaks ppls are doing to this file, so I can generalize a script engine.
[email protected]
9 months ago
shaykatzir
david80807
Message from the developer:
If you lost tags you can use the auto backup file: C:\Users\[Your User Name]\AppData\Roaming\MFSAddOnCollector\Tag Structures\MFSAddOnCollector.ac.bu
Just rename it to MFSAddOnCollector.ac and load it
9 months ago
shaykatzir
Hi Shay,
I was able to find and restore most of my archives and folders that were deleted before the .82 fix.
However, I have another MAJOR problem. I have all my downloads, from all the previous versions of Flightsim, (FS2004, FS2009, FSX, P3D (all), etc) on one home cloud 7.5 TB HDD. Separated, of course. My problem is, MFS ADDon Collector collects ALL of these other files and adds them to MSFS! Even though they are in separate folders, NOT in the search files path. How do I stop this?
9 months ago
I can think of three reasons for such occurrence:
You have to find those references and remove them.
9 months ago
shaykatzir
Premium
DonH55417
Premium
I've used this the last few weeks and it seemed to work ok, but lately when I start the program, the splash screen comes on and that's as far as it gets. Then after awhile it crashes, and I have to close it down. I completely uninstalled the older version and reinstalled 8.2.82 and the same thing.
9 months ago
9 months ago
shaykatzir
Bigmack
Latest versions had a bug which may delete source folders - please switch to Version 8.2.82 ASAP. I am sorry for everyone who got inflicted with this issue: I am trying to do my best.
9 months ago
Sorry but i don't have it anymore; but what for? Current version is OK. If something is wrong or missing pls let me know & i'd fix.
9 months ago
shaykatzir
shaykatzir
Thanks a lot for deleting nearly all files and folders from the storage-folder of all of my addons.
The same like some other users complained before happened to me this evening. As soon as the app updated itself all data from my storage folder were moved automatically into the windows waste bin. Unfortunately most of them were deleted completely so that I was just able to move a minority of them back to the storage folder.
As soon as I started your app again I could see live when all my files were deleted again.
I was using your app until now for about two years and never such disaster happened. You must have been in a really bad mood when you did your last optimisations.
That's it! I will switch over to another addon-linker!
9 months ago
I am sorry to hear that. This issue is fixed as of release 8.2.82.
9 months ago
shaykatzir
RabbitOlli