It's the new v3 content management system Gary, we now have a bunch of .cfgs located in the ProgramData folder where you can specify an alternate folder containing your addons outside the sim.
LM now says:
the files contained in [the Prepar3D v3] folder, should never be modified
My understanding is that a symbolic link simply redirects the sim (or whatever) to another folder, the actual files within the folder containing the link (if any) are ignored. That would mean you'd need a complete duplicate of the P3D\Texture folder at the linked location for example, where with the content management system (theoretically) your alternate folder defined in the .cfg need only contain the files you wish to override, the sim will get whatever it can't find in the alternate folder from the default P3D\Texture folder. Maybe I'm wrong about symbolic links, I've never messed with them. Please correct me if so.
The .cfgs we have are listed below:
airlines.cfg
autogen.cfg
display.cfg
effects.cfg
fonts.cfg
gauges.cfg
scaleform.cfg
scenarios.cfg
scenery.cfg
shadersHLSL.cfg
simobjects.cfg
sound.cfg
suneffect.cfg
terrain.cfg
texture.cfg
weather.cfg
texture.cfg for example looks like this (default state):
Code:
[Entry.0]
Title=Default Textures
Path=Texture
Type=Global
Required=True
Active=True
[Entry.1]
Title=Default Global Scenery Textures
Path=Scenery\Global\Texture
Type=Global
Required=True
Active=True
[Entry.2]
Title=Default World Textures
Path=Scenery\World\Texture
Type=World
Required=True
Active=True
If you wanted to define an alternate Texture folder, say you want to use the freeware HDEv2 sky and clouds package without modifying anything in the P3D folder you might do it like this:
Code:
[Entry.0]
Title=Default Textures
Path=Texture
Type=Global
Required=True
Active=True
[Entry.1]
Title=Default Global Scenery Textures
Path=Scenery\Global\Texture
Type=Global
Required=True
Active=True
[Entry.2]
Title=Default World Textures
Path=Scenery\World\Texture
Type=World
Required=True
Active=True
[Entry.3]
Title=Addon Textures
Path=D:\P3Dv3 Addon Content\Texture
Type=Global
Required=True
Active=True
Then you'd place the 140 HDE sky_*.bmps and cumulus01.bmp into the alternate folder at
D:\P3Dv3 Addon Content\Texture and (theoretically) the sim would use those 141 files from the alternate Texture folder yet still get runway and taxiway textures for example from the main P3D\Texture folder.
I assume these .cfgs are
supposed to give you priority as you'd layer things in the scenery library (that's what I'd expect anyway and that's what devs will need in order for this to work), I say "theoretically" because priority doesn't seem to be honored at this time, I tried the above scenario and found that the sky textures were read from the alternate texture folder while the cumulus01.bmp was read from the default P3D\Texture folder in spite of the file being available in the alternate folder. When I swapped the priorities of the default and alternate Texture folders around in the .cfg the opposite happened but priority was still seemingly random.
That's the problem I see with the new content management system, we will need
consistent prioritizing between addon and default files if this is to work and everyone is to keep their files out of the P3D structure, as it is now the only way to gain
consistent priority over default files is to overwrite them.
It all works fine if the files in your external folder system are not competing with default files of the same filenames, I set up the Carenado Navajo for example in an external folder without a glitch.
Additionally but unrelated we've been given the ability to edit these .cfgs by passing a command to Prepar3D.exe from an installer script for example, special tools that append entries to the scenery.cfg, dll.xml, exe.xml, etc. are no longer needed (terrain.cfg isn't implemented yet):
Code:
Prepar3D.exe "-Configure: File=Scenery, Operation=Add, Path=C:\Program Files (x86)\My Company\My Scenery Product\data, Title=My Scenery, Required=True, Active=True"
More here:
http://www.prepar3d.com/SDKv3/LearningCenter/add-ons/add-on_configuration.html
Apologies for the lengthy post
Jim