Turbocharge MSFS: Save Locations, Start Anywhere, Tags, Notes, Sort++

Read the blog post Location Manager for MSFS – Development Overview for some insight into the development of this addon.

Buy Now – Get 20% off bundled with Aircraft Manager Pro

Video Guide

Quick Help Guides

Location-Manager-MAP-QuickHelpGuide	Location-Manager-PRO-QuickHelpGuide
Location-Manager-PRO-Toolbar-QuickHelpGuide	Location-Manager-FREE-QuickHelpGuide

Issues with 3rd party add-ons in MSFS?
MSFS Safe Mode is a new feature that will allow players to launch the sim in a basic state to ensure stability.

• MSFS Safe Mode FAQ
• To force start MSFS in safe mode, crash or force quit the app with alt+F4 or end the process from Task Manager. You will then get the prompt to boot normally or in safe mode on restart.
• It’s also possible to trigger safe mode on startup by dropping an empty file called running.lock into your local MSFS directory. This appears to be a lock file that MSFS uses to detect if MSFS exited correctly the last time it was used, and is deleted if MSFS successfully exits. If it exists, it triggers the safe mode selection screen. See this thread Command line parameter to start the sim in SAFE MODE for more info.

FAQ – Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Can I save specific airport gates or ground points as cold & dark start locations?

A: Short answer: not currently. Long answer: Location Manager is intended to be a generalised location manager for storage and retrieval of locations, to act as a starting point for your next flight. The intent is to zoom back to the saved location, THEN you manually select what you want to do for the flight by another click as per normal map use: start in the air in the general area, select a specific parking spot for a cold and dark, select a runway, select a water runway (in the case of a location with both land & water runways), or select the airport and let the sim decide the runway. In fly mode, you can teleport to saved locations at 1000′ AGL, then decide what to do.

Update 07/03/2023: Work in progress is showing this it’s possible to teleport to ground/water locations successfully in fly mode. It won’t be possible to start from map mode like that due to limitations, but with a little bit of a process we should be able to implement a system where you can arrive at a point to start your flight anywhere in world (obviously contrained by the realities of the geography). Stay tuned.

Update 09/03/2023:Start anywhere teleport functionality is released in V1.0.3
As mentioned, it won’t be possible to start from map mode like that due to limitations, but all you need to do is:

• Explore the map and save interesting locations as starting points as per the video guide
• Pick a starting airport and enter Fly mode in either cold or hot start mode.
• Once in Fly mode open Location Manager, choose where you want to go, and teleport there to start your flight.

Q: Can I uninstall the LM Toolbar widget and just use the main LM app?

A: No. Currently Location Manager requires both addons installed in order to be able to work properly.

Q: Why is there a size limit on the notes/tags you can save (and other things)?

A: There are currently unknown and undocumented aspects to the MSFS SDK, and storage limits are one of these fuzzy areas.
After doing my own testing to get some clarity, Asobo developers indicated there should be no issues based on some reasonable size tests they have done, and to let them know if any issues are encountered. Based on this, I’m taking a measured risk reduction approach for now with storage limits.

I’ve decided to initally release with smaller storage limits, see what people do with it, get feedback, and increase the limits as needed in measured steps based on real world usage.

There are also performance implications with loading/unloading huge blobs of text in the UI, and I’d like to strike a good balance between utility, value, and performance. There’s always trade offs with this kind of thing.

Known Issues

• Teleporting: Please turn all your Assistance Options/Failure and Damage options to OFF in order to avoid issues with loading conflicts that may happen with changing locations (ie: ground/aircraft while the new location loads in). Also be aware there may be some issues with Aircraft using custom damage modelling that may override these settings. I suggest testing first with a base aircraft that does not have these issues.
• Location Height: The altitude of saved locations should be correct, but it may be off if you saved the location zoomed way out on the map. Please zoom into the map to a close distance when saving to ensure the point saved is the most accurate resolution and is placed where you want it.
• Conflicts: There is a conflict with another 3rd party UI addon, Modern UI. If you wish to use both (not recommended) you could try renaming Aircraft Manager by prefixing the folder with a “z-” so it loads after and supercedes that part of the Wingman UI mod. There is,however, no guarantee this rename will work, or continue to work in the future.
• Scaling to different screen resolutions. Due to issues encountered integrating into the MSFS UI it hasn’t been possible to implement a fully responsive UI that scales up and down like the MSFS UI does. The workaround for the moment is a manual font size change feature, so the user can adjust the font size of the data grid to their own preference. There are also some adjustments to column widths depending on the font size chosen. I would call it partially responsive. Free demo now includes this functionality.
• Scrolling/Pagination: Due to memory issues with integrating into the MSFS UI a hybrid pagination/scroll system has been implemented to avoid any issues. Page size is currently set at 80 rows to stike a balance between utility, performance, and bug free use.

Release Notes

Location Manager Release Notes 1.0.3a
https://sonicviz.com/project/location-manager/
Date: 10/03/2023

. Teleport implemented correctly for multiengine aircraft + gear/flaps configured properly
. Teleport time dynamically adjusted based on distance from current location to teleport location. Quicker restarts!

Location Manager Release Notes 1.0.3
Date: 09/03/2023

* New: Start Anywhere – Teleport to saved locations on ground/water/air (geography permitting)
* Improved Teleport user experience
* Fixed correct row selection when sorted
* Performance Improvements

Location Manager Release Notes 1.0.2
Date: 23/02/2023

• Performance Improvements
• Fixed issue with missing country
• Fixed missing icons in filter popups
• Fixed horizontal scrollbar

Free V 1.0.1 released 2023-02-16

• Bug fix with selected aircraft/location when sorting to maintain position
• Sorting in free versions of both synchronised to 3 (check version comparison help file for details)
• Performance tweaks

V 1.0.0 released 2023-02-14

Update 13/2/2023

• New free version release, no version number change.
• Many fixes and improvements.
• LM toolbar allows teleporting and saving locations

Update 2/2/2023

• New free version release, no version number change.
• Fixed saved height unit measurments
• Includes alpha test release of Location Manager toolbar widget to test teleporting to saved locations.
  Teleports to the saved location at speed 100kts, Heading 360, pitch/roll level, @ 1500ft agl.

29/01/2023 Released

Installation

The product is delivered as an MSFS package to be installed in the MSFS Community folder.

Unzip the package into your community folder.

if you don’t know the path of your community folder or the package doesn’t show up in sim, please do the following while running the sim:

• Go to Options / General screen in the User Interface
• Click on “Developers” tab at the bottom of the list on the left
• Switch the Developers Mode to ON
• On the Developer Mode Menu which you will now see on the upper left of your screen, select Tools / Virtual File System
• The community folder location can be found under “Packages Folders”.
• Open it and unzip the package folder into there.

See also: https://www.google.com/search?q=msfs+location+of+community+folder

Uninstall

Remove Location Manager from your MSFS community folder.
If it’s the MSFS Marketplace version (TBA) uninstall/delete the package from the marketplace in game.

Refund Policy

Please try the free lite version/demo first before buying, to ensure the addon works ok on your system before buying.

Due to the nature of this product being digitally available, purchases of this product are non-refundable.

Support

Please contact us via this form if you have any issues to report.
Note: Free version support is limited compared to the payware version.

To resolve issues it’s important to be able to replicate them, so we need to have as much information as possible in order to reproduce the problem and hopefully resolve it.

Please include the following information:

• Your receipt information for proof of purchase
• Your version of MSFS (Steam or Microsoft store)
• Whether you are on the live version or the Beta version
• Describe what you were doing prior to the issue occuring
• Describe what happened to trigger the issue
• Does it happen all the time or only in certain situations?
• What addons you have installed
• Describe anything else you think is relevant.

Although it might seem irrelevant to you, unless I can replicate the issue it’s very difficult to solve, so all the above info is required. Thanks!

Turbocharge MSFS: Favorites, Aircraft Control Presets, Tags, Notes, Sort++

Read the blog post Aircraft Manager for MSFS – Development Overview for some insight into the development of this addon.

Buy Now – Get 20% off bundled with Location Manager Pro

Video Guide

Aircraft Control Presets – Video Guide

Automatically switch device control presets on a per aircraft basis.

Quick Help Guides

Aircraft-Manager-PRO-QuickHelpGuide

Aircraft-Manager-FREE-QuickHelpGuide

Issues with 3rd party add-ons in MSFS?
MSFS Safe Mode is a new feature that will allow players to launch the sim in a basic state to ensure stability.

• MSFS Safe Mode FAQ
• To force start MSFS in safe mode, crash or force quit the app with alt+F4 or end the process from Task Manager. You will then get the prompt to boot normally or in safe mode on restart.
• It’s also possible to trigger safe mode on startup by dropping an empty file called running.lock into your local MSFS directory. This appears to be a lock file that MSFS uses to detect if MSFS exited correctly the last time it was used, and is deleted if MSFS successfully exits. If it exists, it triggers the safe mode selection screen. See this thread Command line parameter to start the sim in SAFE MODE for more info.

FAQ – Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Why is there a size limit on the notes/tags you can save (and other things)?

A: There are currently unknown and undocumented aspects to the MSFS SDK, and storage limits are one of these fuzzy areas.
After doing my own testing to get some clarity, Asobo developers indicated there should be no issues based on some reasonable size tests they have done, and to let them know if any issues are encountered. Based on this, I’m taking a measured risk reduction approach for now with storage limits. I’ve decided to initally release with smaller storage limits, see what people do with it, get feedback, and increase the limits as needed in measured steps based on real world usage. There are also performance implications with loading/unloading huge blobs of text in the UI, and I’d like to strike a good balance between utility, value, and performance. There’s always trade offs with this kind of thing.

Q: What do the blue reset/refresh buttons actually do?

A: Working from left to right, they reset the grid filters/sort, the msfs plane filter, or combinations of all. They are quick ways to reset everything if you want to go back to the start view, so you don’t have to go into the filters or click through the header sort. Convenience features.

The “Reset All” is also a good way to reset and refresh the grid with current data if things have visually gotten messed up from column changes or other things. The only thing it won’t reset is the MSFS search bar, which you will have to clear manually via the X in the search bar.

Delete, in red for DANGER, is a one click delete data button for the control preset data you have made. There’s no confirmation dialog, so be careful of it. I may remove this at some point, it’s also a convenience feature for when you’re learning and want to quickly reset your control preset data. This does nothing to the actual Control Options device presets, it only affects the data stored by ACP linking planes to your selected control preset.

Known Issues

• SU12 Beta missing data: Aircraft names in SU12 have been modified slightly, and as they are part of the data key used to store/load data used by Aircraft Manager/Aircraft Control Presets the data you had stored previously will be missing from the grid. It’s still there, but it can’t be accessed as a critical part of the key has been changed. Aircraft Manager will be updated along with SU12 release to convert data from the old format to the new SU12 data format, but for now I do not recommend you install the SU12 beta as you will “lose” your current data until the official SU12 release and AM update for it.
• Favorite Synching: Favorites are shared between the Aircraft Manager and Aircraft Control Presets, but may not be fully visually synchronised if you change a favorite on one AM panel and immedialy switch to the other AM panel. To keep them 100% in synch you will need to trigger a data refresh that will re-read them from storage, either by re-selecting the active plane (or another one) or doing a search in the search bar. I’ll look into optimising the User Experience to remove any confusion. 
• Aircraft Control Presets:
  • Max devices = 12. This may be reduced in future to improve performance. 
  • Preset Renaming: Due to the control preset initialisation process it is not possible to automatically detect renamed presets. To rename presets, it is recommended you plan out your preset naming strategy, duplicate ones you wish to rename & name them in Control Options, then change them manually to the new preset in Aircraft Control Presets. Then you can later delete the unused preset(s) from Control Options if you wish. 
  • Selected Plane not showing in ACP:  Due to the control preset initialisation process it is not possible to automatically scroll the grid to the currently selected aircraft as the main Aircraft Manager view does on first time entry. Please press “Reset All” button to trigger this, and the current selected aircraft should pop into view. This should also resolve any other issues with data and or column formatting you might have.  
  • Duplicate Devices: Does not handle duplicate devices with same Device name. This is a MSFS bug that needs to be fixed 
  • Duplicate Aircraft Names: Does not handle aircraft with same name (like AM) as plane name is part of the data key. Do not use two aircraft with the same name at the same time.
  • Device Hot Swapping: Does not support hot swapping devices. To change device configs must exit sim, change, restart sim.
• Conflicts: There is a conflict with another 3rd party UI addon, Modern UI. If you wish to use both (not recommended) you could try renaming Aircraft Manager by prefixing the folder with a “z-” so it loads after and supercedes that part of the Wingman UI mod. There is,however, no guarantee this rename will work, or continue to work in the future.
• Scaling to different screen resolutions. Due to issues encountered integrating into the MSFS UI it hasn’t been possible to implement a fully responsive UI that scales up and down like the MSFS UI does. The workaround for the moment is a manual font size change feature, so the user can adjust the font size of the data grid to their own preference. There are also some adjustments to column widths depending on the font size chosen. I would call it partially responsive. Free demo now includes this functionality.
• Search Integration: Search via the MSFS search boxes is bi-directional (both ways) between AM and MSFS aircraft selection. AM filtering is restricted to within AM as the search functions for them do not currently exist in MSFS.
• Scrolling/Pagination: Due to memory issues with integrating into the MSFS UI a hybrid pagination/scroll system has been implemented to avoid any issues. Page size is currently set at 80 rows to stike a balance between utility, performance, and bug free use.
• Sound: No sound click effect when selecting a plane in the aircraft manager, but there is some visual feedback in response to clicking.

Release Notes

Aircraft Manager Pro Release Notes 1.0.3 Date: 21/03/2023

• Data migration fix for SU12 data change. NOTE: DO NOT USE WITH MSFS VERSION LESS THAN SU12 RELEASE.
• Performance Improvements

Aircraft Manager Pro Release Notes 1.0.2 Date: 02/03/2023

• NEW FEATURE: Auto Control Profile Switching (separate tab) see video explainer @  https://youtu.be/AVmBFMgK5ro 
• Performance Improvements
• Fixed missing icons in filter popups
• Fixed horizontal scrollbar

Free V 1.0.1 released 2023-02-16

• Bug fix with selected aircraft/location when sorting to maintain position
• Sorting in free versions of both synchronised to 3 (check version comparison help file for details)
• Performance tweaks

V 1.0.0 released 2023-02-14

Update 13/02/2023

• New free version release, no version number change.
• Performance improvements + fixes
• Mandatory install for data migration prior to pro version release, if you want to keep your current tags.

Update 19/1/2023

• New free version release, no version number change.
• Performance improvements + Larger image for >2K screen resolution (adjust font to see).

Update 18/1/2023

• New free version release, no version number change.
• Performance improvements + UI/UX improvements.

Update 9/1/2023

• Update 2: Hybrid pagination/scroll system, 80 rows/page. Fixed bi-directional search integration with MSFS search.
• Update 1: New free version release, no version number change. Resolve memory issues with scrolling of large aircraft collections.

Update 8/1/2023
New free version released. Check the Known Issues and Help guides above. No version number change:

• Added new Free version features – see Benefits and Features comparison table above
• User controllable font size to adapt to different screen resolutions
• Many under the hood fixes and improvements.

Update 5/1/2023
New video explainer including the new favourites functionality and dark mode, combined with the tweaks outlined below.

4/1/2023 Updated the Free Demo.

No change in version number, but a summary of tweaks:

• Implemented Dark Mode theme. Fits better with the MSFS UI. Tip: Mouse over the far right edge of the grid to quickly scroll up/down. It will scroll in amounts depending on how far up or down the page you are.
• Lowercased the inbuilt categories
• Renamed Time to End(urance)
• Zeroed out bad data if a plane didn’t have it for speed/alt/end/range to 0 (N/A).
• Add Auto convert speed/alt/range to metric or imperial values to the free lite demo.

V 1.0.0

Initial Release (free): 04/01/2023 – dd/mm/yyy format😉
Pro version release (Early Access): TBD

Installation

The product is delivered as an MSFS package to be installed in the MSFS Community folder.

Unzip the package into your community folder.

if you don’t know the path of your community folder or the package doesn’t show up in sim, please do the following while running the sim:

• Go to Options / General screen in the User Interface
• Click on “Developers” tab at the bottom of the list on the left
• Switch the Developers Mode to ON
• On the Developer Mode Menu which you will now see on the upper left of your screen, select Tools / Virtual File System
• The community folder location can be found under “Packages Folders”.
• Open it and unzip the package folder into there.

See also: https://www.google.com/search?q=msfs+location+of+community+folder

Uninstall

Remove Aircraft Manager from your MSFS community folder.
If it’s the MSFS Marketplace version (TBA) uninstall/delete the package from the marketplace in game.

Refund Policy

Please try the free lite version/demo first before buying, to ensure the addon works ok on your system before buying.

Due to the nature of this product being digitally available, purchases of this product are non-refundable.

Support

Please contact us via this form if you have any issues to report.
If you have email issues you can try contact via the social channel links up top right of the page.  
Note: Free version support is limited compared to the payware version.

To resolve issues it’s important to be able to replicate them, so we need to have as much information as possible in order to reproduce the problem and hopefully resolve it.

Please include the following information:

• Your receipt information for proof of purchase
• Your version of MSFS (Steam or Microsoft store)
• Whether you are on the live version or the Beta version
• Describe what you were doing prior to the issue occuring
• Describe what happened to trigger the issue
• Does it happen all the time or only in certain situations?
• What addons you have installed
• Describe anything else you think is relevant.

Although it might seem irrelevant to you, unless I can replicate the issue it’s very difficult to solve, so all the above info is required. Thanks!