MSFS Aircraft Downloads section is Confusing at Best

[b3burner]

Hi,

 

I'm still not sure how to download planes in the uploaded files section... unless they're not planes, but rather liveries.  How do I know by looking at a file, whether it's its own full aircraft or not?  I liked the old file system better, where they would indicate with a letter below such as [A], [B], etc. to denote if it was an aircraft, a base file, and so on.  Now with those indicators gone, it's very hard to tell.

 

I have seen what appears to be liveries only, in the section for MSFS Aircraft.  There is a separate section for MSFS Liveries.  Why aren't all of the livery offerings in the section they belong?

 

I've attached an example of what I'm talking about.  I was looking forward to getting an L1049 airplane, only to find out it's only a livery for a Canadian airline, and placing it in my community folder did nothing.

 

[loki]

Unfortunately, with the new forum and file library software, there is no easy way to tell which are complete aircraft unless the developer has explicitly stated so in the description. Not sure about why liveries are in the wrong section, but it could be due to the migration to the new software and some files ended up in the wrong place, alongside the developer who uploaded it flagging it incorrectly. You could leave some feedback in the New Forum Software section with your experience.

 

As far as MSFS add-ons, the main community repository has largely coalesced around FlightSim.to (not related to FlightSim.com).

[tiger1962]

I've tried to include a label at the end of the filenames in all of my uploads, i.e. 'mod' followed by the version number. I think it's advised when uploading, but not enforced apparently.

[b3burner]

Ok, thank you both.  At least I know I'm not alone in noticing these oversites.  And yes, I've noticed that the ".to" has become the major player when it comes to downloading.  I was just hoping that this forum had stuff that the ".to" doesn't.  Either way, it's all good.  I did manage to find a nice Eastern Airlines livery for the default DC-3, so I'm very grateful for that.

[Nels_Anderson]

Being the person largely responsible for the design of the old library system, I have to say I preferred it too.

 

What happened, though, is that over the years community preferences changed. The people creating the files came to not like the concept of the library being curated and run by a librarian and instead wanted their own personal and direct access to each file listing. That's largely why the file library now works differently than it did in the past.

 

Both systems have advantages and disadvantages. As it is now, it's up to the file creators to provide all the necessary information that you as a potential downloader are looking for.

[PhrogPhlyer]

9 minutes ago, Nels_Anderson said:

it's up to the file creators to provide all the necessary information that you as a potential downloader are looking for.

This is why it is recommended that the file name and author be stated within the description. More appropriate verbiage means more searchability.

 

Nels, We need to keep beating this drum, since unfortunately many of the recent uploaders are apparently  not thinking about later ability to find their works.

I keep the following that you wrote at easy access, and will repost once again.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This was posted previously by Nels in the New Software forum and may be of interest. It is a good protocol for content creators to follow, and will help people with searching.

 

"As file librarian, I used just such a standard format. I once wrote up a highly detailed document on how a good file description should begin:

 

Template for Perfect File Description

Part 1: Title

If the file is an aircraft the title should contain the following parts in this order:

1) What flight simulator(s) the file is for
2) If it's an airliner, what airline livery
3) The name of the company that built the plane
4) The model/type of the plane
5) Additional descriptive information such as:
   a) aircraft registration numbers
   b) terms like "fleet" if multiple planes are included

 

Sections 2 and 5 are optional.

 

Examples:

	FS2004 United Airlines Boeing 747-400 N747UA
	------ --------------- ------ ------- ------
	1      2               3      4       5

	FSX/P3D Delta Airlines Airbus A320-200
	------- -------------- ------ --------
	1       2              3      4

	X-Plane Piper PA28-181 Archer II
	------- ----- ------------------
	1       3     4

If you remember the old file library, you saw this standard format on every aircraft file. Scenery is done in a similar manner, adjusted for the different information required.

 

What you have to remember is you're not just writing text, you're actually putting down a whole list of tags that the search engine will use to find the file.

 

So further, an ideal description should include every possible term under which it might be searched. For example, airplanes often have an official name and a nickname, i.e. F-15 "Eagle". Someone looking for that plane could possibly use either of those terms in their search. You also run into cases where multiple terms are used for the same thing, i.e. "USAF" and "US Air Force" and "United States Air Force" all mean the same thing.

 

In scenery what I've seen lately is people won't fully describe what and where the scenery is. I.e., they will include the ICAO code for the airport, but NOT include what state or country it's in.

 

So now that the uploader is responsible, it's up to you to provide a description that will make your files findable by people doing reasonable searches. Hope this helps "

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Nels_Anderson]

Yes, on continued to "beat the drum".

 

But this really needs to be part of the upload procedures, and not forum posts. That means a change to the web site setup and I don't control that any more.

 

Past experience shows that often people who upload don't use the forums and so don't see things we post here. It's not quite so true with the current layout but previously it was almost like we were running several independent web sites, as forum users would be unaware of news posted on the home page, file users would be unaware of forum discussions, etc.

[PhrogPhlyer]

14 minutes ago, Nels_Anderson said:

Past experience shows that often people who upload don't use the forums and so don't see things we post here.

Had not considered this. Required information at upload solves most issues. 

[mrzippy]

22 minutes ago, PhrogPhlyer said:

Had not considered this. Required information at upload solves most issues. 

Something like this?

UPLOAD TITLE:
AUTHOR'S NAME:
SIMULATOR NAME:
IF THIS IS AN AIRCRAFT, IS THIS A FULL AIRCRAFT?  YES( ) NO( )  Place a checkmark!

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF YOUR UPLOAD:
PLEASE INCLUDE AN EMAIL ADDRESS IN THE README!

[loki]

34 minutes ago, PhrogPhlyer said:

Required information at upload solves most issues. 

In my experience working with and developing software over the years, you need to make key pieces of data required on entry if you want users to enter it. Leaving it open leads to things being left out, or entered inconsistently.

[mrzippy]

32 minutes ago, loki said:

In my experience working with and developing software over the years, you need to make key pieces of data required on entry if you want users to enter it. Leaving it open leads to things being left out, or entered inconsistently.

Yep, make it required before you can upload anything!

[PhrogPhlyer]

56 minutes ago, mrzippy said:

PLEASE INCLUDE AN EMAIL ADDRESS IN THE README!

I think personal info should be optional.

If someone wants to contact me concerning an upload, I exist here at FlightSim.

[loki]

21 minutes ago, PhrogPhlyer said:

I think personal info should be optional.

If someone wants to contact me concerning an upload, I exist here at FlightSim.

I agree personal info should be optional. On the other hand, it is nice to have some way to contact the developer and, as Nels says, not all participate in the forums. These days there are anonymous email services that one could use to avoid giving out your personal email address that would work.

[Nels_Anderson]

Forcing people to give info is generally a good idea, but harder to implement than you might think.

 

My comparison is eBay. In another life, I'm an eBay Power Seller, with thousands of sales on that site. So I'm pretty experienced with their forms. But yesterday the form for entering an item for auction stumped me. It would not let me proceed until I entered a UPC for the item...even though it was an antique from before the time that UPC codes existed. I tried things like "none", a number on the product that wasn't a UPC, etc. but nothing worked. Asking around, I found the magic word was "N/A"; entered that and was allowed to continue. Even companies with the resources of eBay create lousy forms.

 

As for personal info, I disagree that it should be optional, but it also should not be public. It would only be for the use of the site operator in case the uploader needed to be contacted. This actually shouldn't be an issue if the uploader is logged in, as contact information is part of their account so would not need to be entered again.

[loki]

24 minutes ago, Nels_Anderson said:

Forcing people to give info is generally a good idea, but harder to implement than you might think.

 

My comparison is eBay. In another life, I'm an eBay Power Seller, with thousands of sales on that site. So I'm pretty experienced with their forms. But yesterday the form for entering an item for auction stumped me. It would not let me proceed until I entered a UPC for the item...even though it was an antique from before the time that UPC codes existed. I tried things like "none", a number on the product that wasn't a UPC, etc. but nothing worked. Asking around, I found the magic word was "N/A"; entered that and was allowed to continue. Even companies with the resources of eBay create lousy forms.

 

It sounds like the biggest failing with the eBay form you ran into was that they forgot to put a simple note next to the field saying to enter "N/A" if the code was unknown. Some half way decent user testing should have found that (I'm guessing whoever developed their form was under pressure to get it into production and testing suffered).

 

So while it may not be easy, with some thought put into what is actually required, and how to present it, it isn't exactly difficult either. For uploads here, minimum required fields shouldn't be that hard to do. The sim and add-on category would be standardized lists, a flag to denote a complete aircraft for aircraft related uploads and a description of the file, and maybe one or two more. Additional fields could be provided and the uploader encouraged to use them, but the minimum should at least get the file into the right place and provide for basic searches. 

[PhrogPhlyer]

3 hours ago, Nels_Anderson said:

As for personal info, I disagree that it should be optional, but it also should not be public. It would only be for the use of the site operator in case the uploader needed to be contacted. This actually shouldn't be an issue if the uploader is logged in, as contact information is part of their account so would not need to be entered again.

Understood, and different then being in the readme.

[error77aa]

I'm still not sure how to download planes in the uploaded files section... unless they're not planes, but rather liveries.  How do I know by looking at a file, whether it's its own full aircraft or not?  I liked the old file system better, where they would indicate with a letter below such as [A], [B], etc. to denote if it was an aircraft, a base file, and so on.  Now with those indicators gone, it's very hard to tell.

[error77aa]

I disagree that it should be optional, but it also should not be public. It would only be for the use of the site operator in case the uploader needed to be contacted. This actually shouldn't be an issue if the uploader is logged in, as contact information is part of their account so would not need to be entered again.

 

[jgf]

On 7/10/2023 at 11:24 AM, PhrogPhlyer said:

I think personal info should be optional.

If someone wants to contact me concerning an upload, I exist here at FlightSim.

 

But with no contact information how would someone know that?  As previously noted not everyone who downloads is active in the forums.

Such info need not be in the download description but should be in the documentation.

 

 

 

 

[tiger1962]

The content creator/author/developer email address has always been a requirement for inclusion in the "Read Me" text file, for what I would have thought were obvious reasons - there's no point emailing the Flightsim.com admin if you have a problem with a livery created by me, for example.

[Mac6737]

On 7/10/2023 at 1:55 PM, Nels_Anderson said:

Forcing people to give info is generally a good idea, but harder to implement than you might think.

 

My comparison is eBay. In another life, I'm an eBay Power Seller, with thousands of sales on that site. So I'm pretty experienced with their forms. But yesterday the form for entering an item for auction stumped me. It would not let me proceed until I entered a UPC for the item...even though it was an antique from before the time that UPC codes existed. I tried things like "none", a number on the product that wasn't a UPC, etc. but nothing worked. Asking around, I found the magic word was "N/A"; entered that and was allowed to continue. Even companies with the resources of eBay create lousy forms.

 

As for personal info, I disagree that it should be optional, but it also should not be public. It would only be for the use of the site operator in case the uploader needed to be contacted. This actually shouldn't be an issue if the uploader is logged in, as contact information is part of their account so would not need to be entered again.

Just came across this thread and post serendipitously.  This post illustrates a perfect example of what I have been calling "computer morons."  These are the juvenile Cheeto-munching jackasses who are somehow hired to program stuff; they NEVER consider what their handiwork looks like from the other side of the interface.  Nels is asked for a UPC code that could not possibly exist, and so he does a logical thing: enters "none."  So he asked around, etc., and finally came across a response that worked.  A total and unnecessary waste of his time. 

 

I find this problem again and again and again, certainly not limited to FS stuff.

[PhrogPhlyer]

8 minutes ago, Mac6737 said:

they NEVER consider what their handiwork looks like from the other side of the interface.

I so agree. They live in an "I knew what I intended why don't you?" world.

[jgf]

10 minutes ago, Mac6737 said:

they NEVER consider what their handiwork looks like from the other side of the interface

 

Perfect description of anyone who's ever written a line of code for Micro$oft.

[mrzippy]

1 hour ago, PhrogPhlyer said:

I so agree. They live in an "I knew what I intended why don't you?" world.

Sorta like a Baby Ruth bar floating in the swimming pool or a punch bowl?? 

[PhrogPhlyer]

9 hours ago, mrzippy said:

Sorta like a Baby Ruth bar floating in the swimming pool

And everyone sit back to see who is the first kid to say "Oh look, someone dropped some candy!"