Comprehensive guide for Content Manager: is there one?

[Mascot]

Content Manager is incredible, but I sometimes feel like I'm only scratching the surface of what it can do. Is there a good guide available anywhere, maybe even a YouTube tutorial? Or just something that shows all of the features and how it can help us?

Info on the official website is a little basic and searches don't reveal much. Apart from trial-and-error, how do people learn how to use it?

 

[Jack Vos]

I stick to the basic stuff in CM!
See what happened to Joe when trying to use CM to the fullest with trial and error!
poor Joe

 

[Jack Vos]

A Guide would be Great indeed, all that advanced stuff starts to get itching me!

I wonder how this works "Hard links"

Can I have a main complete AC install and for every mod / or just mod cars a separate AC install (with no original cars and tracks) and sharing / linking to the main install track folder?

With rFactor1 I had the main install and for every mod a (light) install of rFactor
in the config.ini of the mod I pointed the locations folder to the main rFactor/Locations folder

With GTR2/GTL you had to use "Junction links" to achieve that

Doesn't save disk space but its more organised if you are a mod collector like me

 

[ThierryDee]

i have content manager only for custom grid/livery for AI

 

[Mascot]

Content Manager seems to have big issues for me since the last small update from a couple of days ago. Windows are appearing off-screen or weirdly sized and positioned, and resizing/repositioning does not seem to be saved for the next session. Some pop-ups now don't appear on-screen at all (eg to fix a missing 'circuit' tag when launching a race) and therefore don't let me go any further, requiring a task manager shutdown/reboot. It's incredibly frustrating.

I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with CM. It's superb in so many ways but on the flip side it's incredibly obtuse and incomprehensible, and not very intuitive to use. It needs much, much better explanations and instructions. Does anyone actually know what most of the stuff in the recent big changelog even means?

I've also never been able to get the menus for the paint shop to appear. I open a car in the CM showroom and there's supposed to be a menu somewhere, but it seems to be off-screen if it's anywhere at all. Completely baffling, and that's with and without the Rift being connected.

When it works it's great so long as I only scratch the surface and don't try to work out how to be a power user. It seems like most people can't make head nor tail of it otherwise I'm sure that somebody somewhere would have produced a comprehensive guide to it.

Anyone else here having similar technical issues with window size and placement over the last day or so?

 

[Cote Dazur]

Content Manager seems to have big issues for me since the last small update from a couple of days ago. Windows are appearing off-screen or weirdly sized and positioned, and resizing/repositioning does not seem to be saved for the next session. Some pop-ups now don't appear on-screen at all (eg to fix a missing 'circuit' tag when launching a race) and therefore don't let me go any further, requiring a task manager shutdown/reboot. It's incredibly frustrating.

I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with CM. It's superb in so many ways but on the flip side it's incredibly obtuse and incomprehensible, and not very intuitive to use. It needs much, much better explanations and instructions. Does anyone actually know what most of the stuff in the recent big changelog even means?

I've also never been able to get the menus for the paint shop to appear. I open a car in the CM showroom and there's supposed to be a menu somewhere, but it seems to be off-screen if it's anywhere at all. Completely baffling, and that's with and without the Rift being connected.

When it works it's great so long as I only scratch the surface and don't try to work out how to be a power user. It seems like most people can't make head nor tail of it otherwise I'm sure that somebody somewhere would have produced a comprehensive guide to it.

Anyone else here having similar technical issues with window size and placement over the last day or so?

No issue for me since the update, but the way those menu appear has changed, for the better in my case. I am with you on the feeling that I am just scratching the surface, I am always amazed when other are using feature I did not even knew existed.
That Content MAnager is so feature rich and so powerfull that I have resigned myself to use what I understand, even though it might be only 30% of what that amazing app can do.
It sure makes AC light years ahead of any other SIM out there in terms of functionality and ease of creating what ever you have in mind and then some.

 

[Mascot]

No issue for me since the update, but the way those menu appear has changed, for the better in my case.

I'm curious how they are better for you. For example, starting a few days ago when I do something as simple as changing my car the 'car select' window now appears in the bottom right of my display, mostly off-screen with only the top left-hand corner visible. I have to drag it up and to the left to be able to see its contents, and then shrink it down so that I can see the bottom of it (as it's too tall for my display. This happens every_single_time. There are lots of other examples like this. Everything was fine until a few days ago but the latest small update (not the huge one from last week) has caused chaos for me. I didn't alter any settings, this all just happened. And CM is no longer remembering my window placement and sizing, even during the same session, so I have to do this every time I change my car. I've tried with the Rift plugged in and also with it disconnected, so it's not some weird 'second display' thing that the Rift can cause.

It's utterly maddening, and is killing my enthusiasm for playing Assetto at the moment because going back to the original launcher is awful after using Content Manager for so long.

 

[Michael Hornbuckle]

Here is how CM looks for me.

Does yours not look like this?

 

[Mascot]

Here is how CM looks for me.

Does yours not look like this?

At a basic level yes, but clicking the 'garage' icon (40 seconds) opens a window in the bottom right of the screen, almost entirely off-screen. Dragging and resizing the window needs doing every time I click the garage icon, ie size/position is not saved.
All worked fine before the last minor update.

The paint shop menus have NEVER appeared. Custom showroom always opens full screen with no other menus, and cannot be resized.

I'm in discussion with the CM dev about this and other issues so will report back with (hopefully) a solution.