The Workshop Collector is a tool used to generate addon presets from workshop collections. By simply providing a workshop collection URL or ID, The Workshop Collector will generate an addonpresets.txt file containing a new preset with only the workshop items in the provided collection. Your other presets will remain unaffected, allowing you to mix-and-match presets of collections.

With this, you can easily toggle different collections' content without having to manually add them to an addon preset.

You may not have noticed it, but at the bottom of the addons menu is a small wrench.


Clicking the wrench expands this small little bar at the bottom.


Those preset buttons are what I'm talking about. You can save what addons you have loaded and disabled with these, so that you can toggle groups of them without subscribing and unsubscribing. This system has a flaw, however-- it cannot interact with workshop collections. That is what The Workshop Collector remedies; it takes a collection and makes a preset of it for you.

There are two "versions" of The Workshop Collector.

• The default "old" version you install from Steam Workshop
  
• The additional functionality "new" version you need to manually install

The old version cannot directly edit your preset file, so you will have to manually copy and paste the file generated by it. The new version needs some manual installation (5 minutes tops) but can edit the presets file directly, and is the recommended version.

If you just stumbled upon the addon, subscribed, and have not done anything else, this is the version of the addon you are using. It can accomplish all the same things as the newer version, but there is some elbow grease involved whenever you want to install a preset you've created: you have to copy and paste the preset file manually.

If you're in doubt whether or not you're using the Workshop Version, the menu will say "Old Workshop Collector" if that is the case.

If you want to install the full version of the addon, it's not much harder to do, but definitely worth it. Look to the next section, "New Version How-to"

In sandbox, go to Q Menu -> Utilities -> User ->Open Workshop Collector Menu
Or run workshop_collector_menu in console

Simply provide the URL of a workshop collection or its ID (the numbers in the URL) and click Select Collection


If you've provided a valid Garry's Mod collection, its name and the items in the collection will appear.


Clicking Create Preset will create a new addonpresets.txt in

This addonpresets.txt contains all of your previous addon presets in addition to a new one created with the name of the selected collection.

After the addonpresets.txt file is generated, you will need to move it into a place where the Garry's Mod addon menu can read it. In the future, this might be able to be done automatically, but for now you'll have to click-and-drag.

1. Close Garry's Mod
   
2. Navigate to GarrysMod\garrysmod\settings
   
3. Rename addonpresets.txt into addonpresets_bak.txt
   
4. Copy the addonpresets.txt in the data folder to GarrysMod\garrysmod\settings and overwrite
   
5. Start Garry's Mod
   
6. Your preset should now be listed and selectable

If you do not copy over the file before creating another preset, it will be overriden. You have to copy and paste for each preset if you want it to work.

This version of the Workshop Collector allows you to create presets without having to copy around files manually-- the only catch is that you have to manually install some items in addition to subscribing to the workshop.

1. Subscribe to The Workshop Collector on workshop.
   
2. Download the latest version of the source code.zip from GitHub[github.com]
   
3. Navigate to Steam\steamapps\common\GarrysMod\garrysmod\lua\menu
   
4. Paste workshop_collector_menu.lua from inside the .zip's lua\menu folder into the Garry's Mod lua\menu folder.
   
5. If you have not installed any other menu addons, such as Simple Addon Manager II, then you are free to copy over the .zip's menu.lua as well; click yes to overwrite.
   
6. If you do have another menu addon and have previously modified menu.lua, simply add this line to your own copy
   
   include( "workshop_collector_menu.lua" ) -- Workshop Collector

After this, you should be done. You will now be able to access The Workshop Collector at your main menu with the command workshop_collector_menu, but you can still access it from the Q-menu.

Note: If this version updates, you need to install its lua\menu\workshop_collector_menu.lua from the latest GitHub release[github.com] again.

How to use

Using this new version is pretty much identical to the old old version. For completeness, I will reiterate here.

In sandbox, go to Q Menu -> Utilities -> Player ->Open Workshop Collector Menu
Or run workshop_collector_menu in console

Simply provide the URL of a workshop collection or its ID (the numbers in the URL) and click Select Collection


If you've provided a valid Garry's Mod collection, its name and the items in the collection will appear.


Clicking Create Preset will create the preset.
You will need to restart your game before the preset is selectable, but you can create presets for multiple collections in a row before restarting; all of them will appear when you next start.