re-organising my content library

Sertorial

I am sure I am not alone in being exasperated by the whims of content creators who use very inconsistent conventions for folders meaning it can be very hard to find stuff (or suddenly discovering a deeply nested folder with something great in it that you probably had for more than a year without knowing!)

So I have decided to re order things so they can be more easily found. However, I could use a bit of guidance as sometimes moving folders means the content doesn't work any more (presumably because of a path problem or some other form of reference)

I started out with a test.. I'd like to group all my expressions that work with V4 into one place (currently, they are all over the place). So I moved a folder from under "Poser content > Face" to DAZ content>People>Victoria 4" making a new folder called Expressions.

But they don't now show up in the content library. Odd because the PNG thumbnails are still there.

Does anyone know the rules for what you can move and what you can't move?

It would be really helpful!

mark128

I would strongly advise against trying to move content folders around.

DAZ sends out a lot of updates to products, fixing various issues. Mostly this only happens for newer products, but sometimes they update old products too. If you are not using DIM, you probably don't know about these updates. If you start moving folders around DIM is not going to be able to update your content.

What I do is create my own categories and re-organize everything a way that seems logical to me. This is not completely bullet proof. Every time DAZ sends out an update that moves something, which they seem to do almost every week, I lose my categories for that item and have to re-create them using the new location. I'm very careful about applying those updates to catch that.

sriesch

While I don't have the answer to your question, to add to what mark128 stated, if you were willing to use the Content Library to manage your organization, you can move everything in there around anywhere and anytime you want without affecting the actual installed file locations. That might make things easier. Of course you may be happier or with (or already heavily invested in) your current organizational method, in which hopefully somebody elese will be able to help you out with.

SpottedKitty

Sertorial said:

I started out with a test.. I'd like to group all my expressions that work with V4 into one place (currently, they are all over the place). So I moved a folder from under "Poser content > Face" to DAZ content>People>Victoria 4" making a new folder called Expressions.

Won't work. Never will work. Sorry, but you can't pull Poser library files directly into a D|S content location, they don't appear in the Content Library tab. What you can do, though, is rearrange files and folders inside the Poser Libraries folder as long as you don't try putting anything into the reserved folders; Geometries and Textures, which are outside the Libraries hierarchy anyway, and Readme's, which is ignored by D|S and doesn't appear in any content tab.

And, as mentioned upthread, if you do this you break DIM's ability to detect and install updates, and Smart Content won't be able to find the moved files. (I can get away with doing this because I don't use DIM or Smart Content, and install everything manually.)

Have you tried setting up Categories? I don't use that either, but it does give you the ability to mix Poser and D|S content and group it together into an arrangement that makes sense to you.

Sertorial

So it sounds like moving folders is a no no. Thanks

Sean Riesch said:

if you were willing to use the Content Library to manage your organization, you can move everything in there around anywhere and anytime you want without affecting the actual installed file locations.

Can you explain what you mean by this? How can I move stuff around, but not move folders?

Have you tried setting up Categories? I don't use that either, but it does give you the ability to mix Poser and D|S content and group it together into an arrangement that makes sense to you.

Thanks, I haven't used categories, but I do use "tags" - only problem is that you can't group tag a set of selected items. You have to tag them all one by one which is immensely tedious.

sriesch

Sertorial said:

Sean Riesch said:

if you were willing to use the Content Library to manage your organization, you can move everything in there around anywhere and anytime you want without affecting the actual installed file locations.

Can you explain what you mean by this? How can I move stuff around, but not move folders?

When you set up your own custom categories in DAZ Studio, there are basically two parts to the process. Part one is to install your content anywhere, then tell DAZ Studio what folder it is in so it knows where to look for it. Part two is to then visually arrange all your content how you want it DISPLAYED to you, which is a second virtual folder structure that is completely independent of where it actually is, and represents how you want it displayed to you, not how it is actually stored on disk.

For example, perhaps I install all my products into the folder C:\AllMyProducts. I add this folder to the list of folders DS looks through for content. DS finds everything and puts it all in Categories > Default > Unassigned. That's useless by itself, so I make up my own categores (see screenshot for an example of a tiny section). I then go into the Unassigned folder, select one or more items of content, and move them into those categories. So, for example, maybe I'll find all the content that's expressions for Genesis 1, and I'll create a folder structure People > Genesis1 > Poses > expressions and put them there because it makes sense to me. The files remain in C:\AllMyProducts, and when I double-click on the content library thumbnail for Expression1, loads the file it knows is actually somewhere in C:\AllMyProducts. Then later I say wait, I have too many expressions and it's hard to find them, so maybe I'll create a subcategory called "smiles", and I'll find the 20 smiling expressions and move them from People > Genesis1 > Poses > expressions to my new folder People > Genesis1 > Poses > expressions > smiles, plus see I accidentally had a V4 expression in there and I'll move that to a different folder for V4, etc. That's what I see, but DS knows where the file REALLY is on disk, and keeps calling that file. No files are moved, all that is changed is the virtual view that you see.

sriesch

And here are two more screenshots of the same virtual Content Library category, showing the actual paths of two of the content items (circled in red). You can see their runtimes are actually in two separate file paths, even though I chose to have them all displayed together in the same folder visually.

Sertorial

Oh right. I see what you mean now. That is a really helpful way of looking at it! I didn't know you create your own custom categories. Cool!

Only problem is, my library is so large, it could take me the rest of my life to do this!

Question: can I remove a category and have all the categories below it move up one level? Example: there is a top level category called Cameras. But in my unassigned there is a category called camera with a load of other categories under it. I want to move them all to be under Cameras, so i have moved camera under Cameras, now I want to delete camera so the ones under it move up a level. See screenshot. Can I do this?

sriesch

When you right-click on a category to select "Move Category...", it doesn't appear to allow you to select more than one category at a time unfortunately, so you would have to move each one individually I think.

However, your screenshot suggests an alternate way to do it. Instead of moving everything in Cameras > Camera up one level one at a time, move Cameras somewhere else, move Cameras > Camera to where Cameras used to be (and rename it from Camera to Cameras if you want it to be identical), then move "Barefoot Dancer" and "Secret Garden Shaded Haven" into the new Cameras folder alongside all your other ones. Then delete the now empty Cameras folder.
Yeah... that is horribly confusing to read. Basically I mean instead of moving many things from the Camera folder to the Cameras folder, you should move the two things from the Cameras folder into the Camera folder.

Sertorial

Sean Riesch said:

When you right-click on a category to select "Move Category...", it doesn't appear to allow you to select more than one category at a time unfortunately, so you would have to move each one individually I think.

However, your screenshot suggests an alternate way to do it. Instead of moving everything in Cameras > Camera up one level one at a time, move Cameras somewhere else, move Cameras > Camera to where Cameras used to be (and rename it from Camera to Cameras if you want it to be identical), then move "Barefoot Dancer" and "Secret Garden Shaded Haven" into the new Cameras folder alongside all your other ones. Then delete the now empty Cameras folder.
Yeah... that is horribly confusing to read. Basically I mean instead of moving many things from the Camera folder to the Cameras folder, you should move the two things from the Cameras folder into the Camera folder.

I can't move Cameras... the move category option is not available for this...

sriesch

Oh, your screenshot must be showing the Default categories, not your own then. Sorry, I don't know if or how one can modify those, I've always ignored them and created my own.

I wonder if one could right-click on Default and select "Duplicate Category" > "This Category & Sub-Categories" to create a copy someplace else that you can then use as a starting point for your own custom categories that you can then modify? Theoretically that should work, although I haven't tried duplicating the entire database from the custom categories all in a single shot. But of course if you did that, from that point on you'd then have to manually categorize every single new piece of content you install and stop using the default categorization method, which you may not want if you like having some things automatically categorized for you.

Novica

We had lots of discussion on creating categories in my Art Studio thread, and we provided a long list of categories so folks could get ideas and brainstorm off of them. (Also did screenshots of this entire process.) One thing I did that I like a lot is doing a category called Locations. I didn't want a bunch of props, because with Locations I remember what goes there. Aka, a cactus is obviously Desert. Waterfalls are Tropical. Get the gist? Then I have Props under some themes like Construction- hammers, saws, etc.

Sertorial

Novica said:

We had lots of discussion on creating categories in my Art Studio thread, and we provided a long list of categories so folks could get ideas and brainstorm off of them. (Also did screenshots of this entire process.) One thing I did that I like a lot is doing a category called Locations. I didn't want a bunch of props, because with Locations I remember what goes there. Aka, a cactus is obviously Desert. Waterfalls are Tropical. Get the gist? Then I have Props under some themes like Construction- hammers, saws, etc.

Thanks. Which thread is this categorising discussion in?

One thing I struggle with is how to categorise materials that are supposed to go with a particular prop/figure. Categorising the prop is easy (let's say it's a shirt), but if I categorise the materials for that shirt just under one called "Materials" how do I know it goes with that shirt? (that's one advantage of the "folders named after creators" system (though the big disadvantage is that you can't find stuff unless you know who created it!)

Novica

I'll have to start skimming through- you do realize I'm on thread 4 with 1500 posts per thread...people jokingly call them my monster threads. :) I'll see if I put a link in my Reference links. SereneNight was kind enough to start the discussion and share how to do it, I'll see if I can find my posts where I listed the categories. Back in awhile.
Cathie

ZarconDeeGrissom

Sertorial said:

Novica said:

We had lots of discussion on creating categories in my Art Studio thread, and we provided a long list of categories so folks could get ideas and brainstorm off of them. (Also did screenshots of this entire process.) One thing I did that I like a lot is doing a category called Locations. I didn't want a bunch of props, because with Locations I remember what goes there. Aka, a cactus is obviously Desert. Waterfalls are Tropical. Get the gist? Then I have Props under some themes like Construction- hammers, saws, etc.

Thanks. Which thread is this categorizing discussion in?

One thing I struggle with is how to categorize materials that are supposed to go with a particular prop/figure. Categorizing the prop is easy (let's say it's a shirt), but if I categorize the materials for that shirt just under one called "Materials" how do I know it goes with that shirt? (that's one advantage of the "folders named after creators" system (though the big disadvantage is that you can't find stuff unless you know who created it!) And as a side note, no clue yet. it seams like a folder ordered as themes (jungle, etc) with "Shortcuts" to the other tree by creator, may be the best of both worlds. Or a folder for each item in the theme folder, with the parts in that.

I've learned (thanks to many others patients), that the content library is more of a monster then Novica's threads there, lol.

Novica

Some of the posts about creating content, and examples. SereneNight really helped us out.
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/28138/P105/#430426
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/28138/P105/#430548

And this, categorizing in two places.
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/28138/P120/#431146

If I get time tomorrow I'll see if I can find my list.

Novica

http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/38051/P150/#575431

and then read through to the next page, where I added some. Have fun! :) (and remember to export user data so you save your categories, in case something goes ka-put.

sriesch

Sertorial said:

One thing I struggle with is how to categorise materials that are supposed to go with a particular prop/figure. Categorising the prop is easy (let's say it's a shirt), but if I categorise the materials for that shirt just under one called "Materials" how do I know it goes with that shirt? (that's one advantage of the "folders named after creators" system (though the big disadvantage is that you can't find stuff unless you know who created it!)

You may wish to research Smart Content. I think it was designed to address this exact issue. However, unless you purchase only content that has smart content, you will have to decide how to handle content that is not smart content. I believe you can "smartify" your non-smart content, but I haven't tried so I don't know how much work this would be.

Sertorial

Novica said:

http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/38051/P150/#575431

and then read through to the next page, where I added some. Have fun! :) (and remember to export user data so you save your categories, in case something goes ka-put.

Great! Thanks

MysticVenator

Sean Riesch said:

When you right-click on a category to select "Move Category...", it doesn't appear to allow you to select more than one category at a time unfortunately, so you would have to move each one individually I think.

However, your screenshot suggests an alternate way to do it. Instead of moving everything in Cameras > Camera up one level one at a time, move Cameras somewhere else, move Cameras > Camera to where Cameras used to be (and rename it from Camera to Cameras if you want it to be identical), then move "Barefoot Dancer" and "Secret Garden Shaded Haven" into the new Cameras folder alongside all your other ones. Then delete the now empty Cameras folder.
Yeah... that is horribly confusing to read. Basically I mean instead of moving many things from the Camera folder to the Cameras folder, you should move the two things from the Cameras folder into the Camera folder.

If you are using PostgreSQL flavor of DAZ you should try the Database Tamer v2. Makes this all a snap to do.