What are the ways to see DAZ Connect content?
Sphinx Magoo
Posts: 575
I'd like to be able to see my DAZ Connect content in a new folder with my other DAZ Studio stuff, but I can only see it when I do an alphabetical listing of my installed content. Am I missing something? Is there a way to show, say, the Dragon Queen set with my other Genesis 3 Female clothes I have installed?
Going through an alphabetical listing kind of defeats the purpose of having clothing for different Genesis figures. Ditto with those scenery props and lighting settings. Sometimes I don't remember I have an item until I see it when it's grouped with my other items.
Post edited by Sphinx Magoo on
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I have the same problem. It seems that the encrypted content is only directly visible in the smart content panel.
If you right-click the thumbnail in the smart content panel and choose "Show in Content Library" you will be prompted to the right place in the content library.
Maybe you miss something. The Dragon Queen clothing can be found within Wardrobe/Armor
Find the items - in Smart Content ideally, under the Products tab, and open the DAZ Studio Formats folder you want it in. Drag-and-drop the files to the folder and special Daz Studio shortcuts will be created, which can be used there or moved around as desired.
Sorry, I'm not getting this. Drag and drop from within Studio? How do I have the Content tab open at the same time as the Smart Content? I also don't see how to drap files from there.
Maybe I'm particularly dense, but I can't figure out how to make this work. Could you please explain with a bit more detail...perhaps with some pictures...or even feel free to grab my mouse and show me how to create these .djl files that allow links to Connect downloaded content in the normal file structure I'm used to within the content tab? I separate my products into different runtimes (M4, V4, Environment, Animals, and Default which houses Genesis 1, 2, and 3 content, lights, and shaders) and then use the Content Tab to navigate and find what I need. Only when something is hopelessly lost do I go to the Product view in the Content Tab to find something, and I never use Smart Content. I just couldn't get used to it due to things being categorized in ways that made no sense at all...like the People category having no actual people in it, just 4 monsters that should show up in the Creature category. Stuff like that drives me insane. I do like the idea of incremental updates and better metadata should I ever get brave and venture into the Smart Content in the future. I don't mind that all of the content gets downloaded into one new My Daz Connect folder either, but I need to understand how to use the Content Tab folder structure that I'm used to because once you re-download as a Connect product, it doesn't show up anywhere but Smart Content and the Content Products folder. And for anyone who wants to take this opportunity to start fussing about DRM, just stop right there because I don't give a rodent's rear what you have to say about it. I've searched this forum all morning for information on .djl links and all I find is people whining about DRM. I want to know about how to use the new features to make them work for me, not fuss about them. Here's what I've tried:
In the Smart Content tab, if I'm in products, when I try to click and drag something into the Content Tab, it just acts like a box select and starts highlighting multiple products in that same Smart Content view. It doesn't drag anything anywhere.
Custom Categories are too troublesome to create and too unstable. I did that once and lost it all when the application glitched back in 4.6. That's when I went to the separate runtimes.
There is no right click option that I can find to allow this.
I've tried going to the products folders in the Content Tab, finding the product, and then draging it out to the folder structure in my other runtimes, but nothing happens.
Once, I grabbed just one file in a product and dragged it into the runtime/folder structure I have, but I think it copied the file to a new location rather than creating a link. It would also be a pain to have to drag them file by file to a new place.
I've even tried going to the Content Directory Manager and create a new content set thinking that I could just have multiple Daz Connect runtimes, so to speak, and separate my files that way. No luck with that idea at all. It actually wiped out my current content setup.
So any help in understanding how I can use the new features of 4.9 without having to abandon a file system I've had for years would be greatly appreciated because while I'm happy about most of the new features, and can stomach the DRM part, I can't bring myself to switch over and use Smart Content. Thanks in advance for any help provided.
Drag to the folder listing, not into the space showing the files.
I see. So you have to explore the product, and then drag the files themselves into the Content folders to create the links. I'm assuming that means you have to have created the folders you want them in beforehand too. I was hoping we could grab the product and DAZ would create the subfolders for materials and such in the Content tab. Oh well...maybe in a future update. Thanks for the information, Richard.
@domino6713
You need to have the Smart Content and Content Library on different tab groups as shown in the attached pic. Folders need to be created in the Content Library tab for the product shortcuts and you drag the shortcuts into the folder, not the folder's window. If you prefer to have the Content Library tab on the same tab group as the Smart Content tab, you can drag it back over when you're finished.
That made sense. Thanks, everyone!
Thank you very much for the tip.
i can only drag from the files tab
not products
edit
not right
you just cannot drag folders
i dragged some into custom categories
nice
will they be updated with metadata updates ?
I think it should be possible to write a script that will get a list of selected products from the Smart Content pane, get the list of files (this is the bit I am most doubtful about) and generate a set of shortcuts in the original folder tree within a user-specified target folder. It's fairly high on my list of things to try, if I do get around to it and succeed I will make it available.
would be nice richard
Thanks for confirming that, Lindsey, and thanks again, Richard. A script would be awesome if you could get it to work. You could probably sell it right now and make a killing. LOL
Just thinking out loud here, meaning I have no proof yet, but the original files should receive all updates. Since we are just creating links back to the files in the DAZ Connect folders, the files in the Connect folder would get the updates. The links we make in the Content tab wouldn't be affected by updates at all. Metadata becomes less important when using the file structure of the Content tab to organize your items. You organize it the way you want so you can find it. If you go back to Smart Content, then metadata associations become important again. That pane is looking at the original Connect files that got the updates so it would still be operational too. Again, that is just my working theory at the moment.
The questions on my mind now are:
How to protect the links we've made from getting wiped out or corrupted. Since they are in actual folders we had to create in order to move the links there, I'm assuming they get backed up like any file on my hard drive.
What happens when a product gets updated though? Can a significant enough update render the link unuseable because it no longer recognizes the original file?
If we have to restore or reinstall a product that we've made links for, would the links still work or have to be recreated?
Can the links be copied to another PC that we download the same Connect product onto and still work, or do they have to be created on each machine we download the product to?
As answers to questions like these come out through testing, it will dictate just how much I invest in the new file structure or not. For now, continuing to use DIM, when I can, works. Doesn't have any of the new benefits, but it allows me to use the file structure I've come to understand. I can handle the few Connect only products that are out there. That will become a very different story should (when) DAZ moves more to the Connect format in the future.
How do we install the offline package that is on the product page in our product library? I've downloaded them, but Windows doesn't recognize them, and I'm not sure where they should be placed for 4.9 to see them.
DS 4.9 must have connected to your account at least once.
In the Connect content directory (actually, it seems to work in any content directory) go to the \Data\Cloud folder.
Create a new folder called "install", if there isn't one there already.
Place the .sep and .sea files for the products you want to install in the new folder.
In Daz Studio, open the Smart Content pane option menu (the lined button in its corner or right-click its tab) and select Install Offline Content. All products from the install folder will be installed and the .sep and .sea files will be deleted (so keep copies elsewhere if you are going to archive them).
I've tried that, but 4.9 refuses to accept my email and password, so I can't do the one-time login. I've sent a support ticket about it.
The Drag from Smart Content to Content Library to create shortcuts works just fine, however, i am looking to find a way to do the opposite to correct all the missing items in the DAZ supplied meta data.
Is there a way to see the files in the Content Library directly from the folders they are installed in? Then we would have a chance to add the missing items to the incomplete meta data that we get automatically or do we need to start entering bugs for all of the products that come out with incomplete or messed up meta data?
Example: I just picked up a prop bundle that I have had on my wish list for a while. I used DAZ Connect to install my new purchase and I get ALL of the content of one of the included packs in the 'Lost and Found" OK, so this product has not yet been updated with proper meta data, not a bug deal, I always put things in my own category structure anyway. I proceed to perform that operation only to find that the Product is missing 8 items. The items are in the DAZ Connect folders, but they don't show up in the Smart Content and I have no other method of accessing them through the interface. WHAT DO I DO NOW?
The other challenge here is the loss of the ability to use the folders the product files are in to help with the categorization of the those items. It is much faster and more efficent to be able to leverage the organization of the files to help with the task of categorization, but that ability has been lost in this new installation method.
Are you able to log in to DIM? It used a very similar mech anise to log in, so if that works the other should. If it doesn't have you tried changing your password? There could be issues with character encoding if somehow using some weird utf8 character or something.
To address missing items in the Smart Content pane, my observations: The Smart Conent is category driven. If an item is lacking a category, it will not appear in the Smart Content tab. Unfortunately your missing items didn't get assigned the Lost and Found category. You can find and add categories to those missing items a couple of ways.
1. Locate and select the product in the "Products" listing.
2. All of the installed content should be displayed and more than likely, the items missing a category also lack a file type tag in the upper right corner of the icon.
3. You can select the item(s) right click and assign a category.
If you're familiar with the Content DB Editor, you load the product into it and identify items with missing a category, assign file types, compatibilities and add other missing Metadata.
1. With the product select in the Products listing, launch the Content DB Editor. I launch from the Active Pane Options, the little white paper icon with the arrow on the upper right corner of the tab menu bar.
2. The screen has two tabs, Product and Assets. It defaults to the Product tab. Click on Assets tab to display the product in the Assets tab.
3. Selecting all of the items in the upper window causes them to display in the lower window. The lower window should default to the Categories tab, if not, select it.
4. The items that are missing the triangle on the left of the item name are missing a Category. As an alternative, you can select the first item in the upper pane and cursor down the list until you see the on(s) the are missing the triangle indicating no Category assignment in the lower Categories tab. Select it in the Categories tab, right click and select "Add Root Categories to Selected Files(s): to assign it/them a category.
Thanks Lindsey, I am familiar with the Content DB Editor, but thanks for the detailed information!
The problem I am facing is that the installed items do not show up in the Content Library > Product listing at all.
In the specific case I am dealing with there are 81 user facing items in a set and only 73 of them are listed in the Product listing, therefore I cannot assign a Category to them. I am trying to find out how I can add the items that missing from the Product listing so I can then categorize them...
I think I am going to have to report this as a bug. I understand that DAZ is trying to take control of the Vendor Data and therefore we should not be messing with it, but that doesn't mean that we should be missing content that we have paid for because they have published bad or incomplete meta data or missed adding user facing items the Products. Sad now.
I can log into DIM with no problem. The connect feature in 4.9 seems to be the only thing that isn't working for me. My password is standard letters and numerals; no symbols.
Update, I figured out the problem. It was two fold:
1) The Content Type value in the database was empty.
2). The were 4 duplicate hash values and 2 triplicate hash values in the same product. (Not sure what the purpose of the hash values are, but the system seems happy as long as there are no duplicates)
I entered the missing Content Type values and fixed the duplicate and triplcate hash values, running queries to ensure that I was not creating new duplicates... and everything in the product now displays correctly.
I got Connect to log in finally. I'm not sure what I did, but it works. It's possible that I had mistyped something; the text that we type is really small, and hard to see at my screen resolution. Even before I got things working right, I really liked the improvements to Smart Content in 4.9.
How do I delete these links without deleting the original files?
They are just files with links, deleting them won't delete the originals any more than deleting an OS shortcut/alias will.
I believe that is true if I delete the link files from Windows Explorer, but I'm looking for a way to delete them while running Daz Studio, so I can see the icon for the link in order to know what file it is. See the attached screenshot. It looks to me like deleting the link from the folder I created for links, will delete the file that the link points to. So that would delete the file from the product itself.
I see what you mean. There's always Browse to File Location in the right-click menu to open an OS window and delete from there, just to be safe.