DAZ! PLEASE bring back the DAZ Installers!
Knight22179
Posts: 1,195
I find the DAZ installers much easier for me to use. I went to download some stuff I hadn't downloaded yet from my account and all I see is Zip files. DAZ, PLEASE bring back the DAZ installers! With the DAZ installers, I can easily access my stuff. For example. If I want to load up hair, I load it up and then I see Materials right there right next to the file where I loaded my hair and I can click on it to see what colors to color my hair. Not so with these dumb ZIP files. Now I have to go to two completely different areas in my Runtime which is tedious and unneccesary. PLEASE bring back the DAZ installers! I never had this problem ever since Genesis came along. Now everything installs where I don't want it to be.
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Comments
LOL, and to think there was such an outcry FOR the zips.
You don't have to go to two different areas in your runtime. The installer didn't allow multiple install locations.
Open the zip > open the Content folder > copy the contents and paste into your library. No mess. The folder structure is already there.
It would have been nice if they could have given us ZIP files, and kept the installers too. But I guess that would have made too much sense.
Also, it would be nice if the ZIP files were set up so that I could actually UNZIP them to my Runtime, instead of drag-and-drop. I guess they're optimized for DAZ Studio users?
In addition to that, you can have multiple install directories for things in DIM.
I reorganized everything, and below is a sample where I put my stuff, as per directories of content.
Upside: DIM remembers where stuff has been installed, and it updates stuff to the same directories! YAY!
It is drag-and-drop for DAZ users too.
You can if your library is named Content. lol =P
When I dump the "Content" of my file (it starts with that first folder name) I have to "guess" that I have to dump them in "Studio3". I never got rid of my old Content Library set up (tis why it says Studio3). That's where I put my Genesis stuff. I know right where it is with DAZ installers, but with this, it's a guessing game (ESPECIALLY without helpful ReadMe's to help me out). Take Pure Hair Fantasy for example.
It's installed in TWO locations. One location is in my Figures Library where I find M4/V4 and all that stuff. Is the materials in there? No. Is the materials in the Materials section? No. Is it in the Pose directory? No. I don't know where that is but I have to go hunting for it and I shouldn't have to do that. So, it did allow for multiple install locations.
I want my much simpler DAZ installer please.
Thanks for the example, but my Runtime directory is way different than yours.
You can tell DIM how to install into YOUR Runtime, srsly.
When I dump the "Content" of my file (it starts with that first folder name) I have to "guess" that I have to dump them in "Studio3". I never got rid of my old Content Library set up (tis why it says Studio3). That's where I put my Genesis stuff. I know right where it is with DAZ installers, but with this, it's a guessing game (ESPECIALLY without helpful ReadMe's to help me out). Take Pure Hair Fantasy for example.
It's installed in TWO locations. One location is in my Figures Library where I find M4/V4 and all that stuff. Is the materials in there? No. Is the materials in the Materials section? No. Is it in the Pose directory? No. I don't know where that is but I have to go hunting for it and I shouldn't have to do that. So, it did allow for multiple install locations.
I want my much simpler DAZ installer please.
Sounds like you're confusing the Poser zips with the DS zips and installing both. Genesis versions of things will be inside of My Library > People > Genesis > etc. The materials will either be a subfolder of the Genesis directory, or in the Poser format folder along with the Poser files if the item has a Poser equivalent.
Or you have libraries all over the places, possibly nested, and it's just all messed up. lol
You can tell DIM how to install into YOUR Runtime, srsly.
She's not kidding, really.
You can tell DIM how to install into YOUR Runtime, srsly.
You are assuming everyone is using DIM, i for one do not and will not, but then again, i don't have a problem with the zips.
I hear you Knight.
I liked the old installers. A couple clicks and you're done. Perfect.
But so many other people said they couldn't get the installers to work at all.
I hate ZIPs, but I guess now everyone can buy and USE the products now.
In which case, you don't have a problem. :P
I like how automated it is. I hated running every separate installer and having to click through them one by one. Now if freebie sites had an automated installer, or hell, I'd settle for just a standardization of package structure, I'd be set.
I hated the hell out of the installers. If you had to do a mass install it would take HOURS! With zips, even if you're using DIM, it takes much, much less time. It might help if you told us a bit about your runtime structure. Life without installers is a simpler life. Once you've got it figured out you'll see that you've needlessly wasted countless hours of your life.
What did the installers give that DIM doesn't, generally with fewer clicks?
Actually they're optimized for the Daz Install Manager.
I think the new zip files are much better, because downloading and installing them is faster.
Readme's : )
The issue I think really is you're trying to get people that have been used to doing things a certain way for years, to do things in a totally new way. For people like that, used to doing things the old way, who were comfortable with how things were and didn't ask for a change. They're being forced to have to adopt a new way with no perceived benefits. People that didn't like the installers if nothing else have the perceived benefit of having their request for zips granted and so they generally are okay with the change.
In time people will adjust even stubborn ones, because they'll have to. Over time hopefully they'll recognize benefits like that the zips should take up less space to store and that if they have Norton anti virus they don't have to deal with files being quarantined simply because not enough of the Norton community has downloaded and trusted them yet.
If not for DIM, I would not like the current zips. With DIM, I think they are an improvement. I'm not one to tweak where I place my files, I use the content manager to find them.
Much saner for me.
At first I was worried about the zips, but after I got a bunch of them I can say it saved me a ton of time installing. And I don't use DIM because I like to organize my content manually and there is no way the program could tell how to do it.
So the zips did win me over. I just extract all of them at once into my fake runtime. Then I move them over to my real runtime accordingly.
I've stopped extracting them. I drag the folders I need right out of the zip to my temp install location. This copies them to the new location, not moves them. Once there, I rename the folders to match the product names, then drag them to the proper location in my runtimes. I also move all files from the temp install folder before I move on to the next zip file. It causes less grief this way.
I still get excess folders that I have to delete when vendors put files in their subfolders because I only categorize a few products by vendor. But I don't have to deal with deleting the Content folder (I still don't get why DAZ puts it in the zips), or the "support" folder/files (which I also can't see any purpose for).
Still ... despite the extra clicks the installers needed and the annoyances of installers that wouldn't run, I am even more annoyed to find I also prefer them over DAZ zips. And that just makes absolutely no sense because zips should be easier to deal with than those installers.
I also prefer to download manually. Not like it's all that difficult to do. I either take a few extra steps to download the file manually into the proper download folders, or I take more extra steps to cleanup after D3DIM. Those few extra steps are less masochistic than having to cleanup after D3DIM. The majority of product updates seem to be for DS anyway, so it doesn't bother me that by not using D3DIM, I don't know when there are updates.
Yeah I like the new system, the old way when you had a long list of files, both PC and Mac was a nightmare.. Not sure what happened to the sort by and show only PC or Mac files mode of the old system.. Not sure why they removed it back then but now with this new system it is just easy to tick a bunch of files and hit download and have them installed where you want them to be..
I finally had to use the DIM on my Mac since you have to be careful with zips on older MacOS version as it doesn't merge directories... it replaces them... so you could easily wipe gigs worth of data if you aren't careful.
That said it was a lot easier to install the files I wanted without a bunch of clicks.
But I did remember thinking when people demanded zips... "be careful what you ask for, 'cause you just might get it"
Sounds like we are doing about the same thing. Sounds like you are extracting them too, just in a different way. Other difference is I do dump a months worth of zips into my temp runtime and clean up afterward instead of one zip at a time. I select all the zips at once, tell winrar to extract them all into the same temp folder. Then I go in and organize as needed.
It took me two months of gathering before I installed content this go around, I'm going to try to be better about it. It's just been that I grab stuff that I don't need immediately so it just sits around. I've got a ton of stuff that is indefinitely on the "not installed" list that may never get used.
Some of that stuff I purchased really thinking I would use immediately. LOL
I like zips better. Don't use DIM but manual installation is so much quicker than via installers: open hotkeyed folder, with embedded zip viewer open the zip, select all, copy, done, - instead of going step by step through the same bajillion clicks.
The DIM works well as a download manager to get the downloads done. If you are a Poser user with multiple and, in some cases, very specific types of external runtimes, it doesn't do much as an install manager.
Well there were always some who wanted to keep the installers, so it was to be expected there would be a sort of anti-outcry. That being said, I was and am still surprised how well the change to zips has been received.
But frankly, I don't see that much of a difference, anyway. With the installers you have to know where to extract your stuff. With the zip files you have to know where to extract your stuff.
Readme's : )
All of my stuff, save for a few, all have the ReadMe's in the zips. If your products don't have ReadMe's, then the product itself needs to be upgraded to have one. That's not a fault of DIM, it's a fault of whoever creates the ReadMe's and packs the zip.