Digital Art Zone

chohole - 06 November 2012 10:14 AM

  Yeah, they used to have a filter allowing me to select only PC files, but that vanished with the new setup.

No,  DAZ 3D is in the process of changing to Zip files, which will not be OS specific.

Initially there seemed to be +/- for installer vs zips especially for new users who zips can be confusing for. Over time working with both I have to say I have become a big fan of zips in general. An installer that works with the zips to help the new users (and long-time users who the installer works for) seems the way to go. One of the nice thing about this is, people can write alternative installers, since zip files are a standard.. as long as the naming convention and structure becomes more standard.

chohole - 06 November 2012 10:14 AM

  Yeah, they used to have a filter allowing me to select only PC files, but that vanished with the new setup.

No,  DAZ 3D is in the process of changing to Zip files, which will not be OS specific.

It will be applyed to old products or only new products?

Good question, hopefully it will be retroactive as that is a big part of what has lead to this mess in the first place… multiple generations of standards leaving no standard.

gilikshe - 06 November 2012 11:36 AM

chohole - 06 November 2012 10:14 AM

  Yeah, they used to have a filter allowing me to select only PC files, but that vanished with the new setup.

No,  DAZ 3D is in the process of changing to Zip files, which will not be OS specific.

It will be applyed to old products or only new products?

ALL products are in the process of being changed over. They all will be when the manager goes live. I have Reset many items that I bought in the past and got the NEW zip version instead of the old Installer version. So yes all items will be converted, this is taking lots of time because they have a huge store of files to convert.

Yes, As Jade says.  If you purchase or reset older products you will receive zip files and not exe files.  It is easy to see the difference as with those which are already converted you will only get a zip, not option of a zip for mac and an exe for Windows (PC).

chohole - 06 November 2012 11:58 AM

Yes, As Jade says.  If you purchase or reset older products you will receive zip files and not exe files.  It is easy to see the difference as with those which are already converted you will only get a zip, not option of a zip for mac and an exe for Windows (PC).

That´s why I still don´t understand why they are not releasing NEW items in ZIP format also. They will later have to change them all to zips, which is extra work and could have been avoided if they simply already released new items in zips. And if they aren´t doing that (for whatever reason), then why are they changing all those old items into zips? They should be consistent in what they do and either change both old AND new (means newly released) items into zips or they should change those old items in EXE files, like they do with new releases.

They change OLD items into zips because there will be (soon?) an installer but at the same time they don´t release NEW items in zips because there is not an installer yet... Does this sound like a plausible explanation?

No they changed the older items because there was problems with the newer Mac OSX and the older installers.

Once the Installer app is finalised, then you will see the general change.

Can’t wait to the zip only transfer. Zip files are soooo much easier and quicker than those darn installers which all are different and so time and patience consuming.

Another wish would be to have readmes as textfiles instead of html stuff.

I still see a problem, the zips I’ve seen so far *do not* contain version information. This is a serious issue I believe. The zip files should contain version information in the name imo to facilitate keeping track of what version it is once it is in someone’s library. Requiring using an installer that inspects a loaded library or zip file to determine if you have the ‘current version’ is going to be considered invasive by some people, and more importantly for me it detracts from my ability to repackage things for storage as I see fit and works for my environment. This for me anyways could be a *serious* problem, as I repack all of my files so I don’t have to reorganize them every time I reinstall.

I am relatively sure that others are repacking their files also from what I’ve seen in the forums.

It would also be helpful if there was a changelog under support on the website so people could see what was changed between versions in any given file. Some changes, while helpful to the general populace could even be detrimental in specific cases, such as metadata updates that might overwrite custom metadata someone has locally.

  Oh no!  I thought I was done but I have hundreds more files I have to download!  *laugh*  I bought DSON, so now I have to go back through all the Gen5, Gen4, and Gen3 stuff I bought for Genesis!  Like the M4/F4/D4/V4/S4/A4 for Genesis stuff!  Oh gosh..  There has to be an easier way.

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