My Library Overview
Wolpi
Posts: 323
One of the themes that probably often haven been discussed and complained about here.
Meanwhile I got accustomed to the strange arrangement of files, terms, labels, pathes in the library and content.
The confusion developed simultaneously with different systems. A new start certainly would bring a new standard of order
but that's impossible to do.
We will have to live with the maze and take care that all our precious items won't get forgotten in any sub-sub-subfolder.
And the items regrettably are sparse tagged and the search function brings poor results.
So I created a solution on my own. It's pretty arduous for one or three hours and has to be maintained - but it's worth it!!
1. I looked for a very good screenshot program that allows high resolution and auto-saves of the pics.
2. Then I browsed all the library and made a shot of all the item previews in the subfolders.
3. Create a folder system to your needs, such as PEOPLE, CLOTHING, ENVIRONMENTS, OBJECTS ... and subfolders if you want.
4. It's much easier to browse and detect things within those folders. If I was a beginner I would even name or tag all the single pics - but ...
too much, too late 
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Comments
Don't move files around. Fucntionally it will work, but you do break some features of Daz and the library system doing so.
Create Categories. You can then browse through them just like other Library items.
You misunderstood me, Scotty: I don't move files in my library - I just take screenshots of the previews and their position in the content folder system.
Then I create a separate archiv for the pics to browse more easily.
oh - surprisingly this theme doesn't seem to meet general interest. Yes I know, there are several programs that promise to help with browsing the files in the runtime. But I doubt if any of them is able to connect items that are made for each other.
So I give it another attempt to initiate a discussion or to hear your experiences:
There are items (characters, figures) and mats, textures, (poses) or additional accessories for it (props). To make use of it even after a long time is no problem when the materials are in the same headfolder (DAZ library) or when the folders in different places have the same name (sometimes the name ot the item, sometimes the name of the character it was made for, sometimes the name of the creator, ....
).
But this is usually not the case when you owe several add-ons (textures, materials, ... ) for one item created by different artists.
So how do you remember or find all the things you might apply to a character, a cloth, ... when the poses and props are spread all over your library and the search-function doesn't recognize it all?
For a while I maintained a tabular register doc: one column for the figures, characters, main-objects and one for all the add-ons made for it. It helped much but it was quite arduous to complete it. Meanhwile I prefer my special preview library.
Smart Content. If you bought it at Daz, then select the item in the scene, go to the smart content tab, and click on the category you're looking for. As long as the Filter By Context is checked at the bottom, only items related to what you have selected will appear. If there is something in the content library not showing in the smart content tab where you want it, right click and add a category to it.
If your content wasn't bought at Daz, then yours is probably the best solution. Other 3D shops don't require metadata be included in the products, and they don't add it (though some vendors may).
If you don't like using smart content, that's fine. But that's how I find everything that relates to something I've put in a scene.
Its an interesting way to find things and I like the idea of the pictures that you mention.
I use custom categories, I only have to find things once, and put them in the correct category (or categories). Since I created the custom categories I know where to look for something. For instance, I have a People/Victoria 4 category with sub categories that are Characters, Clothing,Hair, etc. Under each of those are more categories. For example, the Clothing would have Modern and Fantasy & Medieval. Under each of those would be more categories like Dresses, Outfits. Under each of these then would be the clothing item with the appropriate materials, poses etc under them. Its a lot of work to set up if you already have a lot of stuff, but well worth it. and I only need to find things once and then its all at my fingertips. Here is an example of part of mine. Of course, mine doesn't have pictures to see the item, so that's an advantage that yours has. How do you know where in your library each of those pieces are inside of studio?
Thank the both of you for explaining me this interesting option! It's probably because of my foreign language that I'm not nearly taking use of all the advantages of DAZ. Since I'm pretty contented with my results since several years and after some unwillingly changes of the settings in the beginning I avoid to experiment with all the options.
Ha ha I remember that during my very first steps I only used Smart Content and applied all the maps one by one. I didn't know to use the content tab. I thought it was just showing the stuff in my library
And since then I never used Smart Content again because I didn't seem to need it anymore.
It seems I should explore it again.
"How do I know where in my library each of those pieces are inside of studio?" - Now, my screenshots don't only show the preview of the items but their position in the folder labyrinth (the sub-sub-sub-folders) as well.
I’ve started just moving them manually . It does break dazs file structure and search but the existing file structure is pretty unusable and you can lose your product categories anyway and that has happened more times than not. Plus search is pretty cruddy.
i started by organizing the poses and have also done environments. I can no longer find the items I’ve moved by searching but I don’t care... I can find them now way easier without the vanity folders and bogus file structures. If something doesn’t work in a file I just reinstall via dim so no biggee
he he, Serene, you're certainly not the only one who attempted to tidy up your library this way ;-)
Funny thing that the confused and confusing structure seems to be irreversible. Actually a reset was necessary and a common standard for the systems and creators to follow rules of folder labeling and structure.
What to do with formerly unpredictable developments that grew together and are not able to restart
I reached the point where filing and creating products manually took too much time. Plus, I found that DAZ studio lost my custom categories, making me spending a lot of time organizing in the 'official' way kind of pointless. . If I lose custom categories several times a year, I just gave up.
Doing it manually, despite the loss of DAZ's current file structure is more efficient for me. This way I know stuff that belongs in say the bedroom is in my bedroom folder within environments not, in a dozen other areas, and all my food props are in the food props area not filed under a PA's name.
It would be different if the search funcitoned properly, but if content isn't tagged you can't find it anyway.
After more than a dozen years of accumulating content and assets, I recently passed the 1-terabyte threshold. And I no longer know ehere at least half of it is! (Actually, I don't know what half of it is!) So, a few years ago, I decided I needed to do something about it. I'm building my own content-management solution, to catalog everything, and most importantly, to find it!
It's still a work in progress -- the tagging functions are still under construction -- but at least it's a start; the orders and products are now in the database. (Well, most of them are. Someday, I'll lay off of acquiring new content long enough for me to get caught up!)
voilà! This is why I started the thread
Fine and promising work, Ken! Keep on its development. Do you think the items might show up both required products and connected add-ons of other sources?
I am in total agreement with Serene Night ,I re-catagorize my library all the time and I create sene subsets to move things from Poser runtime into my DS library so I'm not having to hunt through both ....content and runtime ,personally I think it helps me remember what I have and where I have it better .
@wolpi I do something similar, but I use evernote to do it. Using a chrome snipping tool add on for Evernote - i just take a snapshot of the items on the product view page for each product. Then I can tag them. Example, if it is a bundle, I might tag - male clothing, Genesis 8, fantasy, weapon, sword, weapon pose, props, barrels Afterwards, I can search evernote for any of the tags and it pulls up all pics with that tag. Here is an example of search of the "space ship" tag. Just a partial pic.
And searching the tag for "furniture" - again a partial pic
If I click on any of the product pictures, they enlarge. I also like that I can see more info such as the date the product was released etc. There are ways to add notes as well. If you decide to use the program, make sure you use it in chrome because the add on snipping tool works well in chrome and not as well in Edge. It might work ok in FF, I haven't tried. You can check out youtube if you are interested in evernote. It is free.
I had originally designed the tagging mechanism to be able to do that; it's a pretty free-form mechanism, basically a collection of name-value pairs associated with a specific object, and can contain just about anything. The intent is to use tags to identify such properties as genre (historic, fantasy, sci-fi, etc.) There are already defined categories (figure, pose, prop, hair, clothing, texture, procedural shader, whatever) and type (pants, shirts, dresses, shoes, accessories, and such), plus the figure the object was made for. The tags are mainly to add a bit more detail and granularity, for refining the search for a particular item. And that's why the tagging system is still under construction: basically, I'm also writing a program that can write, and execute, SQL queries 'on the fly'. Not a trivial undertaking.
I have my custom categories backed up on an external drive so if something happens, I haven't lost a thing. I do highly recommend that you back up if you do custom categories as I have had a catastrophic failure that took months to rebuild. I now have back ups of my back up. Just in case lol.
I am curious why the file structure to some extent is the way it is.
For example why do Stonemason's environments install in the props folder?
Why is the cybernetic head considered a prop? and installed in the props directory, instead of the genesis 8 male/female prop directory.
Why can't directories be made for certain obviously categorizeable items like 'food.'
Why are poses with props being put in all sorts of places, instead of their respective pose directories?
I suppose someone must like this file structure, but to me it is a mess.
Serene Night, ultimately it come down to QA not setting and enforcing a standard for the entire system. Mostly the PAs do follow the standard, but older stuff hasn't been updated to reflect it, and as you note sometimes items get put in bizarre places.
I'm so delighted and impressed by all your contributions! Thank you all so far.
Eventually we should not give up dreaming of a new standard which would free us from individual solutions.
I have a wild half-baked fantasy:
What if each product set came with a file of tags? They could be included like the templates folders and should be readable by the DS search funtion.