DIM: Install DS vs. Install PS

Jason Galterio

New laptop and I have been reinstalling everything. And struggling a bit with the Eternal Dragon of Content Management.

I have one simple request that I am trying to find the answer for.

The particulars first:
1. I use DS 4.7.
2. For ease of content navigation I am trying to keep my content directories as few as possible.
3. Due to Smart Content not being across the board, I don't use that pane at all.
4. I use the Content Library, viewed as a tree, as my many content browsing.
5. I already have DIM Download Filters set to download only DS 4.5+ only.

What I would like to do is have two content directories:
1. All of the items that have "DAZ Studio Format."
2. All of the items that only have "Poser Formats."

This way when I have to browse through the pre-DAZ Studio Format files, I am also not picking through duplicates of all of the compatible files.

It would also be nice to segregate the hybrid packages (like SoulessEmpathy's stuff) which seems to have some content as Poser only files and some DAZ Studio Format files. (But not duplicates for some reason.)

sriesch

I suspect I'm not quite understanding what you want to do, however just in case:  You could simply create the two content directories in the Content Library and separate your Poser and DS content into the appropriate subfolder, that way you can look at just the one you want at the time without picking through the duplicates.  Of course, you still have to do it once when you are sorting them in the first place, but never again after that.  For example, in the attached screenshot for the Wildwoods Traveler Pack pants I created two materials subfolders, "materials, pz2" that has only the .pz2 files, and "materials, mc6 DUPLICATES" that has only the .mc6 files that I'm currently ignoring.  I could have created a "materials, ds" for all the .ds files if I had wanted, but since that format is obsolete I'm actually putting them all into a trash bin folder elsewhere so they're out of the way.

Unless you meant two separate Windows folders, not two separate content library folders, in which case I don't know the answer but I think there's some product where there are poser and DS script files with the same names next to each other that causes some specific logic to be performed, and if you were to split the folder into two separately mapped folders, those files would no longer be adjacent and thus DS would actually treat the content differently, which you probably don't want.  But I'm not the expert in that area.

 

Oh yeah, also note that there is an option to show the file extensions, but that's not the default.  So if you are actually seeing two IDENTICALLY named files without the extensions, that would definitely make it hard to sort.  You can enable the option to make the difference obvious.  "Content Library" pane menu icon > "Edit Preferences" > "Content Library" tab, check "show file extensions"

frank0314

On some older pack you need the Poser files as well as the DS files

Jason Galterio

I know Frank, that's part of the problem.

With the download filters set up the way I have them (DS 4.5+ only) I have encountered the following packages:
1. DAZ Studio Format files only.
2. DAZ Studio Format and Poser files in the same package.
3. DAZ Studio Format files that don't work because a Poser format, non-user facing file is missing (usually a geometry and/or texture file).
4. Poser only files.
5. Broken packages that contain a mixture of DAZ Studio Format and Poser files, but not a complete set of both (Souless Empathy's Strange Cave and Room of Books are good examples of this).

Here is what I want to do...

I want to have one directory (which will be mapped as a DS Content Directory) for #1, 2, and 3. I also would like to know which packages fall into the #3 category so that I can install the necessary packages. But this isn't essential, since I can install them as I discover the errors.

A second, seperate directory for #4 and 5.

The Reason: This way when I have to delve into the Poser directory to find content, I don't have to pick through all of the Poser files that are easily accessible in the first content directory.

The Problem: There is no easy way, that I have discovered, to see which files fall into these five categories. A methodology for this is what I am looking for.