Recent product updates

NorthOf45

Most of the recent product updates have no supporting comments on their ReadMe page (assuming there is one), essentially hiding what was changed. Not being one to blindly install an update without first knowing what it is, I have been carefully inspecting the potential changes.

Download the new one
Show installed files
Copy/paste into Notepad++
Show package files
Copy/paste into another new document
Compare the two lists.

Any additions to the content would be obvious at this point, but lately, there have been no differences in the list of files. So, why the update? Checking the zip in flat view mode, sorting by modified date will show which files have changed. Almost every time, the changes are in the supplement.dsx file, which is, as far as I know, only used by DIM to show the product name, or allow the products to be filtered based on install type or product tags.

About 90% of the latest batch of updates (not including updates for scripts and plugins) have been solely to add product tags like DAZStudio6 or, for some reason, DAZStudio4. I understand that some older products are not compatible with DAZ Studio 6 due to obsolete file types (.daz, .ds, .dsa, .dsb, and .dse). All the later DSON products (i.e., .duf) will load in DS6 (with the exception of the aforementioned scripts and plugins) without really needing to identify them. Although most of the products before 2026 still included 3DeLight shaders, there was always an Iray version, too.

Many, but not all, newer packages appear to have the DAZStudio6 tag, but given that there are almost 70,000 active products (and a sizable number of defunct ones in users' libraries that should still be considered), is DAZ planning to update all products with the appropriate product tags? Not only would it be a tedious burden, but it places extra work on the users (and their internet connections) to download and install all these new files with little or no benefit to them. Studio does not know about product tags, just Content. Whether it works or not in which version seems to be up to us to figure out if it is not obvious from the start.

</endrant>