Install Types: Daz Connect or Install Manager Why one and Not the other?
Haslor
Posts: 408
There are three ways to install most content: Manual Install, Install Manager Or Daz Connect.
Manual install will take several days to install all of my content NOT Doing that again EVER!!
I'm about to do something that a few years ago would be reserved for system crashes and dying hard drives, Reload my whole library. (Don't worry I've done this several times before, especially while testing the DIM.)
I know the DIM, I Like the DIM, It is the Ronco Oven of 3d content installers. You set it up, push the button, and forget it. When you come back 2, 4, 6, or 12 hours later, all of your content is installed. (Barring your ISP dropping your connection in the middle of it.) There is no other content installer that is that easy.
So why; other than it is going to trickle download my content to a drive on my system anyway, it's New and Fancy, and there is going to be a Whole Lot of Clicking going on; do I want to choose Daz Connect over the DIM? Can I make Daz Connect be like my Ronco Oven "Set It and Forget It"?
I already figured out how to move it off my C drive. Hint for all those who don't know look at the CDM. (Content Directory Manager) Your system Drive is a stupid place to place your data System Crashes you loose all your work. But it does not save your data from a Golden Retriever or a Mastiff with a desire make their displeasure — of your not taking them to the park — known. Or your Laptop from a CAT that is REALLY mad at you. Let you think about that one.
So Daz 3D Boys and Girls, Convince me why I want to use Daz Connect and not my nice Ronco Oven.
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Comments
Greetings,
Because if you've installed using DAZ Connect, and update using it, then when an update happens that's just one file, out of (for example) a 660MB collection of HDR images, it only downloads that one file. Or if metadata is updated, it just downloads the XML for that file, and not the entire product, none of which has actually changed.
That'd be my big reason... As it is, I still 90% of the time use DIM, just because inertia's a b...ongo. {gratuitous Dumbing of Age reference}
-- Morgan
Well - to make Connect a bit easier to use - add the install tab to the viewport and minimize the right and left panes; now it's easier to select a lot of products at once. And Connect only downloads the changed file when a product is updated - so it may only download a 36 KB pose and not the entire 450 MB zip with updated pose the way DIM does. Also, metadata updates are automatic; with DIM it's back to downloading the entire product again.
But - Connect doesn't do software; DIM does. Also, the file structure Connect uses doesn't work for the generation 4 figures (Michael 4, Victoria 4, and all their -4 friends) so you need to use DIM to install them. You can easily archive the DIM zip files to an external drive, so you don't need to download them again; with Connect, you need to copy a directory that contains up to several million files to get the same result.
And - the killer for me - Connect requires a reasonably fast internet connection to your main system; I don't have that, so I drag a laptop off to a wifi hotspot to download with DIM and then copy the files at home so DIM on the main system can install them.
Keep DIM alive! Connects reliance on CMS and Smart Content is the number one reason I hate it.
I tend to go with that one myself. I don't have anything against databases, I use them all the time, but there really isn't any reason for it in this case. I like to know where those files actually are, not where the system thinks they are. I'm willing to put up with full re-installs on updates to get that. Smart Content is just not particularly useful if you have a bunch of content outside it
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DIM
The DIM is great to install and update plugins and software.
Here is my selection of the plugins currently installed with the DIM:
DIM is conveniant to install products if you want to install every single product you own.
Nevertheless if you own a large amount of products or want to install on a second device with limited disk space you may find that the DIM does not offer many tools to make efficient searches to install only a specific selection of your content.
DAZ Connect
This is were DAZ Connect absolutely shines and saves you so much time:
Instead of searching for hours or days for the products to install you can find anything in seconds.
Install Pane
The install Pane is a simplified version of the Smart Content pane that shows you only the products you have not installed yet.
It is great to install newly purchased content or show you products of specific categories.
Some examples:
- Install - show not installed Architecture
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- Install - show not installed Shirts
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- Install - show not installed Blades
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Smart Content Pane
The smart content pane offers you even more advanced search options to find very specific content.
Examples:
- Install pants for Genesis 2 female
In this example you browse to the Available subtab and make sure Filter by Context is activated and Genesis 2 female is selected in the scene.
-> Now all pants that are not installed for Genesis 2 female are displayed.
If you want to see all pants both installed and uninstalled you could simply switch to the "All" subtab of the smart content pane.
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- Install products from a specific artist
If you happen to like a product and want to install everything by a certain artists you can do that very quickly as well.
- Click on the arrow at the bottom of the smart content pane to make the Info bar appear.
- With a product selected you can now see the artists.
- Click on the link in the info bar to add the search tag for this artist automatically to the info bar
If you know the artists name you can of course also enter the search tag manually.
Example:
key::Luthbel
Note that in this case "Filter by context" was not activated to show all products of this artist no matter what was selected in the scene.
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How to make selections in the Install and Smart Content panes
You can use the mouse to select multiple products in combination with ALT and CTRL
- hold CTRL and click on products to add or subtract from the orange selection
- hold SHIFT and click on the first and last product to add everything in between to the selection
- use CTRL & A to select every product of the current selection
After you selected the products you want you can simply right click anywhere in the orange selection and choose "install"
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For more information check:
http://docs.daz3d.com/doku.php/public/software/dazstudio/4/referenceguide/interface/panes/install/start
http://docs.daz3d.com/doku.php/public/software/dazstudio/4/referenceguide/interface/panes/smart_content/start
There are also a handful of products in the store that can *only* be installed via Daz connect. These are are all encrypted items, though, and several people refuse to buy them on principle.
Not always on principle. If your graphics computer has never been online, you can't use encrypted content.
I am assuming you need. to install Victoria and Michael4 and morphs plus wth the DIM right. I am a new Daz user and my content was installed by. Daz connect since that is where all the files are, there are none in the DIM folder I triied to use the DIM at the begiining but it said download faiiled. I cant say for sure how things turned the way they did. I will say the organization of the smart content is impressive.I did notice the 4th generation was missing. Reading these posts I understand the difference between the two I have used Poser for 15 years and always install content manualy it takes a long time so this was quite a expierence
...I don't bother with Smart Content as it takes too much display "real estate" and I already have a custom categorised library/runtime setup (basically creating a logical sorting convention and setup which should have been done through the product installers which is particularly important for older content). I am definitely not pleased by the fact that Connect uses the Documents folder on C:. The only things I have on the C: drive are the OS and installed programmes. I don't even bother with the Documents folder, whether for images, written work, PDFs, or spreadsheets as I like to categorise those as well.
Personally, I don't have the issue that the OP has with manual installation - i.e. taking many hours to manual re-install files one at-a-time. I can re-install my entire content library in less time than it would take to re-install by downloading using DIM (including all of the content that was not purchased from the DAZ3D store and cannot be re-installed via DIM), by simply using my backup image of the content library. Fully automated and much faster than doing it over the internet. So it doesn't need to be that difficult.