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DIM operation

davesodaveso Posts: 7,770
in The Commons
DIM usually lists the products in my account here at DAZ. I choose the ones I want to download and install. CAN IT FIND THE PRODUCTS IVE DOWNLOADED TO MY EXTERNAL HARDDRIVE, TO save space on my primary, and install them?

Comments

  • Richard HaseltineRichard Haseltine Posts: 107,966

    DIM can use external drives for any of its features, though you do need to make sure that the drive letter stays the same.

  • Joe.CotterJoe.Cotter Posts: 3,362
    edited September 20

    So I installed content on a local drive but want to move it to an external drive so I can share it between two different computers. Will I loose all of the metadata/smart content If I do that? (I used to know a lot more about this than I do now, but take a decade off and you forget a lot, besides what might have changed over that time...)

    Post edited by Joe.Cotter on
  • Richard HaseltineRichard Haseltine Posts: 107,966

    DS does not care about absolute paths, only relative paths (except for Custom Actions). However, you will need either to put the database on the removable drive too or reimport metadata - and Connect (though Daz Studio) instalaltions cannot be reimported.

    DIM, on the other hand, does use absilute paths in its manifests (the way it tracks what was installed) so if you are also sharing its files you will need to use the same frive letter for both machines..

  • Joe.CotterJoe.Cotter Posts: 3,362

    Thank you Richard,

    Is there anyway to modify the drive letter in the DIM mainifests so that I could assign a common higher drive letter designation to a removeable drive on both systems I want to access the content on? Also, you mentioned reimporting the metadata. Is that basically downloading metadata from DAZ for the products on the machine? i.e. the database gets rebuilt on each machine with drive letters appropriate for that machine?

  • Richard HaseltineRichard Haseltine Posts: 107,966

    Yes, they are just text files so open them in a text editor (I would not use a Work Processor for this as in the past those have sometimes messed up formatting in an unhelpful way, not that I have triued with .dsx files but with things like Poser files and OBJs) and you should be able to find the beginning of the path (with whatever drive letter was used) and replace it with the desired path beginning - a good text editor, such as Notepad+, will do this across multiple files.

  • jjoynerjjoyner Posts: 748

    As a follow-up to Richard’s post, if you wish to use Notepad++ to make a change across multiple files, all of the files need to be open in Notepad++.

  • Joe.CotterJoe.Cotter Posts: 3,362

    Ty Richard and jjoyner. :)

  • ArtAngelArtAngel Posts: 1,942
    edited September 25

    Richard Haseltine said:

    Yes, they are just text files so open them in a text editor (I would not use a Work Processor for this as in the past those have sometimes messed up formatting in an unhelpful way, not that I have triued with .dsx files but with things like Poser files and OBJs) and you should be able to find the beginning of the path (with whatever drive letter was used) and replace it with the desired path beginning - a good text editor, such as Notepad+, will do this across multiple files.

    Just know sometimes windows changes the drive letter for various reasons/conflicts. At time I have assigned static drive letters to be seemingly permanent letters like X only to have windows reassign them during reboots or unplugging and using in a different PC. Sometimes it seems to rewrite the drive letter on a whim.. This has nothing to do with DIM or DAZ. The fix is to reassign the static drive letter and edit the manifest to relect such. This occurs on external 8TB SSDs 4TBSSDs 2TB 1 TB samsung, crucial, old western digitals  . . . etc.

    Edit: referring to external drives.

    Edit2: I am currently relocating content (by genre) to live on various externals. Let the games begin.

    Post edited by ArtAngel on
  • NorthOf45NorthOf45 Posts: 5,691

    jjoyner said:

    As a follow-up to Richard’s post, if you wish to use Notepad++ to make a change across multiple files, all of the files need to be open in Notepad++.

    Notepad++ can "Find In Files" and replace all occurrences of a string (filter by extension or filename with wildcards) in a folder hierarchy (optionally). Very handy when you want to do hundreds or thousands of files.

  • TaozTaoz Posts: 10,254
    edited September 25

    Joe.Cotter said:

    Thank you Richard,

    Is there anyway to modify the drive letter in the DIM mainifests so that I could assign a common higher drive letter designation to a removeable drive on both systems I want to access the content on? 

    Here's a small Windows app which can do it, it works for both DIM and DAZ Central. Just select the ManifestFiles folder, edit the library path to the new one, and click Replace. All the manifest files in the folder will then be updated.

    WARNING: do not use it if you are installing to multiple libraries with different paths as they all will get the selected path. 

    Included a file compare report showing how it modifies the files, and a virus report. 

    Sorry, forgot the link:  https://3dcontentmanagers.com/freeware/3d-related/clpdsx/updates/clpdsx-1.000.zip

     

    clpdsx.png
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    Post edited by Taoz on
  • TaozTaoz Posts: 10,254

    ArtAngel said:

    Richard Haseltine said:

    Yes, they are just text files so open them in a text editor (I would not use a Work Processor for this as in the past those have sometimes messed up formatting in an unhelpful way, not that I have triued with .dsx files but with things like Poser files and OBJs) and you should be able to find the beginning of the path (with whatever drive letter was used) and replace it with the desired path beginning - a good text editor, such as Notepad+, will do this across multiple files.

    Just know sometimes windows changes the drive letter for various reasons/conflicts. At time I have assigned static drive letters to be seemingly permanent letters like X only to have windows reassign them during reboots or unplugging and using in a different PC. Sometimes it seems to rewrite the drive letter on a whim.. 

    Zentimo can make the drive letters stick, I've been using it for years and never seen it fail in this respect:

    https://zentimo.com/help/ht_dlm.htm#fixDriveLetters

     

  • jjoynerjjoyner Posts: 748

    NorthOf45 said:

    jjoyner said:

    As a follow-up to Richard’s post, if you wish to use Notepad++ to make a change across multiple files, all of the files need to be open in Notepad++.

    Notepad++ can "Find In Files" and replace all occurrences of a string (filter by extension or filename with wildcards) in a folder hierarchy (optionally). Very handy when you want to do hundreds or thousands of files.

    Thanks much for that info.  I’ve only infrequently used Notepad++ to make a change across multiple files and then only four or five files at most.  But, this is good to know information in case I do need to involve many files in a change. 

  • davesodaveso Posts: 7,770

    great information here. Thanks

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