Yet another category talk.
Ron Knights
Posts: 2,591
I confess that, after 25+ years I've learned the joy of trusting DIM to install all my content, unmolested.
I still find Categories confusing. Maybe I use it in a way that is not intended.
I look at Categories as a Sleight of Hand game. I use the "ghost representation" of the files to organize content the way that works for me.
I don't really think in terms of Categories.
I really love using the system to organize massive amounts of content, such as my many "Western-related" items.
I use the same system that I used before adopting Categories "for real."
I still need to manually download every file that is already downloaded an installed by DIM.
That's the only way I can track where DIM put all the pieces.
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Comments
Ah, you are tempting me! "I use the "ghost representation" of the files to organize content the way that works for me." is a category. Nonetheless, DIM can tell you where the pieces are installed. The little 'i" in a circle will take you to the readme which show the complete path and the 3 vertical dots will lead toyou to the files in place so you can check the path.
If you have a system that works for you then use it and don't worry about categories. I would avoid breaking them, as they are used in support of other features, but you certainly don't need to use them directly or spend time tweaking them.
I gave up on read me files maybe 20 years ago. Most of them don't really say anything that I find useful.
I don't break anything by using categories. But you know that, right?!
I meant don't break categories (e.g. by moving files around outside Daz Studio).
Oh Heck no!
I use Categories exclusively now.
I find Categories to be mostly helpful, but, yes, there are cases where they can be confusing. On a case-by-case basis for products, I try to reassign one or more assigned Categories. Sometimes, that works, and sometimes not because the Category assignment is baked more deeply into the content and my attempts results in items being assigned to two categories.. That’s usually even more confusing and I delete the Category that I tried to assign.
For several years, in the Tags tab of an item I have been adding Keywords to products, as needed, to help me find content via a keyword search. Sometimes I may add a unifying genre keyword (such as scifi so that I don’t have to depend on the variations used by vendors such as SciFi, Sci-Fi, or Sci Fi; or medieval, etc.), a vendor and/or store name (usually for products from third party sites), etc. I don’t need to assign keywords to every item in a product. I assign a keyword to just one item in a product. A keyword search brings up entire product packages that contains the keyword.
Also, you can leave Notes to yourself in a product but they are not searchable.
Maybe I've missed the point here. I don't really use "Categories" to categorize things.
I actually use them to duplicate the same structure we have in our Content itself.
By using this method, I can place links to the products and ignore "PA" folders, etc.
If Moyra is set as the artist of your version of the 'La Ferme for Old Country Farmhouse' product, typing key::Moyra should get you every product with 'Moyra' as the artist without the need to add a tag:
I don't use tags, but I think I will add at least a Renderosity tag because I don't know if you can get only items from a specific store (the Renderosity store was created by Content Wizard, no idea how to create one myself, the metadata were created using Daz metadata editor though) because key::renderosity only shows me a list of products with a link to the Renderosity store of an artist.
There is a way. You can greate a custom Group (like New, or None, which are system reserved). All you need to do is create an icon overlay with the group name, and place it in two folders under the Daz Studio folder in Program Files. See the link below for proper syntax and file placement. Once you have that in place, use the Advanced Filtering option in Content Library or Build Filter in Smart Content to filter for that particular group name.
For example: For Renderosity, I made an icon overlay using the "R" from their store name to be easily recognized. Copy it to your favourite graphics program and place it in the bottom left (or right) corner, resized accordingly (maybe 20 pixels high) on a 91x91 pixel .png file with a trasparent background. Name it 1.Renderosity (following the rules) and place it where it should go (again, following the rules). You will need to restart Studio to load up the new info.
Now, go through your library and select your Renderosity products (yeah, manually, maybe a few at a time) in the Product view, right -click and select "Group Product and Assets as..." and select Renderosity (which should appear under the New and None entries). Your new icon overlay should show up on top of any Product and Asset that you selected. Once that is done, you can now filter for the new group. In Content Library, click the button to the left of the search box, and select Advanced. Type in Group::Renderosity and your new group products/assets will show in the search results.
In Smart Content, click the magnifying glass to the left of the search box, and select "Build Filter". In the ensuing dialog, select a Scope (group::) and enter Renderosity in the Pattern field. Accept, and your results will be displayed. (Files or Products).
Results View (General)
I have just done this myself, and can say it works. (I keep making more work for myself...). You can make as many groups as you want, obviously only one can be applied at a time, or you can make a composite overlay.
Works in DS 4.24 and DS 6.25