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You can tell DIM how to install into YOUR Runtime, srsly.
I haven't installed DIM, might have to now. :(
Removing the readme's has nothing to do with DIM or zips. When they update installers they've been removing the readme's. I would prefer they were in the download as well as online, but that's a different issue than installers vs. zips.
For downloading purposes, the Product Library page and DIM use the same API. The only difference is that the server sends DIM information on your Product Library, and DIM can compare it with what you have installed and downloaded already so it can show you only what still needs to be downloaded. All DIM is sending is your login credentials, same as logging in with your browser. Selecting a file in DIM to download does the same thing as clicking on the blue download button in the Product Library, except (1) the download location is the one you set up in DIM, and (2) if you have the "Install After Download" box checked, it will also be installed.
For extracting to a dummy location and then rearranging or renaming folders, the only difference between doing it manually and doing it with DIM is (1) if CMS is running DIM will also add the product list and metadata to the database, and (2) DIM keeps a record of what was installed so it can tell you about updates, even if you delete or rearrange the folders after extracting them.
Well, thanks for the help everyone. And also thanks for the explanations. Finally found the hair with the materials. Not where I want them to be but I'll work that out on my own time with DIM since Skirki pointed out I can tell it to install where I want
Good luck! I found my life much easier once I got all my content sorted this way. I remember directory structures better and now it is easier to navigate since I can always think in terms "stuff related to HAIRS", for example. :)
Thanks Skiriki. I have been meaning to re-arrange my folders. Maybe I'll do that this time.
I haven't installed DIM, might have to now. :(
So you're judging and criticizing a program you've never even tried?
Well then... lol
The EASIEST method to use is categories, in all honesty. Have the CMS running, open DS, and install things with DS open. Then go to the paper icon in the content library > scan known directories for files > check all 3 options (minus the bottom if you want it to find everything whether it's new or not-- useful for initially creating categories for everything) > follow the highlights to your new products and categorize them. That way you're things are 'arranged' how you want them, but there are no issues with file locations since they're all where they should be physically in the folder structure.
/edit
Here's my categories view, you can really go all out with them. All my content files are still physically in the default locations. I used AdamR's categories script so I didn't have to create each initial category and had a starting point. It's located somewhere in the Freepozitory. Notice how they're all outside of DS' Default category (I hate navigating that thing). You can add things to multiple categories as well.
.....purr, purr, purr.
I haven't installed DIM, might have to now. :(
So you're judging and criticizing a program you've never even tried?
Well then... lol
The EASIEST method to use is categories, in all honesty. Have the CMS running, open DS, and install things with DS open. Then go to the paper icon in the content library > scan known directories for files > check all 3 options (minus the bottom if you want it to find everything whether it's new or not-- useful for initially creating categories for everything) > follow the highlights to your new products and categorize them. That way you're things are 'arranged' how you want them, but there are no issues with file locations since they're all where they should be physically in the folder structure.
/edit
Here's my categories view, you can really go all out with them. All my content files are still physically in the default locations. I used AdamR's categories script so I didn't have to create each initial category and had a starting point. It's located somewhere in the Freepozitory. Notice how they're all outside of DS' Default category (I hate navigating that thing). You can add things to multiple categories as well.
Tsk, Tsk, Vaskania. I never said anything about judging DIM. My apologies for coming off the wrong way. ;) Before I got this problem, I always used the DAZ Installers and never saw the point of installing DIM since I was happy with what worked for me. Now that it no longer will, I'm going to adapt. ;) (Adapt while secretly wishing I could have my DAZ Installers back, of course) :)
And thank you very much for providing the screenshots and telling me how to use categories. :)
Resistance is futile.
=P
Only if you use DAZ Studio
(and click submit, click back, click submit, click back, click submit ... yay! It finally worked.)
...they're actually optimised for the DIM which for me hasn't worked right since day one.
The Zips would be nice if they included a readme.txt file with the product like other stores and even most freebie creators provide. I mean how much space does this take up, 2 - 5K? No instead it has to be more complicated in that the product information files are only accessible online and are often woefully inadequate (and in some cases, nonexistent). I don't download to my workstation as it is a standalone. I don't even bother with DL-ing from home as I have a slow connection which experiences frequent timeouts and resets which kill or corrupt the download. I DL to a notebook at a hotspot that has a high sped connection then go home to transfer the files to the workstation via USB stick.
I have the ReadMe info in my DIM zips. o_O
/edit
I've never installed a DIM zip by hand. All of the ReadMe info gets installed to a subfolder of whichever runtime I'm currently installing to in DIM.
Try telling that to Captain Kirk. ;)
Try telling that to Captain Kirk. ;)
I tried. He only tried to sell me discounts via Priceline.
I tried. He only tried to sell me discounts via Priceline.
Heh, and how did that go? ;)
I tried. He only tried to sell me discounts via Priceline.
Heh, and how did that go? ;)
Not very well. /Expedia user
Heh, and how did that go? ;)
Not very well. /Expedia user
I bet he was bummed then tried to kiss you, yes? :D
Heh, and how did that go? ;)
Not very well. /Expedia user
I bet he was bummed then tried to kiss you, yes? :D
I don't think I was alien enough for him. lol
I hear you Knight.
I liked the old installers. A couple clicks and you're done. Perfect.
But so many other people said they couldn't get the installers to work at all.
I hate ZIPs, but I guess now everyone can buy and USE the products now.
...my issues with some of the older installers was how they often made a mess of the Studio/Content folder which, unlike the Poser Runtime was also very poorly organised to boot. There would be folders in the tree like Data, Templates, and even Readme which showed in the Daz/Content tree in the application. Sometimes a prop was in "environments" sometimes an environment set was in "props", sometimes Daz lights were under a vendors name, or some other unrelated folder instead of the "lights" one.
A lot of this had to do with sloppy packaging. For example, the Woodland Realms Playset 1 had an issue with the texture files installing to the wrong subfolder in Content/Runtime/Textures. This had to be manually moved to the correct location (after noting down said location from the "Can't Find..." error message that would appear when one attempted to load the set).
With later content installers, much of this was cleaned up, particularly when there was no longer the need to separate Poser & Daz shader files.
I originally had no issue with idea of moving to .zip archives and even welcomed the change as I have a custom setup and actually preferred the drag & drop method since it gave me full control where everything went according to the instructions given. If something was amiss (which BTW never occurred with Rendo, RDNA or Xurge content), it usually meant I accidentally dropped it in the wrong folder (usually the one just above or below). Easy fix.
So I was all ready for the change, until 4.x and Genesis, which introduced entirely new layer of locations to deal with. Content/plugins specifically for 4.x and Genesis had to go into separate folders to work correctly. Ok so a few more steps but as long as there are good instructions as to what needed to go where, it was a minor inconvenience. Oh wait, there's this thing called the CMS and Smart Content I have to be concerned about that rely on the Metadata files to work. Say what? You mean I need to suddenly become a DB manager as well and make sure the database is up to date so I can find things?
It was one thing to organise my caddy in the painting studio at college, Brushes here, paints there, mixers and medums in that drawer, etc, but now one misplaced piece of data and, "hey, where's that dress I needed for Leela that I just bought?".
Finally, along comes the DIM, an automated download and install tool (which by the way was in beta development) which just made things even more complex than they needed to be. Now I have to mess with setting all these filters, paths, library sets, get it to properly recognise my username, etc, etc, etc.
So back to the ol' drag & drop again, until...
...whaddya mean there's no readme.txt? Just about very .zip content file commercial and freebie I've ever installed before Daz changed to the installer format included a readme.txt. Where is some of this 4.x/Genesis stuff supposed to go so it doesn't break when I try to load it? The ,exe installers used to handle all this for me, now unless I use the DIM (which I still am unable to get working properly), I have to guess at where to place things, and if I guess wrong I have to go back take it all out and all over try again.
A well organised runtime is the best means of content management especially if it is geared to one's style of workflow. It's not rocket surgery and doesn't requires some background process to work. As long as the critical components like Data, Geometries, and Textures are in their proper locations there should be no path error issues.
The bottom line is, why is it so hard to simply distill the these instructions into a readme.txt that is included in the archive package? It would make this process so much simpler for those who choose not to, or cannot, use the DIM.
If that's not to be, I'm with Knight22179 and tsarist: bring back the Daz installers.
Extract to a temporary location.
Select everything inside the "Content" folder.
Drag it into your content folder, whatever it's called.
You can still do that. No one says you have to use Smart Content or Categories.
I have the ReadMe info in my DIM zips. o_O
/edit
I've never installed a DIM zip by hand. All of the ReadMe info gets installed to a subfolder of whichever runtime I'm currently installing to in DIM.
...as I mentioned, the DIM has never worked right for me since it was introduced. I found I was wasting more time struggling with getting it to work, than it would take me to simply extract the components to a temp folder and doing the ol' drag & drop from there.
Again I use two systems The workstation is not online. I cannot download from home because of my slow erratic connection. A 40 - 50MB file can take up to an hour provided it isn't interrupted by a timeout, or corrupted by a network reset. Something highly detailed that is 100MB or more can take several hours.
So for my purpose, the DIM is totally useless. Daz went too far in optimising it's installers exclusively for the DIM. This was something that I was afraid might possibly occur once they abandoned the .exe installers.
Either they need to return to the option of .exe installers again, or also offer .zip files set up for manual installation as well as the DIM ones that include a detailed readme.txt in the package.
Its a zip, it isn't really optimized for anything. The only real difference between it and the .exe installers is the extra manifest file which just is there to say what all the files in the package are. All of the zips were built from the .exe installers, so if a ReadMe existed before, it should be in there.
As for the downloading on a slow connection, yeah, that really blows. What you can do is download on your laptop with DIM, copy the packages over to your home computer, and use DIM in offline mode to install. That is if you are up to messing with it again to see if you have better luck. Also, if you don't mind too much, resume support is coming soon in DIM so if you did want to download from home, it could be a simple "set it and forget it" type thing that runs over night.
...tried that but it didn't work. DIM on the workstation wouldn't load anything into its database.
As to overnight downloads, that still isn't an option as again my connection is also somewhat unstable due to the fact I'm in a slight "shadow" for wireless signals. Therefore my connection is prone to timing out or resetting which interrupts the download process. I'll usually get only a portion of the total installer as a "PART" file or on some occasions the complete installer but with corrupted data.
When I tested the the Genesis Essentials one time, the remaining download time that was returned was 56 hours. The next day I went to a hotspot and it took 22 minutes.
Note: As I was writing this, the signal dropped completely and I had to reconnect. That is how unstable my connection is.
I cannot afford to go with a direct cable or hard wire connection as they involve long term contract obligations with penalties for early termination and have monthly connection limits which govern not only downloads, but uploads, streaming, as well as any other activity on the net (which includes participating on these forums). The plan I am on is a month to month one with no activity limit.
...as I mentioned, the DIM has never worked right for me since it was introduced. I found I was wasting more time struggling with getting it to work, than it would take me to simply extract the components to a temp folder and doing the ol' drag & drop from there.
Again I use two systems The workstation is not online. I cannot download from home because of my slow erratic connection. A 40 - 50MB file can take up to an hour provided it isn't interrupted by a timeout, or corrupted by a network reset. Something highly detailed that is 100MB or more can take several hours.
So for my purpose, the DIM is totally useless. Daz went too far in optimising it's installers exclusively for the DIM. This was something that I was afraid might possibly occur once they abandoned the .exe installers.
Either they need to return to the option of .exe installers again, or also offer .zip files set up for manual installation as well as the DIM ones that include a detailed readme.txt in the package.
Yeah - my workstation is off-line as well.
And I'll trade you home connections. Mine is 50 Kbs dial-up, with a mandatory disconnect at 8 hours.
So I use my laptop to do my downloads - with DIM. I fire it up, pick & choose what I want to pull down, and hit 'add to queue'. Then I read the forums here or do general web surfing while the downloads click along.
When I get home I transfer the files to the other system (I use a shared disk, but thumb drive is just as viable). And then I use DIM in off-line mode to do the installs on the workstation. I'm not running into any trouble with this (so far - 2,000 + items installed).
On the laptop, after copying the files to the main system I 'install' with DIM to a dummy directory and let DIM delete the installers. Then I delete the contents of the dummy directory. Net result - my laptop copy of DIM knows what I've downloaded, and can inform me of updates. And I don't have gigabytes of laptop storage occupied by zip files.
All I can say is -- it works for me.
Is there someplace in the Forum where there is a list of what the extensions on the downloadable files mean?
Like which files go with what software and which version?
They seem to be changing regularly (Granted I don't download too often.)
Can an explanation of the files be made into a "Sticky"?
And kept updated.
And locked so people won't have to search between comments.
https://helpdaz.zendesk.com/entries/22890557-Understanding-Content-File-Types
Something I've always suspected with the ZIP files was, everything from those to the DIM is setup to get people to use the Smart Content feature, not that I'm complaining (I LOVE the DIM and Smart Content). I know content installed via DIM can be accessed just as well in the Content Library, but still...
...after what I just learned today, definitely more than just coincidence.
I'm not sure I follow -- other than removing the readme's and having them online (which is unrelated to DIM or zips), how are they setup to get people to use Smart Content? You can look in a zip to see exactly what the folder structure is, which you can't in an installer.
What does not having version numbers have to do with using the Smart Content tab?