recategorizing updated content, and categorizing to multiple categories.

sriesch

So I've noticed that while sometimes updated products can simply be reinstalled into their folder (or in a new mapped runtime if I wish to change the folder name/location) with no changes detected when running "scan known directories for files", other times all of my installed content thumbnails for that product are deleted and moved back to unassigned, and I have to do the content organization all over again. When that involves around 130 content thumbnails in who knows how many categories for each thumbnail that could easily take over an hour for just this single product update with no real way of being sure I didn't miss something, that is a very discouraging task. Does anybody have any suggestions or clever tricks to make these updates less painful?

fixmypcmike

You don't have to do them one at a time -- select one, Ctrl-A to select everything in that folder, right-click and choose Categorize and navigate to the old location. You can categorize in multiple locations the same way.

sriesch

I know I can do multiple selection, and also categorize to multiple places at once, but that isn't always an option. For example, here is a small part of the content that needs to be recategorized. I would select it all at once to put it in the Urban Shabby Chic set, but then the blouse might also go in a shirts/tops > Urban Shabby Chic folder. The boots go in a shoes folder. The gloves go in a gloves folder. The jacket goes in a jackets folder, etc. So I still have to do a lot of this one content thumbnail at a time. Then, that's just this single tiny uncategorized folder with the pz2's. I'll have to repeat for the duf, the cr2 objects, the mat pose materials, possibly two other kinds of poser materials, etc. as they are all in separate unassigned folders and I cannot do them at once (which is fine though since I'll be putting them in separate subfolders anyway.)

For a brand new content, I would speed this process up by building the single set folder with all it's separate subfolders, so I might only have to select everything maybe 6 times (the duf content, a folder for the .cr2 content, a folder for the duf materials, a folder for the poser materials, a folder for the mc6 materials, maybe a folder for options) which isn't too bad, then I would copy that folder to all the places it might go (the set, tops, shoes, gloves, jackets, scarves, dresses, suspenders, vests, etc.) then delete all the pieces that don't go to that category (all non-shoes from the duf folder, then from the cr2 folder, then the duf materials folder, then the poser materials folder, etc.) However if the product is mixed with another product, such as third party materials, then it gets harder. I can't just delete and replace the entire folder, I actually have to integrate this with other products.

(I also realize I'm making more work for myself up front by categorizing stuff I might not use. However it's much easier to do right away when you install a single product and know what it is than years later. For example, when the .daz format came out I initially started trashing all the .cr2 object duplicates, but now the .daz format no longer always works and I realize that was a mistake, so I have to go digging in the trash bin every single time I see a .daz file with no .cr2 file to fix these products one by one. Similarly I once thought that I could delete the poser materials if it had duf materials, or the poser 6 materials if it had earlier poser materials, but I finally realized that sometimes some materials will be in one format and other different materials will be in a second format, and the duplicated overlap between the two types might only be 80% of the materials, not all of them, so I'm missing materials that I have to pull out of the trash bin now if I think to look there. To avoid these mistakes, I'm now keeping ALL formats, including ones I think I'm not currently using, so if/when I need to start using them in the future, I can do so instantly with zero effort by just going into the adjacent material subfolder where I have already categorized them with the product. )

sriesch

Also, if it can be used to my advantage in any way, I do typically have an older copy of the database running on a second PC. So for example I can still see where each individual content thumbnail was previously categorized, at least for products that I have not recently reorganized, if I wanted to right-click and categorize and browse around and write down or remember all the places it is, for every individual content thumbnail. (I don't want to do that, but it's a handy way to quickly do spot checks for things that might be less obvious to categorize. And maybe there's some way I can use that old version to help in this task.)