3rd Party Mac Installation Guidance
OminousAutumn
Posts: 401
Can anyone provide an outline for installing 3rd party packages for MAC either manually or with Rendoinstall? I got some very patient help from some people on another post but was still not able to grasp what they were suggesting. Can someone list in steps with as much specificity as possible for a total newbie who has never done this and doesn't know what the files and folders you are referring to are? I read the directions for Rendoinstall and got zero results so I managed to fail at that somehow. I really need a solid explanation one way or the other. A video tutorial on PC's made it very clear showing how easy it is but for Mac its either much more difficult or I really am that slow at grasping these new concepts...please help.
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I need help installing new content into Daz. I have never done it and need a step by step explanation. Can anyone explain it to a novice? Mac OS user...Not sure if you are doing this in Daz but I get the impression you are doing this in the finder outside of Daz...?
many thanks all! i do not know what Gimp is??? or what rederosity is?? if you have time to go into detail or post links to sites that explain what these are and how to use them i would be most appreciative. Do i need to download Gimp? if so where?
If they are shown as huge squares, it means the product definition i data is missing.
To install 3rd party content and freebees on Mac OS X, I have a little free program that you can download here.
I wrote the first version for a friend back in 2010 when we both started playing with DAZ Stuio and Poser, as he kept turning his content directories nto mush all the time, and then when I decided to reinstall all my content, I made a quick calculation, that it would be quicker to rewrite the program and fix some issues than installing 2000+ zip files manually, so I did.
Thanks for that. I may give that a go but I want to understand how this works. Can anyone explain/show me how to install these files manually? There are only a few and I want to grasp how it works since its seems like it quite simple and ive gotten so close to making it work and Im really frustrated at this point and want to complete this. This is the first time I will have done this and Im not savvy at this needs to be the next best thing from a video showing me how this goes down, i.e, what exactly goes where...
Was watching an "Install 3rd party content" tutorial but can only find them for PC's and not Mac's. For PC's there is a "Merge File" function. When you try to perform the same operation with a Mac, you can only perform an "overwrite" function...?! How do Mac users perform manual installation without the ability to "merge'?
Totte's content installer is the best way to do third party content on a Mac.
To do it manually the safest way is individually manually copy and past the files over...it's very tedious.
Does this destination folder look right to you? Do you select this for every install? Any other tips for a first timer before I screw something up?
Not the data folder...but the My Library folder.
The content zips will contain a data folder and at least one of the others (if they have any kind of presets or textures).
A data or other folder (or My Library) within the 'main' data folder (My Library) is knwon as 'nesting' and is not a good thing.
Ok so everytime I install new 3rd party content always install into the folder ending in "MyLibrary" and it will sort everything else out even with duplicate file names....? And the "Temporary Work Folder" can just be a folder i create designated for it to do its "thing"...
well I guess im still not doing it right bc nothing is happening. how far down the line in terms of folders do you tell the software to open? i told it to open the data folder within the zip file but as you can see there are at least two more folders within that data folder...could that be the problem? if the process works correctly, once i open DS, can i expect to find my content in the library senction? Or should i be looking somewhere else?
Extract the contents of the zip file to a dummy folder...it can be anywhere: desktop, a folder somewhere you'll remember...
Then copy the contents of the data folder from the extracted zip file and past that into the 'main' content library's data folder. Repeat for each of the other folders in the extracted zip file.
im sorry i need to ask: when you say contents, this means no folders correct? hence why it is tedious? you need to go in and grab each file with an extention indivdually yes? bc for instance in this picture i dont know if i am grabing the folder 01-Earring-L or SVXtremeEarring-01.dsf or default.dsf or both dsf's...? i dont want to sound ungrateful bc i really appreciate you taking the time for me i just need as much specificity as possible bc i dont know up from down and right from left at this point. might as well be learning chinese. :/ (even though i know this is simple by comparison)
and should this content show up in the library in DS?
On a Windows system, since there is a merge function, it is very easy...just grab the data folde in the zip and drop it in the My Library folder...done, nothing will be erased, etc.
But on a Mac, if you aren't careful, you will overwrite the existing folder with just the contents of what you are copying.
Now this should be easier if you are working in your OS file manager, exclusively. Shutdown Studio and don't open until you are done.
Let's use a simple example...you downloaded a zip for a simple prop. In that zip file is a data folder, a Props folder and a Runtime folder. In that data folder is one named mjc. Now if you haven't ever installed any of my freebies, you can just copy THAT folder and paste it into your data folder. That is the same for the Props folder. The Runtime folder will contain a Textures subfolder. The contents of that (again, the mjc folder is all you need the first time) will need to be copied to your Runtime/Textures folder in your main content library.
Now, the next time you grab one of my freebies, you need to drop down a level...and out of the new zip, put the contents of the data/mjc folder into the data/mjc folder in your main content library.
Now can you see why I said Totte's installer is a lot easier?
I have a tutortial in DS Creative Magzine named "The anatomy of the Poser File System", I guess that is what you are looking for.
Page 34 - Issue #8 : http://issuu.com/philatdsc/docs/ds_creative_08
i errr... dont have your freebies and am clearly not intuitive enough to figure out where to get one and im pulling my hair out now. i have the content i need to get installed sitting in front of me and i really need straight answers to the questions as i ask them before i go mad. there is no way its as complicated as i think it is. and there must be a reason and a way to get the RendoInstall to make this all work more easliy as well...again this isnt to say i dont appreciate what you are doing, im just making something simple into something difficult.
Here is how i filled out Rendo compared to what the file path looks like for the zip source...
Long-time Mac user here... The solution for me was to obtain a little utility called Ditto GUI. In a nutshell, it performs a merge function, which is sadly missing from OS X. The best $2.00 I ever spent. Here's where you can find it:
http://www.ilike.co.nz/support/linkto/dittogui/index.html
Hope this helps.
Source Folder should be a folder where you have all the zip files as zip files, simple as that. The others look OK, except that I would create a directory in Documents for the temporary work folder.
If you have installed stuff already, I suggest you start over with a fresh "My Library" for your third party stuff and then just hook that up within DAZ Studio.
ditto is great, but only if the source directories are exactly correctly packed and you know what you are doing.
For RendoInstall 2 you only need:
1) A destination, "A Library to where you want to install"
2) A Source directory where you put the downloaded zipfiles. If you have safari in the "extract safe files" turn it off as it will unzip downloaded zips, which is bad
3) A temp directory and not the desktop at it will yeild lots of unwanted finder update activities as the desktop is always visible.
im pretty sure that i didnt install anything yet bc no list came up on Rendo...is that safe to assume? i hit run and nothing happens :/ the load bar pops down briefly and fills up in one second and then goes back and no list comes up. thats it. if the idea is to get a list to generate, then i cannot seem to make that happen. i fail. i bought ditto and then saw that you said you need to know what you are doing which of course i do not. the PC way is incredibly simple to understand, but even with ditto on Mac, im guessing you cannot still simply drop everything into the MyLibrary folder and expect it sort it self out with the correct path, you would still have to manually set up the paths yourself? which if that is the case, then im not sure if i can see a reason for needing ditto? i cant believe i cant install 3rd party content :( rendo looks so easy to use as well...
the "force source directry" button disappears after the first go around...
the first greyed out filed on the far left is the outer most file of the downloaded zip. would have thought that would be the one to generate the list. i have tried every folder within that to try to get Rendo to give me a list but not getting anything... :/
I turned that off in Safari, deleted the zip files, redownloaded them, unzipped them, closed and reopended Rendo and still not getting a list...
You still are trying to source from a directory not holding the zips!
Here is how I just installed two freebees
Ok i am dislexic. Now what?! I dont want to mess anything up...you got me this far :)
Looks perfect, as it's green, it's all clear to go.
It if had been red, you could help RI to locate inside the zip the stuff you want, like where things are, as some stores double pack the zips with zips in zips.
As we are in Europe it is late here, almost midnight where Totte is, so he will pick this up again tomorrow.
I too am in Europe :) But tomorrow will work just fine. Thank you for your patience and help thus far.
Totte is mainland Europe, they are an hour ahead of the UK. I never think of us as being in Europe. Heck I used to work in Greenwich Park, where GMT came from.
Sometime I think Chohole is the British version of Jamie Hyneman, she's done everything, and if Chohole is Jamie, then Richard must be Adam Savage ;-)
hehe :) i thought it was your wife or something maybe... i didnt want to get you in trouble...thank you again for all your help...so far so good...