3rd Party automatic content installer?
3WC
Posts: 1,107
in The Commons
I use DIM for Daz content. But I download a lot of freebies. Which languish in my downloads folder for days or weeks. When I get around to installing, there could be anywhere from 20-100 zip files to be installed. I tried the Daz Studio Archive Installer from Doctor Jellybean, but that doesn't seem much faster than just opening the zip files and copying folders over. Has anyone found a quick easy solution for this?
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Have you tried using DIM to install your packs. That is if your talking about packs bought on the DAZ website. If your using DIM they will go exactly where they are suppose to and you will get future updates if there are any, and there are a lot of updates to packs. DIM downloads and installs very quick. I did several hundred packs in an hour or so.
I would also love a really good 3rd party installer. I bought a bunch of stuff at another site last week (that 75 cent sale was too hot to pass up), and then spend about 45 minutes installing the content. An automated tool would be so useufl... but I really guess it has to come from the vendor's site.
Unanimous!
I would also like to see a Content Installer for other sites. I also think it should do a bit more than take a zip/rar file and install it to your runtime. I think it could be made to do a whole lot more. It should analyze the archive to make sure the diectory and path names are correct and, as well as possible correct them. It should then make a Product out of the archive and install the files in the runtime. It could then create an uninstaller and add it to an uninstaller directory. This could then continue through your 'Download' directory.
Most purchased products are fairly well set up, but a lot of freebies aren't. I've had some dirrectories misspelled, but I am not sure what can de changed and what can't. This would also be a good place to deal with readme and liscense files. Put them all in ONE dirrectory and if they aren't named for the product, atleast add the archive name to them. Having readme1 through readme20 is absurd, and unhelpful.
I would like to see the Installer create a 'Product' out of the archive and install it in the Product list in Content Library. I have an awfull time finding what goes with what in the Unasigned Catagory. I've just been catagorizing things from the Product list and it is fairly easy. Creating a Product should be very easy, cosidering that it has all the files in memory.
Utilizing all the previous information, the program should then create an uninstaller. You might also want to update the archive and save it so, if there is a next time, things will go faster.
There will be some archives that this won't work on. I have seen some that don't put the files in any dirrectories. They're all sitting at the top level.
To take this program even further, it could be given an Interactive mode. It should be possible for it to help you create Metadata for the product. I watched a video on this and it seamed more tedious than it needed to be. With the corect help, it should be easy. The program could allow you to input the actual name of the product, or cut and paste from the readme, and use that instead of the archive name. The Interactive version could also deal with multiple Runtimes.
This is the kind of Automatic Installer tha I would like to see. With all the different scripts and the 'programs' that people like Casual over in the Freebies thread are doing, it should be fairly simple. There are many talented people in the PA's also. If someone created something like this, I would pay money for it.
Gus
One other feature for this, so far mythical, installer...the ability to apply a uniform character case to the folder/filenames. Then maybe I could quit manually installing everything...when you are on a case-sensetive file system, installing any content becomes a manual process.
And that's the real problem here. People should learn to create their stuff correctly in the first place so you wouldn't have to waste your time on fixing it yourself, or create software than can fix it.
If people don't make their stuff right, tell them what the problem is and urge them to fix it, whether their stuff is free or not. Otherwise they just continue to make bad stuff. Here's an example of how much time even a not very significant bug can waste on a global scale. Worth thinking about...
http://blog.garrytan.com/how-a-bug-in-windows-might-be-costing-humanity-over-600-years-of-wasted-time-per-day
I want one for RDNA and Rendo. There was one installer at Rendo but alas it is no more. How about all the Poser World stuff.
That was created for DS3, long before DS4.x appeared :)
Rendo and RDNA have always used zipped files. There are many unzip apps out there both free, shareware and for pay. Most of the shareware and for pay can batch install products. Ok, it takes a few more steps but it's not that bad. I had hoped the creator of 3D Content Installer would update her app now that DAZ has gone to zips but I never received a response from her.
I don't buy much Genesis or above content so I don't know if vendors selling G2 and G3 products at Rendo are following the DAZ zip set up or not. Most non-genesis content is set up to follow the Poser runtime file structre rather than the DAZ set up.
Well here we are in 2023 with umpteen updates from DAZ since the last post here and still no ability to correctly install non Daz Genisis or other products into the Daz folder system.
It speaks volumes about how they treat the peop;e they rely on to maintain their products viability.
Why would DAZ create a 3rd party installer? It doesn't benefit them and honestly, installing 3rd party content is fairly easy. Just create a new folder for 3rd party content and point your content directory to it..When you open the zip, it is usually installed into one of two folders, STUDIO or CONTENT depending on how the zip is set up.
Indeed. For the same reason that McDonalds would not allow a guy with a burger van to setup shop in their car park, it would make no sense for Daz to spend resources building a third-party install tool.
What SHOULD have happened is that the bigger third-party stores should have banded together and arranged for a installer to be made AND done more to QA-check submitted products to their own stores to ensure that atleast the basics have been done to somewhat correctly package products.
Can't speak for others, but certainly convenience plays a large part in why I spend less on other stores than I otherwise would. Content Wizard can only do so much and so while it does do a large part of the heavy lifting in installing content from elsewhere, I still find I have to baby-sit it and manually fix some products because they are just packaged so incorrectly. Not to mention that, because of the way Daz works, I have to deal with the long delay in creating the compatibility base stuff because either no Smart Content was included and/or it was incomplete/wrong.
DIM does allow content from other sources to be installed, if it is properly set up. The sample scripts even include one that could be configured, by changing the last line, to add metadata noting the store of origin and enabling the right-click More Information command to open a product or readme page on the host site.