Daz Central Ending - New Enhanced Install Manager
JamieM
Posts: 356
This feels like a big change. Wasn't Daz Central supposed to become more important over time?
I know lots of poeple hate it for various reasons and never use it. I suspect these are mainly long-time users who came to Daz before it existed. Personally, I have used it quite a lot, especially as a quick way to check if I have certain items and get access to store page descriptions.
I certainly hope the new DIM will have options to (a) display product images as clearly as Daz Central does (b) give quick access back to the store pages for items.
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Comments
I am a long time user and used to install everything manually, but opted for DIM a few years ago. I may continue with DIM (depending on functionality) on my new PC , but I will never use connect, smart content or anything else like this. Half of my content comes from otjher stores and I have no issues installing all of it manually and finding it when i want to use it.
I tried it and decided it was potentially very wasteful (if a vender re-uses certain files in multiple products, such as transparency files for hair or whatever, it looked like those files would end up being duplicated for each install even if the vender was careful to keep them in the same location using the same name). DIM has been a much improved option over those horrible installers that they used to use, though, it is not without it's own little warts. I'm wondering if this "enhanced" version will fix some of those issues.
Well, that seriously stinks. What kind of chaos is that going to cause on a computer that has been almost 100% installed from day one - glitch-free - with DazCentral, where I have almost never used DIM for installing? DIM thinks hundreds of things that are installed and working fine need to be installed. Ugh, what a pain.
I have yet to figure out the hate for Daz Central, unless it's not entirely compatible with earlier DIM-installed products, in which case this bodes badly for me. I've set up two different computers entirely with DazCentral only, and I've never had a problem finding and using products installed with it. If there are lurking compatibility issues, then I look forward to all the trouble that future installs with DIM are going to cause (no, I don't).
Switching to Daz Install manager should be transparent - it will pick up the paths used, and the manifests used to track installs, since both use the same basic code as far as function goes - it is mainly in the UI and some additional feature that they differ.
Weren't there Daz Central exclusive items? What will happen to those?
People are confusing Daz Central and Daz Connect in this thread.
Oh no.
I don't generally like to complain, but I'm not feeling happy about this. I'm with paulawp (marahzen). I've been using DAZ Central pretty much for everything since day one, with no issues that I can think of. Very occasionally I open up DIM for some odd reason and it doesn't seem to think many of the things I've installed ARE installed. DAZ Central's layout always seemed more transparent and visually cleaner. It's easy to search for things in DAZ Central and I end up doing that all the time, to find things and open them up in DS that way. I've grown fond of it.
Well, I hope the new DIM has been updated to do better than that? Guess I'll have to open it up and see...
Will DAZ Central not work at all? Or will it just not allow us to install new things and stuff going forward etc. but still be available for looking at previously installed products?
You are not alone. I download everything as zip files, unzip to a folder where I can check which folders they are going to, make any changes I see fit and then copy to my DS Content directory. The only time I use Daz Install Manager is to download the DS Beta, or for some add-ons which are Install Manager-only.
I like DIM, it is so easy to batch install/deinstall.
As a long-time satisfied DIM user, I'm a bit concerned by that word "enhanced".
How much do you want to bet that the "enhanced" Install Manager will simultaneously annoy DIM users (like me) who are quite happy with how it's working now thank you very much, and Daz Central users who are equally happy with what they have?
With all the things that Daz could be investing time and money in, why choose something where they already have two working tools?
It should be less costly to have only one tool to support instead of two, but yes, people who are using the product who will not be supported anymore will not be happy about it. Hopefully, the transition is as painless as possible.
At least they didn't call it "Improved"
I updated to the latest DIM version. Is this the new version? I'm not seeing any difference in the interface. Where can we find out what the new enhancements to DIM are and any updated documentation? The current documentation didn't leave me all the wiser. I'm not sure how to see order dates for items, or how to bring up product thumbnails in the product list.
DIM still shows thousands of items as not installed, which as with all my other DAZ store items were previously installed through DAZ Central at the usual location. Interface-wise DAZ Central is so much more intuitive, and the information is so much easier to take in at a glance and to sort/browse as well. Can they not be allowed to co-exist as they have done so far?
DIM now has the ability to launch applications it has installed, as Central can. It doesn't have, and there is no indication it is currently planned to have, the larger images in the list (we can have larger images in the pop-up tooltips, that has been the case fro some time).
Daz cenrtal will not be able to download and isntall content - it will just prompt to update to DIM.
Try it and see - the enhancements have been rolled out in recent builds, while there may be more to come it is already in its replace Daz Central state.
Hopefully there will be some information forthcoming on the best and safest way for Daz Central users to deal the stuff that's installed and working fine, that DIM is not up to date on (and hopefully any other not-so-obvious problems that are inevitably going to present themselves when having to switch to DIM). I'd rather not mangle a perfectly good, working Daz instance taking the wrong steps to deal with this issue. And considering that it took me more than two weeks of evenings to build this computer a year ago - and I've bought a lot of stuff since then - I sure don't want to end up with a hopeless mess that necessitates a complete reinstall.
I'm not a complainer by nature either, but I am definitely bummed out by this news. This hobby is supposed to be for fun. I do software support as a day job - I want to minimize how much gratuitous software support I spend my fun time on.
DIM and Daz Central work from the same lists, they are different front-ends for the same back-end.
I am glad the latest DIM is now easy to find & download with a Bing/Google search.
I have to say i quite liked the asset view in daz central as often i would forget what something was called but could visualy find it using the daz central grid view which was nice and fast.
could that be retained?
Central is being deprecated? If they truly both have the same backend, then I'm astounded by that. It would make more sense to bring the additional functionality of the DIM interface into Central. Sending users back to DIM is akin to Microsoft canning currently supported Windows interfaces in favour of 3.1's. I think someone at Daz is seriously missing the additional usability features present in Central that DIM sorely lacks.
I'm not usually one to comment critically on software product decisions because that's the industry I'm in and I know all the hidden business and technical reasons for things that users never see. But I'm also a UX Engineer and I can't fathom how this decision can end well for Daz. Seriously scratching my head here :'D
Thanks Richard for the reply! I wonder if this means that I can use DIM to install stuff but still use DAZ Central to inferface with my stuff... Hmmm
If you know of any DIM documentation beyond https://www.daz3d.com/install-manager-info and the old documentation the help button in DIM takes us to, please do share it with us.
paulawp (marahzen) I've just been spending some time with DIM, and in case you're having the same issues, here's what I found.
Since I installed everything with DAZ Central, DIM doesn't show any thumbnails. To get it to show those, you have to have 'Show product info tips' checked in the Advanced Settings dialog box. In the Advanced Settings > Downloads tab, make sure you have a location specified in the thumbnails archive field and the folder exists. Then select all the installed products (by selecting the single checkbox next to the Products category), right click and select Retrieve Thumbnail > All (Missing in) Selected. It took about 10/15 minutes? or more to download all the thumbnails for me, and now those are showing in DIM.
Like you, I have a lot of things showing in the Ready to Download tab that I've already installed. Looking closer, I see that they are the Poser versions of things I've installed the DS version of. So I think we can just ignore those?
That's as far as I've got right now...
I don't believe so as Daz Central doesn't have an offline mode the way DIM does.
http://docs.daz3d.com/doku.php/public/software/install_manager/start
Yes, and it may be worth checking the Download filters to make sure you aren't seeing things you don't want. DIM can do, and therefore show, things that Daz Central didn't.
Is there anyone out there who built a Daz instance from day one with Daz Central, used it for a meaningful period of time, and then switched to DIM? If so, what was their experience?
Unlike those who "hate" Daz Central despite professing to have never used it, I don't hate DIM (yet). When I started using Daz in mid 2021, it was clear enough that DIM was the legacy install product and Daz Central was the newer one and normally, one expects the new one to have a longer life. One of the reasons I picked Daz Central as a Daz newbie back then was that usually, it's old legacy products that get phased out, so it's exactly this problem that I was hoping to avoid.
I get why the oldtimers avoid Daz Central - I saw many forum threads in my first days that went, "I've used DIM forever, but I installed () with Daz Central and stuff got broken ..." They then blamed Daz Central. Well, the lesson there might have simply been, don't mix your install products. I have a trouble-free Daz instance built from day one with Daz Central, with thousands of products installed. (Technically, I've had three of them during my Daz hobby, as I've moved from a never-intended-for-art computer to a starter-art-computer to my current built-for-art computer, all 100% Daz Central installed, with minimal install issues.) It's not Daz Central, inherently. I suspect, based on this history, that despite sharing the same config and data, there are minor incompatibilities between the two products, and my main concern is that as soon as I have to switch to DIM, I'll have those same experiences: "I've always used Daz Central, but I had to install () with DIM and stuff is now broken ..." I'll be tempted to blame DIM, but if that happens, it's unfortunate proof of that theory. I'm hoping I'm wrong.
I'll check and see if the uninstalled stuff on mine is older Poser-era products like you're seeing.
Daz Central and Daz Connect are often mixed up
paulawp I only did a very quick check and spotted a lot of Ps and PoserCF files. I don't know if there are also some Poser-era stuff in there that I never saw in DAZ Central or anything like that.
But I had a little more of a look now, and I'm seeing tutorials and Ron's brushes in there, which I usually download separately from the store product library. I'm also seeing some other strange stuff that's not in those categories that make no sense. Like part 2 of 3 of a regular iray outfit - maybe it's the outfit templates? Not sure what these are. So I think we need to look at it closer. Let me know what you find too.
Will say though that since that download/uninstalled list in my DIM is over 2000 in number, I'm tired just thinking about having to look at each of those.
All this is too complicated for me to follow. I insisted on manually installing my content for many years. But it was too much work.
I've since been using DIM for many years, and never saw a need to change to anything else. I guess I made the right choice?!
I started off using DIM years ago, then started using DAZ Central when it became available and much prefer having the large thumbnails and being able to easily search for products. Personally I think it's a backward step to get rid of it!
I too was a bit confused by seeing so many items to download in DIM, but they were all older versions of Poser stuff. The easiest thing is to select them all, then hide them!
From my point of view I think the DIM is a great product. a standalone and offline-online application. It makes it very robust, ideal for a non-casual environment where the important thing is to use your time for what is really important. I also don't understand this habit of reinventing the wheel over and over again. If something works well, it works well. It would have been better to dedicate the effort and time from the beginning to improving the DIM and incorporating the positive points that DAZ Central users highlight as advantages.