Well, I've now spotted the first product in the MP with folder names beginning "!!!". Should we have a name-and-shame policy for this abuse? I can do without having to rename all the files in a package thanks to vendors' childish insistence on trying to be top of the heap. If things are in alphabetical order they are reasonably easy to find. If they appear in a complete jumble according to whether the vendor used one, two or three exclamation marks, the whole thing is hopeless.

I couldn't agree more...but I think this all started with Daz and is just spreading from there. Many of my Daz files have single exclamation points before the name and, you're right, it jumbles the order.

I hope you provided feedback to the vendor and to the store so they realize the problems with their naming convention.

Marketplace Email

The habit was well established when Daz started putting ! names to the V3 folders. Anyway, my Pose library would burst if I left things in the supplied folders rather than renaming with the product/vendor name and dumping in a generic folder (V3 characters, Wizard robe mats etc.).

the habit actually started before Daz started there's. And it's just getting worse with everyone seeing who's going to be on first..

Apologies to Daz. I guess it was their items that I first noticed the convention being used.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I wanna be first ! <-------- oops, I used another one.
pluh-leeeeeeezzzeeee ???

That's what I will label all my props and figures with ...

All 0 of them.

;=]

WAH !!! <------------- sorry, forgot that in my last post. ;=]

Dr. Geep, you're always #1!!!!!!!!! with us!

Thanks di .... I needed that. ;=]

you don't even have to do that, just put a whole bunch of spaces before you type the folder name. It's almost as bad as the people who put those funny squiggly things before their names when they email you, that way they get to be first in your address book. I hope their still not waiting for a reply from me. I think we've had this rant before, it never solved anything, people will do what they want and how they want. I just decided that I will never make a second purchase. Their happy, I'm happy. Besides, the only one who can really put a stop to it is 'Rocity themselves. All they have to do is tell the vendors, don't do that please.

... or just state that ALL filenames must begin with a letter (e.g.,A-Z, or a number 0-9). Period. ;=]

We could have an informal betting pool to see how soon somebody uses !!!!. My bet would be next week, since the !!! is already taken. But with thousands of merchants, I don't think Renderosity has the resources to police them all, 24/7. It would be a full-time job for several guys, with no positive effect on cash flow.

do the actual files fdepend on that naming convention? I wouldn't want to rename then nothing can be found afterwords

But doesn't Renderosity have testers for each product? Wouldn't they notice how the file names go??? I'm not suggesting anything should change (not my area of expertise) but if you are checking to see if the product works properly, I would think, maybe, part of the test would be to make sure the product goes into the library files properly. Or am I in error yet again???

they do have to install the file before they can test it, I'm sure they would notice if it had all kinds of funny names.

'But with thousands of merchants, I don't think Renderosity has the resources to police them all, 24/7' Doesn't matter if they do or not. All Rosity needs to do is add it to the merchants guidelines, saying 'Dear merchant, please start all folder names with a letter or number and not some stupid ?$&ing symbol!!' It's an infantile habit on a level with kindergarten behaviour. Who cares where you are on somebody else's computer file list? Someone you'll never meet and you wouldn't know if you found them in your soup-plate. Sheesh! mac

Can you imagine ... If this applied to surnames? Hi, my name is George !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!smith and I ALWAYS get MY name at the top of the list but I married Susan !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and she kept her maiden name so she has to sign her name as: (needed a new line for this one) Susan !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!-!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Where does it stop??????????????????????????????????????????????????????? ??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? ??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? ??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? ??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? I had to stop ... I ran out of "question marks" ... ... but I'll be back when I git sum more 1, ha ;=!

Where they show up on you menus is a big thing with the companies, sorta something like a status symbol that doesn't really mean squat. One should adopt the policy of renaming these files with an appropriate and equal number of "Z". OR "!" = "Z", "!!" = "ZZ" and on and on. Just because they want to be the big number one doesn't mean anything to me, if it bothers me, I dump it.

Why does the artist formerly and currently known as "Prince" come to mind??? I have some extra ???? here, Dr. Geep. ????????????????? ?????????????????? ???????????????? ????????????????????? ????????????????? Take as many as you like. I can always get more. :)

Ha! Geep, you've touched on a subject dear to my heart. The Idiot Formerly Known As Prince. A classic example of how conspiracy can be a GREAT weapon in the right hands. Short history - Prince, an arrogant little prick who thought he could get away with any outrageous form of egoism he liked, decided to change his name to a 'symbol'. It had no sound or pronounciation. It was just a stupid-looking symbol. He demanded that his entourage, friends and fans address him as 'Hey, you!' or 'Yo!', etc and that all the media refer to him by this symbol. Yeah, right! So, when a BBC journalist called him 'Prince' on TV, Prince/symbol tried to take him to court. That's when The Great Media Conspiracy began. From that day on EVERY journalist in the entire world started calling him 'The Artist Formerly Known As Prince' and they kept it up for years. Talk about solidarity. Right on! Serves the little s*&t right! mac 'Scuse the rant, folks.

I meant dialyn, not geep. mac

I usually install the files myself,this way they go where I want them to go, a few merchants have their own folders like PhilC, he needed his own, the rest go under subfolders. It's just an annoyance. I'm waiting for the day when they start using ~, then I'll really be in trouble, when I run my file cleanup for some reason it will target files that begin with ~, it leaves the ! !! !!! !!!!! alone, I think the longest I have is 4, forget who did that one, it'll probably be deleted when I finish re-arranging stuff as per my 'new years res' I've noticed the more !!! the crappier the file. I've even noticed some of my texture folders have weird starts. which is a PITA cause then I have to edit the pz files. Oh well, enough of a rant. I feel better now, better go cook..

if I start seeing that in front of my files, I know exactly whose door I'll be knocking on, so you'd better have the coffee ready, I'll bring desert.. or is that dessert hmm..

I usually put the "!" in front of the files I want to be at the front. If the creater can do it then so can I. For those annoying items that try to push their way in, in front of my favourites, I put them in a folder named ZZ. I hate the filing system in Poser but I've gotten used to placing files by hand and don't have such a confusing time anymore. 8) Catlin

@joffry: dessert eagle?

:)

Dessert Eagle? Are they good with ice cream, then? ;)

most excellant, especially, either rocky road or pralines N cream

Two dear Poser-universe friends of mine have been doing this with their products. I never had the heart to ask why, because they've both been so kind to and supportive of me. Clearly, what most customers want is to be able to decide for themselves what comes first. It's very easy for us to add our own exclamation points, or to remove them when those "first" items become less crucial. I have to agree ... just name the folders logically according to what's in them. If your product requires more than one folder in a library, use the first letter of the product's name. For example, let's say you've created a character set for M3 called "Weirdo." Weirdo comes with separate MAT and clothing texture folders for the Pose library. Name one "Weird_MAT," and the other "Weird_Clothes." (Conversely, I don't know why so many people still feel compelled to start MAT pose folders with "MAT." That abbreviation doesn't have to be the first word in the folder name.) Yes, "W" comes towards the end of the alphabet, but even the lagging "W" can be president (ba-dum-dum.) If the content provider is worried that "Weirdo" will languish unused because it's at the bottom of the list, they can suggest, in the ReadMe, that the user should add their own "!" to the folder names. I can see why DAZ chose to use a symbol to keep all their M3 and V3 folders contiguous to one another, but it still carries a sort of "me first! me first!" appearance. Of course, in a polite world, ladies do come first. (Insert bad joke from the first Austin Powers movie HERE.) I don't think "name and shame" is necessarily a good idea. I do think we should be able to talk frankly about faulty or disappointing products, but intentional humiliation gets out of hand. If you don't believe me, read the Copyright Laws forum.

I don't think we're intentionally humiliating anyone. No names are being named or even hinted at. That would be the last thing I would ever do. I've never done it before here, and I have no intention of starting the new year off that way. This has been mentioned quite a few times in the past. I'm sure the people that do use that system for identifying their files have read the threads and have decided that they want to continue. I have no problem with that. I'm a big girl, I can decide on my own to buy or not buy for any reason, and to move folders around in a logical sequence known only to me.:)). Oh, and I wouldn't discuss a disappointing product here, something like that belongs between me and the merchant. That to me would be utter humiliation, again, not my style. I know how much time and effort goes into making any product. What is disappointing to me, is not to the next person.

Well they hurt themselves on my computer, when I start running short of space and deleting stuff I do like I think big business should do...I start cutting from the top. So the !!!!boys and girls go first, and I thinks to meself if I can get rid of this then I don't need to buy anymore of their stuff.

I always arrange the files to my liking. Thus, it does not matter if the vendor adds "!!!" to the folder names. If RR made a new rule that all merchandise file names MUST begin with a letter (A-Z) -- then all products would begin with "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA".

This is probably a stupid question, but I won't know unless I ask I guess (and it won't be the first time I've asked the obvious).

You can name a folder anything you want? By that I mean you can just change the folder name and as long as you correct the path (I use correct reference) so poser knows where to look for the item it will work?

I have left everything in the folders that they extract to up to this point because I am not very comfortable with the program/file structure yet, but as my library gets larger I am finding it harder and harder to find items, remember where I got freebies, and find things that have obscure names that are nothing like what the item is.

Just wanted to state for the record that not all merchants name their files this way. Personally, I find it annoying and avoid it. If I dont want it in my runtime folder, then Im sure as heck not going to inflict it on someone else. I believe that the '!' and other symbols should be used only within the product file itself as a means of orginizing the files.. I.e. !Character INJ and !Character REM or 00_Makeup_Mat_1.. It helps keep the file tidy and everything where it should be so its easy to locate. However, I believe the actual product folder should be named with the products name... no additives :P

This is funny. I was reorganizeing my library files and noticed how many started with "!" the other day. I did a search though my library for "!" (hundreds of them). So I deleted them all. They serve no point but to cunfuse me while trying to find stuff. I'm a merchant and a user. I see no point for it! So I'm proud to say I never did it. I make stuff for others the way I would want it. If I dont like it, I dont release it. I've found many products that are great here but was unhappy they didn't take the final steps. I dont want any more obj files with out libray files for one thing (half-@ss). Why do I (and who ever else purchased) have to import the obj, texture it, and then save it as a prop. Sure it sounds lazy, but I PAID for it! So I say the merchant is lazy not me. So now I need a good Poser utility to get rid of "!". These merchants need to relize these are things that make me never buy another product of thers. So it's kind of the merchants fault. There are alot that are very well done though. These are the merchants I respect.

Oh, when catlin_mc mentions a few of the first ones like that, thats cool. It has purpase. I had alot of folders with them. Mostly Daz stuff though. When you do it to folders (like Daz) its like "Oooooow, I wanna be first."

Towal wrote: "You can name a folder anything you want? By that I mean you can just change the folder name and as long as you correct the path (I use correct reference) so poser knows where to look for the item it will work?" In my experience yes you can . I do my runtime whereby I prefix most items in each library section with Clo_ for clothing, An_ for animal related,Char_ character...you get the idea. After the prefix I usually put the vendors name if its not there already and then an abbreviation of what the item actually is. It's made my runtime pretty manageable compared to before and A LOT easier to find things quickly. Textures I do just dump into my texture folder as named. I hate going in there. Total Chaos ! Poser seems fussier about finding textures so I leave the names alone. Needless to say I install everything manually, don't like those VISE installers from Daz, or the MacInstaller utility. Controlfreak ? Moi ?

Yup, you can name a folder anything you want but I wouldn't recommend renaming the DAZ inj/rem or deltas folders. They start getting upset if you do that.

Good point SamT ! I don't use all the V3 stuff much- though I have a fair bit. I just put a V3_ infront of that sort of stuff so it all lumps together in the pose library.

Rendo ate my reply and I'm not retyping it. Guess I wrote too much hmm.. Really wasn't important, just saying and agreeing to everything that was said above. Did anyone happen to notice where they purchased the stuff with the funny marks? I think most of it was here, I'm not mentioning Daz cauze Daz did it only on the M3 V3 and S3 injections, and I can nest those folders. The one thing I like about P5 is multiple runtimes and nested folders. Makes my life very easy. My big fear is they will start using ~~~~. Maybe I shouldn't give them any ideas..

Exclamation points started shortly after I started brokering. Being one of the first brokers, and beacuse my name starts with "A", the "!" is one of the few characters that will list before "A". First one I ever noticed was "!Mehndi". I think "!" is fine within(inside) MAT folders to keep certain MATs pose files at the top inside the folder, but it's use in library folders is swarmy. But Daz didn't start it. Although I with they hadn't used "!", they said they used it to keep the inj folders together. Of course it could have been done another way. Oh well. -Anton

I think it wouldn't be possible to find a naming strategy that would fit for every one. I install and name everything manually to keep track of my stuff. There maybe one point for the leading exclamation marks. If people don't install manually, the !!!s will make it easier to find the new items. I have a lot of spare **!**s left over from former installations. If someone is interested...;)

Why not just use either: the author's name, company name, or username? Seems pretty simple. If a company name have them submit copy of incorporation paper. I agree character, folder spam is out of control.

The only good thing about using the funny marks is that it's forcing us to learn more about the program and the file system. I can now open any library file in an editor and without hesitation, rename, move and further redo all their work. However, I will only do this once. I've gotten in the habit of checking the paths myself to make sure everything is there, so I don't do a scene and then have P5 lock on me because something can't be found. Everything gets installed in a separate folder and I move things over to where I want them. The new thing is now seeing _ before files and sometimes in the ojbect folder. This is causing problems. It's fine by me, I spend less.

This most certainly did not start with DAZ, tt started here at 'rosity long before the DAZ Injection files. At 3DA we don't allow this in our files - if a vendor wants to do this inside the library folder to arrange their files in a special way (example: utility poses - MATs & Mors before other poses) that's fine but the marks before the name are a bit annoying. I move all my files anyhow. For example all my Wyrmmaster magnet props are in one prop Folder labelled "!Wyrmmaster", my exclamation mark as I use them frequently. My favorite textures - same thing "!V2 Skin Favs" & "! V3 skin Favs" But at least I applied the marks. In DAZ's Case they had to do something to keep all the injection poses in one place and easy to find - I don't mind that at all. Just wish I could add additional libraries at will - then I'd add an injection pose library lol I also get aggravated when someone starts their folders with a lower case letter - Poser throws those to the bottom of the list and doesn't list them alphabetically with the uppercase folders. BTW - not only can you rename the folders but you can move many poses into other libraries with CKRename. So I have all my Hair MAT poses in the Face library and various others that I have moved to the Camera library

P5 sometimes gives me fits when textures are loaded thru cm2 files or such. That's one of the reasons I enjoy 5 so much, nested folders. I have to see if DS can apply mats from the camera folder. hmm,, another thing on my to do list. I put spaces in front of the folder most used, rather than marks. At least one thing is being accomplished, P is getting cleaned out and sorted.

'I think "!" is fine within(inside) MAT folders to keep certain MATs pose files at the top inside the folder' True, anton. But it's also true that any number from 0 - 9 would work just as well within a folder. For those who don't know, it's worth looking again at the way poser reads folder names. Symbols and numbers come first, upper case second and lower case last. So poser would read folders in this order 0 people People people I'm a bit of a cotrol freak in that I like my folders kept in good order. That's as a user. As a merchant, I would never inflict chaos on other users. All my folders are named after the product. And within those folders, I use a numbering system so that the MATs correspond to the figure number. (This is partly because I have an ongoing modular product with a large number of figures and files). I also add the prefix 'mac' to all my textures so they can't be confused with anyone else's. Like 'macwood01.jpg'. This is important because there are 1000s of textures out there. If you call yours 'wood.jpg' you're just asking for trouble. Merchants should ask themselves a few simple questions before releasing a product. Like, "If I bought this, would anything in it P me off?" mac

Merchants should ask themselves a few simple questions before releasing a product. Like, "If I bought this, would anything in it P me off?" Good idea mac!

I know they can't please all of us. everyone likes things done a different way. The more files I amass the better I have to organize things. The more external programs I use, causes more problems (vue liking obj files that are linked from props in main folder). Just give me my files, no fancy characters, put them in logical folders. Yes, if you are a merchant I have no problem with you naming it after yourself. That also makes my life easier, just > name the obj, character etc and especially texture folder after yourself, and if you don't mind, make another folder in the textures folder with the object name > mac/shirt. That would make me very happy. See, I'm not impossible to please. I'm tired of having my text editor open, just in case I have to check the path on the file to see where you put stuff, Poser doesn't always like that. Now of course as Merchants, with all the time and effort you put into making these products for sale, I can just see you sitting there saying, Oh Yeah, this is my product and I'll package it anyway I want and if you don't like it, who cares. Well, I really don't. Do it anyway you want, and if it doesn't sell, well. It's your product, but it's my money, my program, my computer.