Attached Link: http://www.cssm.nl

Hi, I am working with Poser for a few years now.. but the only thing I keep struggling with is with the huge amount of different poser files (add-ons). Does anybody have any advice on how to organise all my add-ons? Preferably I would be able to see in a simple overview what the add-ons contain, rather than having to install each and everyone of them. In other words; I would like to start maintaining some system (via a utility, dbase or what have you) to organise my poser add-ons, including a thumbnail of the prop, character, pose... etc. Anyone? Thx in advance. Regards, RF

The latest release of PBoost fits most of the bill. Not free but worth the price.

I could use a utility like that, too. The link to the "tutorial page" at the authors store isn't valid. I'm particularly concerned about his mention of problems with WinXP, although it could be nothing. Anybody know for sure?

If it's still on site, get the compatability tester utility. After running it and it says you're OK then it's a safe bet to buy. I don't think it's an XP issue but a NTFS issue (NT's file sytem). Ever since NT 3.51, NT has been quirky. On some machines it's fine, others have issues.

I would love to see this for the Mac 10 OS.

Bobbie, it's not me to defend Windows, but the "issue with PBooost" is actually a Poser bug. The symptoms are as you describe, but the root cause is Poser. When Poser can't find a texture, it opens every folder under Runtime in a wild search for the texture. And it leaves every one of those folders open - never closes a one! Windows 9x couldn't care less about open folders, but Windows 2K/XP keeps track of such things, and won't let anyone else access them until the requesting application - in this case Poser - closes them. Which it nevers does. So PBooost can't get to them, because Windows has them locked (to Poser) as you say. Only known solution to date is - as you indicate - to run CRPro to correct the links thus ensuring that Poser doesn't have to run its buggy shotgun approach to finding a missing texture. And a by-product is much faster loading of figures/props/etc too. I'm sure that Howard would be more than happy to receive a freebie Mac, aalthough there would be a lot more involved to port Hogsoft utils to MacOS or OSX. And you are most definitely right about Howard being pretty busy at the moment. But hang in there, there are some amazing new technologies coming...

I think that's the best explination of the problem I've read yet.

The ultimate solution is actually for the artists involved to get their texture references correct in the first place. So what we have with Poser and Windows XP is a combination of problems relating to how we cope with something that was put together incorrectly.

Bobbie, You have a valid point - but I never store anything where the creator tells me anyway ;-) I store items including textures by category - usually the base figure - therefore every one of the references are wrong for me!

Many people don't do things the way you and I do. Many people install items in the default paths as they're presented to them. Unfortunately too many of those people never know the true cause of the problems they experience, even if they do recognize the problems.

Thanks for the info, guys. Just bought PBoost and CRPro. Shoulda bought em a long time ago.

Doesn't PBoost just provide a capability of reorganizing folders that P5 already has? It requires that the files be loaded when the original poster didn't want to do that. The only quick way of doing things is, if you've got PoserPro or P5 is to use a thumbnail program to make contact sheets of all the Poser thumbnails in Libraries(doesn't work with P4 and earlier because they use the proprietary .rsr format instead of the common .png graphics format for the thumbnails. This approach still requires installing the files, but they can be in a temporary runtime in P5 that can be deleted after the contact sheets are created. With PBoost, I believe that the files have to remain on the computer to browse through them. The only other way is a more laborious process of using a database, that accepts inserted images (which can use .png thumbnails created in PP or P5), spreadsheet, or word processing program.

For reviewing your uninstalled zips, P3dO will browser .zip folders, it dislays an image available in the first item in the zip as the icon. In the event that the first item isn't a graphic, you can click on the zip item in P3dO and it will expand the zip file, displaying icons for all items within the zip. Granted that's not the best solution that you could possibly think of, but it requires zero effort on your part, just open P3dO and point it at your folder of uninstalled zip files. No preparation needed. That was a good enough compromise for me ;-)