I've been away from Poser for a couple years and I've forgotten a lot.  I know there were certain folders that you shouldn't touch (move, rename, etc.) but I can't remember which ones. 

Any help/info would be much appreciated. :)

I'm using Poser 7

 I always custom organize my poser content, into categories etc... Or I'd go nuts since everyone name their things differently.

I leave the textures and geometries paths as they are, since they are refered to by filepaths, and some special morph data folders that some projects have. 

But I move around most other things in 'libraries' as I need and it generally works fine.

Welcome Back Neyjour! Long time no see. You can move just about anything in the libraries folder except for !DAZ and other morph data folders. Don't move anything in Geometries or the poser system folders like UI, Prefs, PoserHTML, Python, Scripts or Plugins. I move textures just about anywhere and poser always finds them.

I've organized my stuff now in about 50 external Runtimes so I install the complete item with Geometries and textures in the specific Runtime, e. g. "ClothesV4". The only files that have to be located in the main runtime are Python Scripts and the !DAZ folder in libraries. The rest you can move around.

Thank you so much everyone. :)

And LostinSpaceman, thanks for the WB! :)

As a subset of things not to move, I think V4 needs to be in the main runtime if you have multiple ones.  That's something else you'll need to remember.

No, V4 and the other DAZ figures can be moved in each and every other runtime as long you have the !DAZ folder in libraries of the main runtime.

Ah, okay Jules.  I just leave v4 in my main runtime to be sure.

What about A3?  I put her in her own runtime and haven't had any problems and none of her stuff is in my main.

A3 has the morph data included in the cr2 so no need for morph data in the Main Runtime. V3, M3 , SP3  have the Morph information stored in the chanVis and Delta informatiomn in the !DAZ folder, that has to be in the main runtime.

Hurray for dumb luck...

 Welcome back, Neyjour!

In general, leave the base files alone (that's not saying none of them can be moved, but...) And install all the stuff you've bought into a separate (or several separate) runtime(s) That way you're sure you're not accidentally moving or deleting anything vital, and with today's computers it's not likely to be a lack of space that would make you go and delete anything :)

Organization in Poser is very important.  Libraries grow quickly and it soon gets to a point where you can't find anything.

So far as organization goes...

You have 2 options that can help you with organizing and being able to find things:

1.  Create sub folders inside the library folders.

This is the preferred method for many. It uses one single runtime with lots and lots of sub folders within the main library folders, in order to organize the content.  The learning curve is minimal. If you can right click and create a new folder and drag and drop, you can do this.  The learning curve is knowing what folders you can move files around in and what folders not to touch.

You can move around the files inside the library sub folders. 

Don't move, touch or rename files or folders  in the top level of the library folder that carry the name of the merchants, or the "Morph" or the !DAZ  folder because those are morphs and need to stay where they are.

Just work with the standard ones inside the Library folder such as camera, faces, hand, pose, props, hair, lighting, character. 

Leave the files inside the geometries and texture folders alone.

Right now you have a hodge podge of files for various figures in each folder plus props, poses, lights etc.

Open the character folder and create sub folders for each of your figures IE: V3, V4, M3, D3, Aiko, Apollo etc.  Do the same for each of the other library sub folders.  You can also create other folders too, such as "Poses" or "Props" or "Backgrounds" or "Hair" etc.

Then go through your files in each of the library subfolders and move them into the appropriate folder for the figure they belong.

Things like lights, and poses and hair and props are universal items really, and can be used across figure, so I like to have those separated instead of filed by "figure" because I often use V3 poses on Aiko and hair for Posette on V3 etc.

You will run into a problem for items that are for more than one figure. Like where do you file those?  For exxample an outfit that is for V3 and M3 and Aiko and SP3: where do you file them? If you put them in the V3 folder, then you forget that they can be used for M3 and Aiko and SP3 too. It was this complication that prompted me to move onto using external runtimes (described below).

I did it this way at one time and it worked well enough,well except for items that could be used on a few figures like I described above.   I decided I wanted even more organization, and I didn't like having one huge runtime because it was impossible to really burn it to a CD/DVD without having to break it into bits and pieces.  Plus it took Poser forever to load because the runtime was so big.  So I tried option 2 below.

**2. Multiple External Runtimes
**

This is my choice for organizing my installed content.  I did the first method first and it worked for awhile, but as my content grew, it became cumbersome, so I switched to multiple external runtimes, which works out great.

It's really pretty easy.  The problem is that most people over think it.  

Just remember that an external runtime is exactly the same as the runtime in your Poser folder, only it's just sitting in a different location.  

It functions exactly the same way. 

And files are installed / added to them in exactly the same way. 

And they have the same folders in them as the main runtime does. Well almost the same folders.  Scripts for example have to be installed into the main Poser runtime and won't work from an external runtime.

Here is a sample of an external runtime.  Simply download it and unzip it. You will have a folder called "Runtime_Sample"

www.divshare.com/download/8531562-1f6

Find a place on your hard drive that you want to have your external runtimes living. For me it's on my partitioned drive D.

Make a folder called "Poser Runtimes"

s263.photobucket.com/albums/ii124/Acadia_ca/

Then simply copy that sample runtime you unzipped into that "Poser Runtimes" folder and make as many copies of it as you want to.  Change "Runtime_Sample" to whatever name you want.  Here is what I named some of mine:

s263.photobucket.com/albums/ii124/Acadia_ca/

Then all you do is simply install your content into whichever runtime you feel it fits best into.

Once you have finished installing your content look in the Runtimes where you have Daz characters such as V3 or V4 etc.  Go into the Library folder and look for the !DAZ folder.  Make a COPY of that folder and place the COPY in exactly the same place in the main Poser Runtime. 

Poser looks there first so by placing a copy of them in there, you are helping Poser out.  Don't delete the !DAZ folder from your other runtimes though. That defeats the purpose of having external runtimes, which is not only to allow Poser to work faster, organize your content better, but also to not lose your installed runtime content in the even of a crash because hopefully you have also saved your external runtimes to a couple other places for easy access in case of the need to reinstall.

Hope that helps.  If you have more questions, just ask.

Oh yeah, never install anything directly to your runtime. Always unzip / install to a folder on your desk top so you can see what is in side and what the folder structure is.

Quote -
Make a folder called "Poser Runtimes"

I have a quibble with this one sentence Acadia. I don't remember what it was or when, but a few years back there was an issue with some utility or program choking if you used the word "Runtime" anywhere outside the actual runtimes like this. I remember this because I had just that setup for my external runtimes. Now they're all under a folder called Poser Content instead.  I wish I could remember the program or python script that was choking on this issue.

Quote - > Quote -

Make a folder called "Poser Runtimes"

I have a quibble with this one sentence Acadia. I don't remember what it was or when, but a few years back there was an issue with some utility or program choking if you used the word "Runtime" anywhere outside the actual runtimes like this. I remember this because I had just that setup for my external runtimes. Now they're all under a folder called Poser Content instead.  I wish I could remember the program or python script that was choking on this issue.

"Poser Content" works too.