I wonder if it would be possible to put stuff done by merchants under their name in Poser rather than the name of the model. It seems that it would be a lot easier to keep track of what was created by who. Also the mat files are nice, but sometimes they aren't differentiated as a mat file, so you don't know if it's a mat or a pose. I have stuff that installs under the name of the character, but if someone else creates a character with the same name what happens then? There should be some type of guideline set up so that everyone does it the same way. Anyone else have these problems? Marque

I have a german version of Poser. The path names are different. Oh joy, I have to move and hack all the files. But on the other hand my folders are real organized. I add a unique string to all filenames of a package. PackageX_char.cr2 PackageX_readme.txt PackageX_tex.jpg Thats one time work, but afterward I know which files belong to which package. One advanage is that I can put all Vicky clothes in one folder. That way it is real easy to mix and match stuff. I scroll up and down and add whatever tickles my fancy.

Marque, I agree. Sometimes I am not consistant with my own products. Adding other merchants to them mix really can cause problems. I have started putting MAT files in directories such as MAT-Leotard. I notice some of the other vendors doing this. I think this is good because all the MAT files will be grouped together. I have been trying to avoid making too many new directories. If a product is based on another then I will put it in that directory, such as Victoria Clothing. Maybe we should develop some guidelines and hope people will follow them :)

Hoping Poser 5 will also address this issue. Thanks for the suggestion Yuri. I'm in the process of trying to clean everything up. Also have a lot of beta stuffage that I need to get rid of as I don't need them anymore and it gets confusing....lol Another thing while I'm thinking of it, we might also look at having a guideline on the names. I know that windows and probably Mac can handle the longer names, but when I back up my stuff that I have bought online onto a cd, it truncates the name and it gets crazy trying to figure out what is what. Marque

You said Merchant and I thought you meant the store ...where you can find items listed by merchant...but you really mean freestuff right...got to http://www.renderosity.com/members.ez?Who=membername and you can click on their Freestuff contributions.....

No, merchants. I don't expect people who give stuff away to go to the trouble, though it would be nice. I'm addressing people who sell their products here and at the other stores. I'm not talking about finding the products here, I'm talking about after you install them on your computer. Marque

Actually it's kind of funny Marque...I just started doing that with my newest product Stavana. I found that some of the items I had purchased got a bit confusing between Poses and MATS and decided to make it very clear what was what. There's nothing worse then searching 20 minutes through a huge list of pulldowns to look for 1 thing that would have taken a second if properly labled. GeorgeD

Just FYI, I've set my stuff with Cin_Productname... for example... all of the MAT poses for Dok Mai are in the Cin_Dok Mai folder... with the morph pose labled as -Dok Mai Morph- and the texture labeled as -Dok Mai Texture- since the thumbnail image for both is the same picture, so that it's pretty easy to see what's what... My Miranda package was originally set up the same way, but when I submitted it to DAZ they renamed the folder that the poses were in to MAT Miranda, and the Savannah package I worked on with Spectre3 is labeled as MAT Savannah. My freebie Nikki texture is set up as Cin_Nikki. I prefer to plug my name into the folder name so that I can keep all my own stuff together for my own benefit, and I lable each pose so that it's clear what it does... for example if it changes the eye color, it's labeled as Eyes - Blue, or Eyes - Green. So that even if the .rsr/.png file isn't clear, the name of the file is. Just my two cents. K-

Well, since Marque opened a thread with suggestions to merchants, my last couple purchases and browses through the store left me with a couple. Please don't put ! + or other punctuation in front of the names of your files or directories. Especially directories. Alphabetical order doesn't work when the vendors try to supercede it. I don't remember whether + comes before ! in a computer's alphabet or the other way around. You're trying to make your thing pop up to the top so I won't have to hunt for it, but if you all do that and use different punctuation all you do it get me lost. It ends up being more harm than good and looking, uh, no offense, but egotistical. Please do away with Ultra, Mega, Superdeluxe, whatever the grand term of the day is. It actually makes it harder to remember your product's name because there are so many Ultra somethings. Some products are using 2 or 3 aggrandizing modifiers in the names of their products and it just sounds silly. I feel like you're asking me if I want to SuperSize that... not a very professional effect. It was fine when it made a product stand out, but that time is gone. Now they all sound the same. If you're packaging your stuff up in a nice installer, please please please do not force me to wait while the installer searches for my poser directory. It takes forever on my drives, sometimes so long that I think the machine has frozen. Let me select the directory myself. Many times faster. And what Marque said. Definitely. Phoenix

Personally, I just ask the user to make a folder in the relevant categori/categories (figure, props...) named thip4Mike or thip4Vicki, or whatever. You can put all meshes, cr2's and textures in the same folder, saving you a lot of grief w/ the paths. Rsr's will still have to be created on P4, but Poser will do that automatically on first load, you just have to re-save the item once to get a thumbnail. Seems like the easiest solution to me.

I agree with Marque - I started to rename my stuff with merchantname and then itemname, and doing the same thing with the Textures. It is a lot of work to rename them even if you use Poser-Explorer. But I would like to see it also at the freestuff. I am always surprised how people can say: free item from xxx, downloaded at march 1999 - I cant tell... And sometimes I spend a night sorting items and renaming my stuff till the night is over without been finished. Is it only me? that I cant organize the libarys or do have other people the same problems? I can do what I want - there will be mess forever...:(((( LOL

I agree Marque. A while back I began doing what you are suggesting, and putting my stuff in folders called Mehndi_____ this that and the other... and my textures in similar folders, named Mehndi_____ etc. I hope this will help folks find my work after install, and also rememeber where they got it from ;)

Oh, I have a question about the !'s or +'s being added to things... I don't do that with my folders, but I do do that with the things inside the folders... to use my Miranda package as an example. In order to keep things in a somewhate logical order I named the morph pose file --Miranda Morph-- so that it would be first in the Cin_Miranda/MAT Miranda folder, and then named the textures -Miranda Texture-, etc... without doing that, the default texture and morph pose file would be somewhere near the middle of the list and harder to locate, when they would be things that need to be applied first... Does anyone have a problem with that? Or is it just if I had named the Pose folder itself -Cin-Miranda- so that it would be at the top of the Pose Library list?

My latest project used a ! inside the character folder, simply because of the HUGE amount of other cr2's that are in there. So, the character is the first thing in the thumbnail list. Because her name begins with a P, it's be a pain in the butt scrolling to her every single time I want to load her. I name all my folders with MAT ----, POSE ----, and MAT & MOR ----. Inside them, you'll find TEX ----, POSE ----, TRANS ----, etc. I'm reallllll anal about this stuff LOL And all my textures always go to the same folder "Xena Texture Packs" with sub folders for each product. And phoenixamon is so totally right. Nothing worse than sitting there waiting and waiting for the installer to search your hard drive (having a 20gb and a 40 gb I do understand LOL). Mine all have a cancel button so you can install to the dir you want yourself :) Marque, good idea of the file naming. I'll try to remember to name my future projects accordingly.

Cin, For me, the punctuation before filenames in not really a problem. It's in front of folder names that it screws me up. If you've got a folder and everything in it relates to one product, it makes sense for you to make certain files within it stand out for ease of use. That's actually quite helpful. But making the whole folder jump to the top is a no-no in my world. Hope that makes sense. (Also I've no idea how others feel about this. This is just a bug that got at me after y last purchase.) Also I absolutely love when artists lable things MAT whatever, MOR whatever... those who don't I end up renaming their files. ;) I'd vote for another as well... EXP whatever for Expression. I end up with 2 kinds of things in faces... those that create a new character and those that create an expression. I really like to keep them separated. Thanks. Phoenix

I rename every download. I got tired of having zipped files with a female name like "Tabitha" and not knowing whether it was a character, a texture, a morphtarget, or a hairstyle. I also download, transfer, and store into designated folders, so it is more important to know what the object is than who created it (although that is vital, too), so the source comes at the end of the name. For example: "amazonthrone-sharkey" would clearly go into furniture, but "amazonprincess-sharkey" would not. With fifteen people naming their stuff "shield01" and other such helpful clues (not!), I had to get more specific early in the process, and here is where recording the creator is most helpful. Besides, I used to be a reference librarian, and habits die hard. Carolly

Dear Carolly and Ron, You both seem to have an excess of organizational skills. Please give me some. ;) No, actually if those of you who are good at organizing things would PLEASE share your methods with us, that would be excellent, because I can't find a system that suits me and would like to adopt a nice clean setup to keep things organized until (hopefully one day) Poser 5 comes along with a more flexible directory structure. Phoenix

I just wish Poser would allow subfolders. That would be a tremendous help, believe me.

Kate, Amen! ;)

One thing I hate to see is a character folder with just one or two items in it, as eventually we are going to run out of folders (I'm unsure if the list will even scroll). I also like to combine things like MAT poses, provided they will all work on the same items. I also hate to see too many items in the same folder, 6 or 10 or 12 is about right. So I've been using "Digital Dreams" for my one or two item stuff, like the makeup case or Supermodel Dina and also some of my newer Free Stuff items like this gun. I have dedicated folders for Supermodel, SMV Costumes, SMV Essentials I, Vickie Costumes and so on. I try to indicate who the item is for, too - Supermodel Vickie stuff doesn't fit Vickie and visa versa. I'd guess SMV & SMMV are the only figures/characters (other than possably Dina) outside of the DAZ standards that have a large number of items available, though, thus the need for many folders.

You know that dream... where you're on a pirate ship with all your sister's friends, straddling a cannon, going "Yo Ho Ho"? What comedian was that? I can ALMOST hear his voice. No single character gets one folder for me, because it's too hard to scroll through them all and poser does limit them anyway. Everybody got their eyes remapped to take Vicky eye maps because I have som many of those, so now there's just one eye MAT folder with my faves. Posette has folders coming out her ears (it's ugly!) with clothes. I can't figure what the heck to do with props anymore because so many are kits. I need help. I need an organizational tutor.

@ronknights You should really consider to move your MAT files to another folder (like the nearly empty camera folder). That cleans things up big time.