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Poser Technical F.A.Q (Last Updated: 2024 Dec 04 2:47 am)

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This is the place you come to ask questions and share new ideas about using the internal file structure of Poser to push the program past it's normal limits.

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Subject: Poser 5 UI Tweak to Display More Library Folders (a la P4)


layingback ( ) posted Tue, 25 November 2003 at 12:48 PM · edited Thu, 25 July 2024 at 5:32 AM

file_85445.gif

Annoyed by Poser 5 top level folder display, which fritters away the valuable library real estate by showing you folder icon after folder icon? Yearn for the simple list of folder names like the image above with far less scrolling? After all you know they are folders without CL screaming it at you - repeatedly. OK, if you have Photoshop heres how. (Yes, you need to have Photoshop as the interface is stored in .psd files!!!) This tweak's not perfect due to Poser 5 UI artifacts, but to me at least it achieves its stated goal. Find Runtimeui27100_library.psd and make a backup copy in case you want to go back to the stock interface. Now open the same file in Photoshop. First lets shrink the images: Image Size down to 20 pixels high (and thus 30 pixels wide). Now Canvas Size it back to 91x60 placing the image in the upper left corner. Youll see that there are 5 Layers, 4 starting with numbers and a 5th one used to construct the first 4 that well ignore. Theres no more work to be done on layer 27140, but on 27130 and 27120 we want to move the image all the way to the top right. Select a marquee rectangle around the image data on 27130, and drag the image data all the way to the right, holding down the Shift key. Repeat this on layer 27120. Now on 27110 select and delete everything. Finally Zoom way in if youve not already, and using the pencil tool create a single black pixel on left hand side of each of 27110, 27120 & 27130 about 6 pixels down from the top. And on 27110 only also create a matching single black pixel 6 pixels down from the top on the right side. Save the file. Thats it. What weve done is resize the image down to save space, removed the folder icon entirely for a library folder while leaving the ones used for going up 1 folder level and for changing runtimes. The little dots are needed because Poser 5 insists on centering the folder icons, which makes the folder name hard to read with an icon in the middle of it. The moving and the dot trick leaves the important center area clear. Couple of notes: It would seem simpler to just delete this file or clear it all to transparent pixels, but unfortunately Poser 5 wont display the folders at all if you do that. Also note that CL is using an early PSD format else the files would be huge so you cant use any modern Photoshop trickery like changing the opacity settings, or rather if you do itll be ignored. As always your mileage may vary, and dont ask me to upload the edited file, I dont need CL coming after me for copyright violations - they've had too much of my money for P5 already ;-)


numanoid ( ) posted Tue, 25 November 2003 at 7:47 PM

Thank you. I was trying to achieve exactly that look. It is so much better. Thanks.


layingback ( ) posted Tue, 25 November 2003 at 8:57 PM

You're welcome, but thanks for the feedback. I'd prefer to get rid of the circles stacking up the center but didn't find a way. It should be possible to use a solid background (vs. a transparent one) to prevent this, but it would have to be the same color for each library - and Poser 5 has a darkening color, library by library, so that would be equally ugly. I'd like to switch that varying background color off, as the Camera library background is way too dark, but I've not found the widget to turn for that one yet... BTW, see the centering error in the item display? The text for an item is correctly centered in the area to the left of the slider. But if you look carefully, you'll see the image is centered on the entire column - as if the slider wasn't there.


Migal ( ) posted Thu, 27 November 2003 at 3:58 AM

Cool discovery, LB. :-)


Puntomaus ( ) posted Sat, 06 December 2003 at 6:19 PM

Humm, I like the folders but anyway cool tip :-). And you do not need Photoshop to open .psd files - all the other graphic apps can do it too.

Every organisation rests upon a mountain of secrets ~ Julian Assange


mountainmaster ( ) posted Sun, 07 December 2003 at 5:57 PM

Thanks, it works great. Here is an additional tip: You can make that dot stand out less by not making it black but R:155 G:148 B:132, which is the average P5 menu color.


MaterialForge ( ) posted Wed, 10 December 2003 at 7:21 AM

Way cool, thanks for sharing this!


OKCRandy ( ) posted Fri, 23 September 2005 at 10:13 AM

You would have thought they would have built this into Poser 6.




layingback ( ) posted Fri, 23 September 2005 at 10:23 AM

Yeah, but instead they broke it, so you can't apply this to P6!!! NIH? See PoserPros for discussions on this at P6 release time.


OKCRandy ( ) posted Fri, 23 September 2005 at 12:57 PM

NIH? What? I discovered this problem when I first got Poser 6, ask support about supporting more UI prefs like this and got told they did not support hacking. I was not asking how to hack it I just wanted more options. LMAO




layingback ( ) posted Fri, 23 September 2005 at 1:26 PM

Sorry :-) Although your reply reinforces that it likely was NIH. NIH - a long standing term, often used in software industry, usually applied to the more arrogant - "Not Invented Here." Obviously used internally to the company ;-) Externally it usually permutates into something like "Design Choice." I'd hoped the SR1 fix would enable an alternate hack at least. But in SR1 they (re-)allowed larger than 91px, but still steadfastly ignore smaller than 91px. Bah!


OKCRandy ( ) posted Fri, 23 September 2005 at 4:11 PM

Well, the only thing I could think of would be for users to make their wishes know. I do not know if they have a suggestion box. Probably not, but if they got bombed with the request may happen. I was not asking them how to hack it, I was asking them to support of a choice of to display or not to display. Randy




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