Does anybody have suggestions for a database or other sorting software to house a large 200Mb index of Poser downloads with thumbnails? I've been using Word, but that chokes when a table gets larger than 20Mb, so I'm constantly breaking it up each table into different files to keep things manageable. Unfortunately, each subdivision leads to more manual work when I index a new disk because it requires opening and closing a number of files to move the appropriate items to the right file. With a few thousand items indexed, it's finally becoming useful because I can now look up a topic, such as science fiction environments and see thumbnails of a large cross-section of what I have. Unfortunately, I've still only gone through about 10%-20% of everything I have. A big thank you goes out to all the creative people that have shared their works.

Hmm do you have Access? It could be a job for an access database. Possibly also for Excell, I'm not sure about the pictures there. My suggestion would be access or some similar database program. Nice idea btw... my own downloads are just stacked onto cd's without thumbnails. I do have a disk-indexing program though (Haxial's DiskCatalog) but I could use the pictures too :o)

Attached Link: http://www.extensis.com/products/

If your using thumbnails as the base of your catologing,why not try an image assets database software? I have used Extension's Portfolio and find it very powerful. They have a demo to try. SWAMP

I have a different trick entirely - I use folder naming conventions. I have each prop, or class of props etc in folders with appropriate, descriptive names, along with thumbs. This applies to both stuff installed in Poser Runtime and to the original zips and thumbs, which I keep in two separate places. And then I use good old Win Explorer to do a search through the whole drive and my hundreds of thousands (!!) of files. So yesterday I wanted a particular piece of clothing by BAT - I wanted to see when I bought it, which version I have etc. A quich search gave me a couple of hundred BAT hits and I localised the thing I wanted. Takes a coupe of minutes. I do about 15 searches every day. Without building any databases, without any work at all :o) Been doing this since '98. So if I want to see what spaceships I have, I'll do a similar type of search - 'space' for instance. Or by artist/modeler, 'hoagland'. And so on. If I want to browse thumbs I use ACDSee and flip through the folders I found in my search. The only work involved was creating all those folders in the first place - as I collected all the stuff I have. I put each month of purchases and freebies into a new folder tree. A month needs about 800 new folders in that tree. I have an empty folder tree that I use as a template every new month, so many of the folders are already there when I start. Each month of Poser stuff comes to about 2 Gig on average. And I backup every 2 months to DVD, 2 months just fit onto a disc. :] Fish

Fish... o.O That's a LOT of stuff... Usually I gather about what can fit onto a normal CD (700Mb) a month... but a DVD every second month? Whew! Good idea about the folders. But I guess it's a bit late for me to start that now :o( I have 25-30 CD's with Poser zips on them... It would need a MAJOR vacation to sort those out LOL

Well Trekkie, 2 Gigs per month looks a bit more than it is, really. I collect all the stuff in a monthly folder, then unzip and organize each separate package there before copying it to my Runtime, when I need it. A good way to try and keep track of stuff. It has a tendency to disappear in that huge runtime otherwise. I sometimes find a commercial product I bought long ago lurking someplace in there untouched lol. So a fair amnount of the stuff is in the folder in zipped and unzipped format at once. So maybe it's not really worse than about 1,5 Gigs strictly speaking. I still spend wayyyyyyyyy too much time and money and effort on this silliness lol. But you're not much better are you? :o) :] Fish

I've used Excel a bit with graphics at work and it seems more difficult than Word. Does anybody have experience with using a lot of graphics in Access? I'm not in the market for buying an expensive commercial database program because this is just a hobby. I like the idea of unzipping everything and using a thumbnail program to catch all the .png's. I wanted something more complete even though it's taking considerably more work. I've been creating thumbnails for .3ds and other files that Poser has to import. Word searches don't catch everything, so I'm putting up with the manual effort to thoroughly index everything. A word search won't find every sword if "sword" isn't in the name ("dragonslayer" is a sword, but a search wouldn't find that). A lot of zips contain items in multiple categories. A fancy package might include a character, hair, various clothing items, props, poses, lights, and all kinds of goodies. It's kind of silly trying to index everything, but it's finally becoming useful.

Attached Link: http://www.whereisit-soft.com/

Hi, not sure if this is what you are looking for or not. I use a program called "Where Is It" that allows me to "catalog" my hard drives and all of my Poser CDs (64 at last count). The program is only $ 30 USD, and comes with several plug-ins that will read your zip files and assign a graphics to that file. IE, when you click on the file name, it will show the graphic that you picked to represent it. I've been using this program for about 6 years now, and have been more than satisfied with it. Hope this helps.

But you're not much better are you? :o) Er... uhm.. now that's an UNFAIR remark... Well I guess the answer is... no GG

Here's an example of how I'm doing the indexing. There's multiple lines for one DAZ item because a sort on the third column, Category, will put all the hairs together, all the poses together, etc.

For the curious, the last column is Yes or No if there is a texture. Additional columns, not shown, are for image usage restrictions: None (commercial or personal use allowed), Unstated (has a readme, but doesn't specifically identify usage), no readme, or personal use only; Disk # (so I can find it); and notes if there's something worth saying about the item that's not evident in the thumbnail. There are some things I'd already do differently since I indexed this item last year. Clothing textures should be moved to the clothing item; same with hair and hair textures. The index keeps evolving as it gets bigger. New subcategories get created when there's too many items in it. At least it's providing me a lot of utility.