Attached Link: http://www.sharecg.com/v/34624/Poser/Visual-Index-to-Poser-Animals-Part-1

I finally decided to start posting segments of the Poser content index I've been working on for years. I don't know if there will be a great deal of interest in it since I created it for my own use to make it easier to find the content that I've bought and collected over the years. My focus has been on getting the thumbnails rather than on the readme information. The minutes it would take to dig up info from readmes and paste them into the index becomes a huge time expense when multiplied by the tens of thousands of items I've indexed thus far. I'd rather index more content than index content more completely. That choice allows me to index more content for my needs, but makes the index less useful for others. If somebody has been amassing content as long as I have, the index ought to be useful to them because they'll have most of the files. For others, it at least shows what is available somewhere (or was for many of the older items).

I'm curious if there's much interest in my continuing to share these indexes. Right now, they're broken up into about a hundred files, so it'll be a while till they're all posted if I only put one up once or twice a month. The indexes are maintained in Word and Word slows down when file sizes get over 20Mb, so that's when an index gets subdivided. Even after all the indexes get posted, there ought to be enough new material in them that it's worth reposting the updated older ones. For a while, I was keeping up with the index and was only about a dozen disks away from finishing it at the time. As the index got larger, the need to devote as much time to it went down. It's big enough for me to now find most of what I need whenever I start a project even if it doesn't have all the latest content. I still add to it, but am falling behind massively.

I'm curious if many people think it's worth continuing to post the index. If there's a consensus of what to put up after animals, I'll clean up those indexes and put them up next. The index is not perfect, but it's the most comprehensive index that's available right now.

my vote would be html files.  they would be less MB than word files, and users could load said html files locally and click on links to web. DB would include thumbs and links IMVHO. minimal text.

It was easier converting it to a PDF instead of having to deal with an HTML file containing hundreds to thousands of thumbnail images. The PDF knocked an 18Mb file down to 6Mb which is small by Poser content download standards.

looks good in OS X. in case the notes don't list source, do we contact you, e.g. for source of bat file?

Quote - in case the notes don't list source, do we contact you, e.g. for source of bat file?

It depends if I have time, the phase of the moon, and whether there's a Dick van Dyke rerun I want to catch. :)

Seriously, the indexes are being provided as is without any warranties or guarantees. I'm not providing them to be inundated with requests of where to find items. It takes time to dig up a disk, find the item, scour through the readme for the contact info and reply.

Having the index makes it a little easier for people to find stuff because they have a filename that they can search for. I've had to do searches on filenames to try to find a good copy of a file that didn't download correctly. Every now and then, a file downloads "completely" without errors, but didn't download fully and I'm stuck with a bad zip. I search here, on Google, at ShareCG, and a few other sites to try to redownload the file. It would be nice if most people made the same efforts to find files before posting requests. We've all seen requests for items that can be found by simply querying freestuff here. At least a request can now be posted here with a thumbnail and a filename, making it a lot easier for others to help. After all, an older item probably has stale contact information and others here may still know how to find the person who created the item.

My rough rules of thumb, to decide whether to help somebody find an item, depends on my available time (which I usually don't have much of), whether the requesting person has made any effort to find the file, and whether the person has helped others with problems in this forum. If somebody posts that they're looking for a sword, I'm not even going to open the message. There are a gazillion free swords here and all over the net. Somebody who can't find a sword hasn't done a single search and expects others to waste their time doing their work for them. I'll usually help people that I know have been very helpful in this forum or provided freebies. I'm more willing to spend time helping them than somebody I don't recognize.

For people like you, that have been collecting Poser content even longer than me, having a filename makes it easy to find something on your disks. Being able to scroll through categories of thumbnails makes it easier to find something for an image or to simply be inspired by something buried away on a forgotten disk. That's how I use the index for my own work.

o.k., understood.  we'll see how they react to these indices.  i checked my files and have dozens of results for "bat", but not that prop.  however, i can find it.  I just picked the first item on list as example.