Studio 4.22 and DIM -> metadata?
generalgameplaying
Posts: 517
Except for a messy start, i installed everything via DIM. The sorting order in Studio remains fully messed up, almost as if it was ignoring any order entirely.
Should i use some "update metadata" feature within Studio in this scenario?
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Comments
Which 'sorting order'... in Smart Content or elsewhere?
Oh, it's smart content with the products view.
It almost always shows a certain product first, which does not match at all, what it should be sorted by.
So if the metadata isn't in the CMS, i might have to tell Studio to fetch it somehow. Or if it has to for some other reason. I just don't know if i really should, as some actions might damage the installation, such as updating products installed with DIM from within Studio. That's why i am asking here.
The "same" metadata (so we're told) is installed with DIM, so there is no need to "update" it with Connect. Many users would strongly advise against it. If you have Products/Files showing in Smart Content, it has metadata. Note that some older products do not have detailed metadata, i.e., Compatibility, Content Type, etc., so they might not appear at all.
Have you checked "Filter by Context"? That will change the resulting list quite a bit, limiting it to what is compatible (as defeined in the metadata) with the currently selected scene item. Sometimes the contents of the list seem at odds with the selection, but there are some products, like Shader Presets, that are compatible with "Any Surface" (or some other generic property) which could be, well, any surface.
@NorthOf45 My issue is with sorting by release date, by installation date, by order date, and such, just to skim through latest additions. It's apparently not sorting them correctly, so i hoped for it to be mendable. Indeed, this time i forgot to uncheck "Filter by Context", but it's not much of a difference, those in front often are much older. Studio does show "No" for both metadata and installed, seemingly for all items, though stuff is there and usable.
Those No's are related to DAZ Connect, which you do not need if you have installed with DIM. Ignore it.
As to sorting, I can sort using the drop-down list, although Oldest/Recent for Release, Order, Install, Update all sort of look the same, as they are closely related. The relevant dates should come from the Manifest Archive's .dsx files, created by DIM as the products are installed.
Did you at any point go online and sync with Connect metadata? If you did, many date related entries will be corrupted. This is a well-known bug at this point...
If you use DIM and Content Wizard to install Daz3D and 3rd-party products, as well as much rely on Smart Content, suggest manage your cms database with a DBA tool - https://www.navicat.com/en/products/navicat-for-postgresql, one of my favorite tools, neat and powerful. Any date info. wrong in Product table, just correct it ( must learn required knowlege and skills fo cms / dzContent first...)
DIM and Content Wizard can assure correct Install date and Last Update date. Sort by them. There's no sorting by Order date in Smart Content and do not sort by Release date either, mostly messy, even DIM doesn't use it now.
And never log on to Connect to update metadata !
This might be it. I am running the laptop as some sort of a test system, and intended to redo everything once certain that it pays for installing the actual machine.
Though the "messy start" (installation-wise) had been at the start, almost a year ago. So most content has been installed later on, and is not ordered correctly, i.e. the items in front may be somewhat recent but are not correctly put.
So i'll have to either repair diligently or rather reinstall in a clean way at some point. I still am not sure how to really do a clean install based on DIM, though. Haven't researched into that too deeply either. My last exit-node had been that i had the impression i have to install Connect first before actually having DIM, which might have been a misconception.
Thank you for noting!
@NorthOf45 @crosswind Thank you for the details :). "Never..." - if i remember right, support had told me to reinstall the continent i'm on, if i ever connected wrongly, or something.
Sorting by product id isn't the worst to have, though. Maybe i'll extend on parsing orders and fetching license information at some point (i need something more specific than some other manager software), which might result in the capability to build my own content dialog (with some other features i might want in). Parsing installation files might be interesting too, at some point. So i'll keep that in mind. A clean reinstall will be done, once i have a clear idea how exactly to proceed, and a concept to backup installation files properly.
"Connect" is built-in to DAZ Studio, no need to add anything else. If you use DIM exclusively to install, you should not use Connect for anything, even to "update" the metadata, which has had problems in the past. Don't log in from Studio, and remove the credentials from the login prompt. The database retains the status of products owned for Connect-related operations, and will add those icon overlays to the product thumbnails. If installed with DIM, the thumbnails will be coloured, but with the stylized "C" to indicate ready to install with Connect. If not yet installed, but purchased at the time of the last login, they will be greyed-out until you install with DIM.
The only way to clear any Connect-related status is to reset the database and re-import the metadata. Be sure to export your User data so that you can restore any customization you have made to any metadata. Re-import your Vendor data first, then User data after. Doing both at the same time seems to confuse the database.
DIM can export quite a lot of product data from the manifests. Tick the boxes next to the products, right-click, and choose "Export Selected to CSV..."
Editing the database directly isd a bad idea - for one thing it has changed, and may wekll chnage again, so the safe route is to use the built-in access functions (script or SDK).
Yup, I know. I mostly touch what have to be corrected. Actually I don't know well about DAZ Script let alone SDK but I know well DBA and postgreSQL / dzContent.