################################################################################ # # # MULTIPLE CONTENT LIBRARIES - DETAILED GUIDE # # Heiwa Interactive Arts - v1.1 # # # ################################################################################ Three more Content Library panes for DAZ Studio: "Content Library 1", "Content Library 2" and "Content Library 3". Each one is a genuine additional instance of Daz's own Content Library pane - not a look-alike - so it has the same toolbar, the same search, the same Info / Tips panel, the same right-click menus and the same drag and drop. Dock them anywhere, keep each one on a different folder, product or category, and stop clicking back and forth in one library. Works in DAZ Studio 4.5 - 4.x (64-bit and 32-bit) AND DAZ Studio 6.25 and 6.26 (three builds, one plugin - see "How To Install.txt"). What is new in 1.1 is in "Multiple Content Libraries - Changelog V1.1.txt". -AI was used for image creation and coding. ================================================================================ QUICK START ================================================================================ 1. Window > Panes (Tabs) > Content Library 1 (also 2 and 3). 2. Drag each pane's tab where you want it. Tab it next to the original Content Library, dock it in another group, or float it on a second monitor. 3. Browse. Each pane keeps its own current folder, layout and panel sizes, and brings them back after a restart. 4. Use the three buttons at the top of a pane to switch that pane between Tree, List and Side By Side. 5. Click + at the top left of a pane to keep the folder you are in as a favourite tab - a named, coloured bookmark that takes you back there with one click. That's the whole idea. The rest of this guide explains every part in detail. ================================================================================ WHAT YOU GET ================================================================================ With Daz's own Content Library that is up to FOUR content libraries open at the same time. Each of the three new panes: - is the real Content Library pane. Daz Studio registers the class of every pane it ships, and this plugin asks Daz for another instance of that class and hosts it. No copied code, no imitation, no modified Daz files. - browses independently: its own current folder, its own selection, its own search, its own Info / Tips panel state. - loads and drags content exactly like the original - double-click, Merge / Replace, drag into the viewport or onto a figure, right-click menus. - remembers its own state per Daz layout: folder, Tree / List / Side By Side mode, panel sizes. - costs nothing until you open it. A pane you never open does not exist yet; a pane you open is a full Content Library and uses the memory of one. ================================================================================ IDEAS FOR USING THEM ================================================================================ - Characters in one pane, clothing in another, poses in a third, and the original library for everything else. - One pane on "Products", one on "Categories", one on the DAZ Studio Formats folder tree - three ways into the same content, all open at once. - Two mapped content directories (say an SSD and a big archive drive), each with its own pane, so you never lose your place in either. - A pane per project: keep the props for the current scene in front of you while you browse for something new somewhere else. - A second monitor full of libraries, floating, while the main screen stays for the viewport. Lost a floating pane? See "Off-screen rescue" below. ================================================================================ THE VIEW BUTTONS (Tree / List / Side By Side) ================================================================================ A thin strip sits at the top of every Content Library 1 / 2 / 3 pane: the favourite tabs on the left (see "Favourite tabs"), three small view buttons on the right: Tree ............ folder tree above the assets (Daz's "View as Tree"). List ............ folders as columns above the assets (Daz's "View as List"). Side By Side .... folder tree next to the assets (Daz's "View Side By Side"). Hover a button for its name. The active one stays highlighted. Right-click a view button (or an empty part of the strip) for "Allow Container View Collapse" - the same option the original Content Library has in its options menu; it lets the folder area be collapsed with the splitter. WHY THE BUTTONS EXIST: Daz's own "View as Tree / View as List / View Side By Side" entries - in the Content Library's options menu and in the main menus - always act on Daz's BUILT-IN Content Library, even when you use them from inside Content Library 1 / 2 / 3. That is how Daz finds the pane to change, and it cannot be redirected. So each copy carries its own buttons, which change only that pane. The result is what you expect: every library can have a different layout. Each pane remembers the mode you chose and comes back in it after a restart or a layout switch. A pane you never touched keeps whatever Daz gives it by default. One cosmetic side effect you may notice: the tick mark next to "View as Tree / List / Side By Side" in Daz's own Content Library menu shows whichever mode was set LAST, in any of the panes. The mark is global even though the layouts are not. It is only the tick mark; the panes themselves are unaffected. ================================================================================ FAVOURITE TABS (new in 1.1) ================================================================================ Every Content Library 1 / 2 / 3 pane has its own row of favourite tabs at the top left - bookmarks to folders, each with a name and a colour. + ................ makes a tab for the folder the pane is showing, named after the folder. click a tab ...... the pane goes straight to that folder. The tab of the folder the pane is showing has a strong outline. right-click a tab Open, Rename..., Colour (ten colours, No Colour or Custom Colour...), Set to Current Folder (the tab then opens the folder you are in), Move Left, Move Right, Delete Tab. >> ............... shows up when the pane is too narrow for all its tabs. It lists the others - click one to open it - and has "Move To Front" to bring one back into the row. - Tabs work for the folders of your content library (DAZ Studio Formats), for Categories and for Products. Up to 30 tabs per pane, names up to 40 characters. A long name is shortened on the tab; hover the tab to see it whole, with the folder it opens. - A folder has at most one tab per pane. "+" on a folder that already has one says so in Daz's status line. - Renaming a tab to an empty name gives it the folder's name back. - The tabs are kept in Windows, per pane, separately for Daz Studio 4 and Daz Studio 6, so they survive restarts and layout changes. - If a tab cannot open its folder any more - the folder was moved, renamed, or its content directory is no longer mapped - Daz's status line says so. Right-click the tab: "Set to Current Folder" points it at the new place, or "Delete Tab". - The tabs belong to the real Content Library panes. The plugin's own, simpler browser (see "The safety net") has none; it remembers its last folder instead. ================================================================================ THE OPTIONS MENU ================================================================================ Every pane has Daz's usual options menu button in its top corner. In Content Library 1 / 2 / 3 it holds the same library-wide entries as the original's menu - Preferences, the Content Directory Manager, Import Mapped Directories, Scan Known Directories for Files, the content database tools, Start / Stop CMS and so on. These act on your content library as a whole, so they belong in every pane. Left out ON PURPOSE: - "View as Tree / View as List / View Side By Side" and "Allow Container View Collapse" - they would change the ORIGINAL pane (see above). The view buttons and their right-click menu replace them. - "Delete Selected Asset(s)" and "Create Poser Companion Files" - for the same reason: used from a copy, they would act on the selection in the ORIGINAL pane, which is not what anyone wants from a delete command. Use them from Daz's own Content Library, or use the right-click menu on the asset itself inside the copy, which works normally. ================================================================================ WHAT EACH PANE REMEMBERS ================================================================================ Per Daz layout (the layouts under Window > Workspace), each pane stores: - the folder / product / category it was showing, - its Tree / List / Side By Side mode, - the sizes of its panels (folder area, asset area, Info / Tips). Its favourite tabs are kept apart from the layouts (see "Favourite tabs"), so every layout shows the same tabs. This is saved with Daz's own layout data, so switching or saving a layout carries the panes along, and a pane that stayed in the background as an unopened tab for a whole session still keeps what it had. Preferences (thumbnail size, "show file extensions", items per page and so on) are Daz's Content Library preferences, and they are SHARED by the original and all copies - Daz keys them by pane type, not per pane. Change them in any of the panes and all follow. ================================================================================ OFF-SCREEN RESCUE ================================================================================ A floating pane can end up off screen when the display setup changes: a different resolution, a monitor unplugged, a laptop undocked. The pane is "open" but you cannot see or grab it. Every Content Library 1 / 2 / 3 pane checks for this by itself: - when it is shown, right after Daz has placed it, and - live, about half a second after Windows reports a resolution or monitor change while the pane is open. If the floating window no longer usefully overlaps any screen - including the title strip you need to drag it by - it is shrunk to fit, moved to the centre of the main display and brought to the front, and Daz's status line says so. Docked panes are never touched; they cannot get lost. ================================================================================ THE SAFETY NET (the "own library browser" notice) ================================================================================ Daz Studio was written on the assumption that there is exactly one Content Library pane. This plugin creates more of them through Daz's public plugin interface, which works - but the plugin does not simply trust that it always will. So: - If Daz cannot provide another Content Library instance, the pane shows the plugin's own, simpler library browser instead and says so in a notice at the top. That browser is built on Daz's own content models (same folder tree, same thumbnails, same paging, drag and drop, double-click to load, root selector, name filter), so you are never left with nothing. When something you load there would REPLACE your scene, it first asks whether to save the current scene, like File > Open does. - Right before a pane asks Daz for an instance, it sets a marker; the marker is cleared as soon as Daz answers. If Daz is closed hard or crashes in that moment, the marker is still there on the next start, and the pane does NOT try again by itself. It shows the own browser with a notice and a "Try Again" button - click it to ask Daz again right away. The marker belongs to that Daz Studio version (and 32- or 64-bit), so a problem in one Daz version does not switch the panes off in the others. - The registry key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Daz3DMultipleContentLibraries\ MultipleContentLibraries6 (or ...4 for Daz 4) can hold a "cloneDisabled" value. Set it to true and every pane uses the own browser from then on; the notice then offers "Turn Back On", which removes it again. In normal use you will never see any of this. It exists so that the worst case is a simpler browser, never a Daz that will not start. ================================================================================ GOOD TO KNOW ================================================================================ - Menu entries that look up "the Content Library" find Daz's own Content Library, never a copy. Browsing, loading and drag and drop inside the copies are fully independent of that. - The copies share the original's preferences (see "What each pane remembers"). They do NOT share its current folder, selection, search or layout mode - those are per pane. - Opening a pane for the first time in a session takes a moment, comparable to Daz's own Content Library; after that it is as fast as the original, because it IS the original's code. - Each open pane is a full Content Library and uses memory accordingly. Three copies plus the original are fine on any machine that runs Daz comfortably; just close the ones you do not use. - The Daz 4 builds need the Microsoft Visual C++ 2015-2022 Redistributable (x64 for 64-bit Daz 4, x86 for 32-bit Daz 4), which almost every Windows PC already has. Daz 6 brings its own. - The plugin changes nothing in Daz Studio's files and installs nothing but one DLL. To remove it, close Daz and delete that DLL from the plugins folder. -AI was used for image creation and coding. ================================================================================ TROUBLESHOOTING ================================================================================ Installation problems (panes not listed under Window > Panes (Tabs), Daz does not load the DLL, Windows blocked the file) are covered step by step in "How To Install.txt" - please look there first. The panes are listed but a pane shows the "own library browser" notice: Click "Try Again" (or "Turn Back On") in the notice - see "The safety net" above. More in the Troubleshooting section of "How To Install.txt". A favourite tab does not open: The folder was moved or renamed, or its content directory is not mapped any more (Daz's status line says which tab). Right-click the tab: "Set to Current Folder" points it at the new place, or "Delete Tab". Tree / List / Side By Side from the Daz menu changes the wrong pane: Expected - use the buttons at the top of the pane (see "The view buttons"). A pane came back in the wrong folder after a restart: Layouts are saved by Daz when it closes normally. If Daz was ended by the Task Manager or crashed, the last layout (and with it the panes' folders) was not written. Nothing is lost; simply browse there again. A floating pane is somewhere off screen: The plugin moves it back by itself (see "Off-screen rescue"). If it still does not appear, reopen it via Window > Panes (Tabs). ================================================================================ SUPPORT / CONTACT ================================================================================ Questions, bug reports or feedback are always welcome. Please reach us through Renderosity SiteMail: Renderosity -> Heiwa_Interactive_Arts Open our store / profile page on Renderosity and use the SiteMail link there. Renderosity SiteMail is the support channel for this product. ================================================================================ VERSION HISTORY ================================================================================ 1.1 Daz Studio 6.26 support: one Daz 6 file for Daz Studio 6.25 and 6.26 (Daz 6.26 refuses the 1.0 file). A 32-bit build for 32-bit Daz Studio 4. Favourite tabs per pane: named, coloured bookmarks to folders. The safety net gets a Try Again button and keeps its crash marker per Daz install. The plugin's own browser asks to save before it replaces the scene. Details in "Multiple Content Libraries - Changelog V1.1.txt". 1.0 First release. Content Library 1, 2 and 3 for Daz Studio 4.5+ and Daz Studio 6; per-pane Tree / List / Side By Side buttons; per-layout memory of folder, mode and panel sizes; off-screen rescue; safety fallback browser. Copyright (c) 2026 Bahaa Suleiman - Heiwa Interactive Arts. All rights reserved.