Review of the Sims2 Content Manager

[Lerf]

I've posted this in a couple of other places.  Thought I'd put it here and get made fun of.

Maxis tried really hard on this one, but it's not nearly as useful as Clean Installer.

The interface is pretty direct,and easy. You've got a picture of the texture -- just like the one in Clean Installer -- in the upper left. You can sort or show objects by Asset Type (eye makeup for instance), reference name (Blush Beige), File Name (Blusbg32.package), Creator (all my stuff just says "user created"), Status (enabled or not enabled).

You can also list things by Skins, Objects, "Design Mode", Potential Hacks, or everything.

It gives you the ability to delete, or disable (that is keep it from working in the game, but not deleted) or enable stuff you've disabled.

If you right click on an entry, and you've told it to go ahead and connect to the Sims2 Official site, it'll tell you what stuff you got this from if it's on the Exchange.  Pretty useless unless you really want to send nasty emails to the person who gave you that SimstransmitSTDs Hack.

However....

When you delete something, just like in the game, it bumps you back to the beginning of the list. So, if you delete something thats 27 skins down the list, it will put you back to the first thing in the skins list. Worse, it will rearrange everything so if you know what item 26 was to find your way back, you'll find that item 26 might now be item 3 or 306.

The object display shows a lot of stuff as just solid black. Sometimes this is because the object _is_ black, and sometimes, I suspect, it's because the file is empty. Sometimes it's because it's a mesh and doesn't have a texture. I won't say the view is useless for this reason, but it's not very helpful.

It also doesn't catagorize things very well. It appears to recognize some meshes --mostly hair meshes. However, all object meshes are shown as hacks.

Some hacks are shown as objects.

Some object recolors appear under Object.

Most object recolors, however, show up under "Design Mode", along with terrain paints, walls and floors (which aren't labeled as such--they're both called "Product Pattern".)

Careers are labeled as objects.

Some items on each list are shown in red text, but I can't find any explanation of why.

So, if Mom says you can only use accessory programs downloaded from Maxis, it works. Otherwise ask Dad if you can download Clean Installer instead.

[gali]

Wow! Thanks for the useful review!  -  I'll ask Dad only, and use the Clean Installer....

[PresentTense]

So in another words it's just like the clean installer but crappier.
Thanks that confirmed my suspicions.

[J. M. Pescado]

So how does it react to hacks?

[Lerf]

It doesn't at all.  It lists them,  tells you what they're doing if you're bright enoug to understand comments like: "Overrides Behavior trees: Interaction--Get Mail."  (And I suspect these are your notations, or TwoJeffs notations not theirs.   Cause only some of the hacks have a description.

And I think it uses the red font for things it thinks are hacks, but doesn't always get it right.

Otherwise, nothin'.  Doesn't remove 'em.  Doesn't tell you they'll cause your Sims toenails to fall off if you don't erase them RIGHT NOW.   Just tells you what it thinks are hacks and sits there. 

OK, there is one other useful feature.  It tells you what folder the file is in, so you can find stuff in weird places like your "Saved Sims" folder.

[Hobbsee]

I can't believe no one else has mentioned this yet...this custom content manager comes in a zip file!

I'm stunned that they put forward this custom content manager thing in a ZIP FILE, when the people who are silly enough to download off the exchange (therefore needing it the most) generally cant open a zip file to save their life anyway...What happened to the idea of self opening downloads, like all the others off the maxis site?  If compression's an issue, why not compress it, then write a self-extractor for it...i'll never know

Apart from that, it seems like a much slower and more inconvenient version of the clean installer...which makes me wonder what maxis would attempt to create if they ever did a program to edit objects...

[cwieberdink]

Okay, I KNOW this is going to sound like a really stupid question here, but I'm gonna chance ending up in retardo land by asking anyway.  I have a lot of items in my clean installer that have no category, and the name is a jumble of letters and numbers.  Are these thing all deletable?  Are they possibly useful items?  Should I blanket delete everything without an understandable name?  I was trying to organize my download folders, but with so many of these thing that I didn't know what they were, it made it difficult.

Chris

[J. M. Pescado]

Things without comprehensible names were crap you installed as a result of installing a sims2pack. Unless you happen to acquire skins you actually use in this manner, a name which consists purely of a string of incomprehensible gibberish should be summarily destroyed.

[cwieberdink]

I do have quite a few skins that I do use.  In fact, I rarely use Maxian skins but almost always use the custom skins.  Perhaps I should just backup the files, go in and disable them all and see what's missing? 

Chris

[themaltesebippy]

I clicked on the exe file and it didn't even do anything.  I wonder if it is even worth downloading.

[schmoopee]

I would say NO - Clean installer is far superior. I got it to download, but it won't load up - it freezes and when I try to kill it it says "program not responding".  And there's a dozen more people that had the same experience at N99.

[J. M. Pescado]

Let's be realistic: Did you honestly expect Maxis to make something that didn't suck?

[schmoopee]

Hope springs eternal in the simmer's breast. 

[JenW]

I tried to launch it, it churned for a while, then gave me the extremely helpful error message of "Error!" *bitchslaps Maxis* Gahhh, developers...at least I know developers writing stupid/incomprehensible error messages isn't limited to my company.

Hey JM, on the filenames of random crap, I thought those were probably houses or something...so they're not? Are they the empty packages Clean Installer shows? Where are the houses? Being a builder I should know this, I guess, but I don't *holds onto lips*

Jen

[Ancient Sim]

I downloaded this last night and re-downloaded it quite a few times, putting it into various different folders, because whenever I clicked on the exe file my pc just hung.  Eventually I got so fed-up I went to make a coffee - came back and it had loaded.  Turns out it is EXTREMELY slow to load (or at least it is for me, probably because I have a lot of downloads), so that's probably the reason it appears not to be working when you click the exe file.  Why they have zipped it and not put it into a package file I have no idea - it gives you no suggestion whatsoever of where to put it.

The most useful aspect of it is that it shows the file path, which Clean Installer doesn't, at least I don't recall it doing so.  It doesn't appear to show empty files though, or duplicates.  Also, there appears to be no option to check sub-folders, it groups your entire downloads folder and subs together, which is probably why it takes so long to load.  Rather interesting also that a lot of JM and TwoJeffs' mods were nice and blue and referred to as objects, not hacks.

[J. M. Pescado]

Depends on which "object" you're referring to. Some of the goodies *ARE*, in fact, "objects", and not actually "hacks". Macrotastics and all of its associated packages, for instance, are actually self-contained objects that don't override anything. Other objects, like APO, are "dirty" objects that contain both an object and an associated global override required as a hook for the object, and thus are more properly hacks with an interface object. Still others, like the Phone Hack, contain an OBJD, but are purely hacks, not objects. These may potentially be misidentified by a particularly stupid scanner. Like one that might be written by Maxis.

[veilchen]

If Body-Shop and Home-Crafter are any indicators of Maxis' talents for software, the CleanInstaller stays. Sorry, but I have absolutely no faith in Maxis and anything they put forth. They don't seem to have any clues about their own products, and if things go wrong, they are about as helpful  as... well I can't think of anything less helpful. I don't think they ever test anything they throw out for their customers, not the game, the ep's, or any other add-on software.

G.

[Venusy]

The only good thing about the Content Manager when compared to the S2PCI is that the Content Manager runs on limited accounts. This is only a minor annoyance with S2PCI, especially seen as about half the programs on my PC don't run on limited accounts.

[sara_dippity]

Well, if it lets you view the outline of meshes that will help me out since I suspect I have a few untextured meshes in my game.

If you right click on an entry, and you've told it to go ahead and connect to the Sims2 Official site, it'll tell you what stuff you got this from if it's on the Exchange.  Pretty useless unless you really want to send nasty emails to the person who gave you that SimstransmitSTDs Hack.

This is a joke right? Cause if it is... I think I have a hack request I want to make...

[Brynne]

I do have quite a few skins that I do use.  In fact, I rarely use Maxian skins but almost always use the custom skins.  Perhaps I should just backup the files, go in and disable them all and see what's missing? 

Chris

I've been using DatGen. It's got a pretty decent file scanner. All my "gibberish" files were just that. Gibberish. They were all empty files, so I deleted them and haven't had any problems.

[Larita]

I've been using DatGen. It's got a pretty decent file scanner. All my "gibberish" files were just that. Gibberish. They were all empty files, so I deleted them and haven't had any problems.

Please...what is DatGen, and where can I find it?

[Brynne]

It's now on TSR, but it's a free download. You can also check out the creator's site: http://www.datgen.info/

[ZephyrZodiac]

Things without comprehensible names were crap you installed as a result of installing a sims2pack. Unless you happen to acquire skins you actually use in this manner, a name which consists purely of a string of incomprehensible gibberish should be summarily destroyed.

What I've done with those files I've got with those ridiculous file names is to extract them again using the MultiSims2Pack Installer, working in a folder so it will place the file there (provided you tell it to once) and you can then delete the Sims2Pack and the temp file.  Call the folder whatever the file is, (it's full name in english or whatever language you prefer) and keep it in a folder of similar backups.  That way, if your original becomes corrupted for some reason, at least you can find it via SimPE and the Windows search engine.

[themaltesebippy]

It hangs when you open because it auto scans the downloads instead of waiting for the command like sims2pack does.  I like sims2pack better, but I will hold on to this other thing in case I need it.

Heh and I haven't been to the offical site in so long, someone left me a message in my gbook cussing me out.  GLORIOUS!  I left a flaming bag of poo in his mailbox also.

[Lerf]

Well, if it lets you view the outline of meshes that will help me out since I suspect I have a few untextured meshes in my game.

If you right click on an entry, and you've told it to go ahead and connect to the Sims2 Official site, it'll tell you what stuff you got this from if it's on the Exchange.  Pretty useless unless you really want to send nasty emails to the person who gave you that SimstransmitSTDs Hack.

This is a joke right? Cause if it is... I think I have a hack request I want to make...

If I tell you it's a joke, you'll request it.  If I tell you it's not a joke you'll want to know where to get it.  So I am going to remain discreetly silent.