Friday, June 5, 2009

Inventory clean up tips and classes

I'm going through my inventory and need someplace to put this.

Here's a good place.

INVENTORY TIPS

Staying on top of your inventory to prevent insanity is difficult. However, perhaps these tips can assist:

1. Make a FREEBIE folder (open your Inventory, click the Inventory menu's Create> New Folder) for all your freebies. Most of these items you'll eventually discard. Move the gems to other folders as appropriate.

2. Make back-ups. If your purchases allow COPY, then keep back-ups BEFORE you modify, wear or do anything with the item. I will create a folder in an item's directory and label it "Orig" or "Original", and place a copy (right click the item and Copy, then right click the Orig folder and Paste) of the item in that folder. If I need another copy of the same item because I mangled it while editing it, I'll copy and paste from the Original folder into the main folder.

3. Landmark (LM) any place that you find appealing (it's really annoying when you can't remember where that really cool set of eyes were that you found at some shop). Edit the name (right click the Landmark and Rename) to something that will help you keep LMs organized (i.e. preface a LM's name with "clothes", "shapes", "skins", etc.).

4. Below is one organization method for inventory. Create folders with each of the headings outlined as needed. This system may or may not work for you. I'm still debating its merits myself. But if it's a starting place or helps, great!

IMPORTANT NOTE: Due to a current SL bug, notecards within notecards do not always work properly. If the notecard links below do not open into a separate notecard, or if you need to add your own notes to the notecards (edit them), please drag the notecard links below into your inventory and the notecard will appear behind this one for you to read or edit.

��


ADDITIONAL WEB RESOURCES

Inventory Management
https://support.secondlife.com/ics/support/KBList.asp?folderID=69


Finding Lost Items
https://support.secondlife.com/ics/support/KBList.asp?folderID=110

~ Lucrezia Lamont

!BUILDS
!GIFTS & NEW RESIDENT KIT
.0 BODY
.1 ANIMATION/POSES
.2 GADGETS, SCRIPTS & BUSINESS
.3 BUILDINGS & GARDEN
.4 FURNISHINGS
.5 ANIMALS
.6 VEHICLES & WEAPONS
.7 TEXTURES
.8 AUDIO
.9 MISCELLANEOUS
FREEBIES

__________________________________________


!BUILDS
LM & Notes
WIP

!GIFTS & NEW RESIDENT KIT
Gifts
New Resident Kit

.0 BODY
.0 a_ Foundation
.0 c_ Hair
.0 e_ Clothes
.0 g_ Shoes
.0 i_ Jewellery
.0 m_ Glasses
.0 o_ Hats
.0 q_ Canes
.0 r_ Gloves
.0 s_ Misc Accessories
.0 v_Shapes
.0 w_ Skins
.0 x_Avatars
.0 y_ Eyes

.1 ANIMATION/POSES
.1 b_ Personal AO
.1 c_ Interractive AO
.1 e_ Gestures
.1 g_ Poses
.1 j_ General Animations
.1 m_ Couple Animations
.1 p_ Dancing Animations
.1 s_ Combat Animations
.1 v_ Misc Animations

.2 GADGETS & SCRIPTS
.2 c_ Rezzing
.2 f_ Particle Effects
.2 i_ Teleporters
.2 l_ Misc Gadgets
.2 p_ Misc Scripts

.3 BUILDINGS & GARDEN
.3 a_ SPECIFIC HOUSE
.3 c_ Structures
.3 e_ Doors
.3 g_ Fences
.3 j_ Misc House
.3 k_ Trees & Shrubs
.3 l_ Flowers & Plants
.3 o_ Misc Garden
.3 p_ Outdoor Structures
.3 q_ Outdoor Lighting
.3 s_ Outdoor Bridges
.3 u_ Outdoor Road & Path
.3 w_ Outdoor Patio
.3 y _ Outdoor Misc
.3 z_ Water

.4 FURNISHINGS
.4 a_ Bedroom
.4 b_ Bathroom
.4 d_ Living Room
.4 e_ Dining Room
.4 g_ Kitchen
.4 h_ Den & Library
.4 j_ Entryway
.4 n_ Misc Tables
.4 p_ Misc Seating
.4 r_ Misc Lighting
.4 t_ Misc Rugs
.4 v_ Misc Appliances
.4 w_ Misc Decor
.4 y_ Misc Items

.5 ANIMALS

.6 VEHICLES & WEAPONS
.6 c_ Misc Vehicles
.6 m_ Misc Weapons

.7 TEXTURES

.8 AUDIO

.9 MISCELLANEOUS

FREEBIES

Hello and Welcome to Inventory 101 :)

I'll start slow with some basic stuff some of you might already know, and then get down to the fun tips and tricks.

FIRST THING: When you decide to sit down and "do your inventory" make sure you are away somewhere quiet, and preferably in a place you can rez items.
There are landmarks to a few quiet spots like that in the notecard you will recieve at the end of the class.

Now once you've found your quiet spot ALONE and away from any distractions, you can click your Inventory button and take a peek at what you've got.

I like to think of my inventory the same way I do my own computer's hard drive. Its got a root directory, folders and I can create my own filing system to keep track of my stuff.

SECOND THING: This class only deals with the folder called My Inventory and NOT your Library folder. But feel free to apply the information to that folder if you wish.

SL has been kind enuff to label the folders in your "root directory" ie the folders within the one called My Inventory, with no brainer names like: Objects, Clothing, Textures, Photo Album, Body Parts etc

For the most part, when you buy or receive an item that is made up of prims or is "boxed up" inside a prim, in otherwards objects - it will end up automatically in your: Object folder. duh ok yer with me so far? hehehe

If you recieve an item like a tshirt or a pair of pants, it usually ends up automatically in your Clothing folder

If you recieve a folder with items inside, it will most likely land somewhere along your root directory. In alphabetical order, so you can find it pretty easily.
How cool is that?

Now here is something I recommend you do from the get go. if you all would be so kind as to click your Inventory button, you will notice that the Inventory itself has its own toolbar.

Get to know this toolbar, and you will be well on your way to having a nice organized inventory. The first thing you should do right now if you like, is left click on the word that says Sort.

Then choose: By Date. Do you know what that does? Well it makes sure that anything you recieve, or anything that you drag out and then take back ends up at the top of the folder it came from.

Example. Lets say I happen to have a cool car in my Objects folder. I rez it and drive it around for awhile. Then I take it back into my Inventory.
If I have Sort by Date, it will end up at the top of my Objects folder, easily accessible the next time I want to take a drive.
That way, as you go along, the stuff you use most often will always be right at the top.

Otherwise it gets sorted alphabetically, or goes back to wherever it was, and I might have to do some scrolling down to find it.

And isnt scrolling down and digging around through folders basically what drives us nuts? Here are a few quick tips on how to keep that scrolling and digging to a minimum.

If you right click on any folder you get a drop down menu. You can create a new folder that will automatically be inside that particular folder. For example. Within my clothing folder I might want to have a folder for Hats and Shoes.

Or a folder for just Tops, or a folder for just Pants, or a folder for Jackets. I also might want to create more folders along my root directory for things like Vehicles, Weapons and oh maybe Jewelry for example.

You will notice that when you choose to create a new folder, it slides down automatically to rest in alphabetical order in the "N" section, as it calls itself New Folder. You should rename it to what you want RIGHT AWAY before putting anything inside it.

Another really cool thing you can do, if you want to move something from one folder that's waaaaaaay down the list to another folder waaaaay up top, instead of draggging it you can simply right click on the item you want to move, choose Copy, then right click the folder where you want them to end up and choose Paste.

If you have multiple items within a folder you want to copy and paste - do the following: go into any folder.... press the shift key while you click on any objects under the folder.... then you rightclick and copy them all at once.

When you are done go back down and delete the original.
(Always make sure to check you copied EVERYTHING you wanted to, before deleting the originals)

Remember, just like on your computer's hard drive, you can make folders within folders within folders - as many as you need to keep organized.

I suggest however only going 3 folders deep maximum, cuz then it starts getting silly. Try to do things that make sense.
An example would be your Vehicles folder. You can make folders within that, one each for Cars, Boats, and Planes.
If you want to get silly, you can have a folder within your car folder for all the different KINDS of cars you have, or sort them by color if you want. Hey its YOUR inventory - you can go NUTS! hehehe

Here is a way to keep the folders that you use a LOT at the top of the list - either or root directory list or within any of your folders.
You can number them for importance. 1 Vehicles, 2 Weapons, 3 Jewelry and so on.
That also helps to cut down the scrolling and digging. You can also use any other type of system 1A Cars, 1A Hats etc

For those of you who are into clothing design or anything that tends to have you uploading a gang-load of textures, one thing that I do is give them a prefix thats always the same.
That way you can distinguish between YOUR textures and the one's you already have. I put a BC in front of all the textures I upload.

That way when I'm in appearance mode and creating a new outfit, I know which things are "mine" and what things are SL's.
This is mostly for those of us prior to this new version, where they hadn't hijacked all the SL textures from our My Inventory folder and stuck em back up in the Library. By now, most of you have moved the ones you've been used to using back down.
But I hope that tip helps for future uploads. You can do the same for sounds, animations and anything else you upload.

Trash: Don't be a packrat! ;)
When you delete something it ends up in your trash can. Empty the darn thing every now and then! If you want to take a quick look at what you've got in there to MAKE SURE you dont toss something away permanently go right on ahead.
Right click on any item in your trash and you have a couple of choices: Restore or Purge. If you choose restore, the item goes back into you regular inventory right back where it was last. If you choose Purge - the item gets deleted permanently.

Lost and Found Folder
Handy folder this. If say you are flying along in your nifty spaceship and you get logged or lagged out and tossed from your vehicle.
It will continue flying and when it hits the edge of the known world and get returned to you and ends up in - you guessed it! Your lost and found folder. Also some bullets you shoot end up back there too.
Check in there every now and then for items you've lost and to delete bullets and anything else you don't need.

Inventory Maintenance - get into the habit :)
Once you've gotten your inventory all organized and under control - the secret to keeping it that way is weekly maintenance. You can sit down once a week and make sure everything is where its supposed to be.
The other thing that you can do, is daily maintenance. As soon as you buy something, or recieve something, take a few seconds to pop it into the correct folder.
Example: you are at an event and you win a free tshirt. It will end up in your Clothing folder. Take a few seconds to drag it into your Tshirt or Tops folder. ..
Example: You just bought a car. Take a few seconds to drag it into your Vehicles folder.

These "habits" are good to get into, and it will keep your Objects folder from getting full of stuff, and your Clothing folder nice and neat.
I use those two folders as examples, because most things you buy or receive are boxed and end up in your Objects folder, or they are clothing items, and end up cluttered in your Clothing folder, or stacked up in folders along your root Inventory directory.

Quick Reminder: At the beginning of this class I noted that its preferable to be in a place where you can rez items when you are organizing your inventory.
Why?
Because most often you will find a lot of items that you have no idea what they are. You can then rez the item and get a look at it and decide if its a keeper or if it should be tossed.

Its also a good idea to look at things that sound cool to make sure that they are.
For instance that object called Super Cool Flying Car might not be super cool to you once you take a look at it.
You can also use the solitude to try on clothing items you've recieved or bought to make sure you want to keep them or toss them.

You can also make a folder for items and clothing that you don't like, but that you know a friend would just LOVE :) Its fun giving someone a goodie folder: it lightens your inventory load, and the giftee will be happy to have something new and interesting.

OK Now lets do a quick rundown on the rest of the Inventory tool bar goodies, and how you can make the right click your FRIEND ;)
Then we can have some Q&A and I'll make the class notes available to everyone.

File
New Window - Makes a new Inventory list pop up that you can move around, in case the default at the right of your screen is inconvenient. And also to help you move items from folder to folder.

Close All Folders - means just that. If you've been digging around in your Inventory this will slam shut every single folder you have open.
Saves you the trouble of having to close them one by one

Create
New everything - Folder, Script, Note, Gesture. Handy for when you want to really get into Inventory maintenance. You can right click on any folder and choose New anything as well - to place it exactly where you want it.

Landmarks for quiet places to organize inventory and rez items:
?
?
?

Some folders you might want to create: (where you place them is up to you)
Vehicles
Weapons
Party Stuff
Hats, Shoes & Gloves
Jewelry
Tops
Jackets
Pants
Current Projects
My Clothing Designs
My Building Projects
(Within Landmark folder*)
*Favorite Places
*Friend's Homes
*Clothes Shopping
*Other Shopping
*Interesting Places
Pets & Familiars
Avatars
Costumes



Organizing Your Virtual Closet
AKA Inventory Control
by Taffy Allandale

==== Things you will learn ====
We will be covering some ways to clean up and eliminate clutter in your inventory. I'll share some Tips & Tricks along with showing you some information on cool gadgets to help us get to a more lean & mean inventory.

==== Tips/Tricks ====
In RL, we all know that being organized is a key to keeping our sanity, right? My husband has a saying, "Everything has a home and likes to be in it's home."
Second Life is no exception, a well-maintained inventory is a must, especially when the LL Asset Servers seem to go on the fritz.

By keeping your inventory small and well-organized, you run less of a risk of losing an item or object than someone who has a large inventory. Additionally, you may be able to file a report stating exactly what is missing, whereas, someone with an extensive inventory may not realize something is missing for some time (months even).

I've had friends tell me that 10K was a magic number - keep your inventory to that or below and you won't experience some of the problems that people have when their inventory is large.

See Picture Inventory Screen
Since mine is at 14,972 - you can guess . . . . . It's not there yet.
How do I put my inventory on a diet?
Well, there are a number of ways to reduce the size.

1 - Posestands: Get rid of them all -- well, keep one if you must - but only if you don't have a tool or gadget that will rez one for you at anytime like the MystiTool by Mystical Cookie Designs, Avendale (197, 241, 22) - There is a freebie version available, too.
How many of you use the Search Box at the top of the inventory window?
Good - OK - Type "Posestand" without quotes. Do you have a bunch? If you do, that's one place to start.

2 - Landmarks (LMs): Again get rid of 95% of them: you can always look up a place in Search to find it. Also, as you purchase or receive things, delete the LM immediately, along with any notecards after you've read them (we'll cover notecards next). I love things from Awesome Designs, but Julia puts a LM and Instructional notecard in every folder or box I buy and the first thing I do after buying is delete them from the folders ASAP.

See Picture Iventory Screen w/filter
How many of you know how to use the Filters in the File Menu?
Good - so you can untick anything you don't need to see - like everything except Landmarks. It will show every folder, place, etc that a landmark shows up (You'd be surprised at that, too!)
I'll bet you even have duplicates! This is another place to start. To revert back, click All, then close and choose File, Close All Folders. Then you can click My Inventory and you'll be back to normal.

3 - Notecards: Obviously keep any notecards with instructions on how to use or operate an object - but keep them with the object rather than in your notecard folder. Generally, class notes come to you at the end of class, but your supplies come at the beginning, right? What I do is go to recent items tab and drag the class notecard from the Notecard folder and put it in the class folder (I also put my build in there from the objects folder when I've completed it). You can go a step further and put the textures into an organizer to keep with notes and build.
Texture organizers will be covered a bit later in class.

4 - Freebie items from when you started in SL: There are some things I will never get rid of from my noobie days - like my free prim hair from Free Dove and the Betty Boop outfit - cuz she's a cool chick! BUT - since I (and you) have moved on and purchased nicer hair and clothing, it's time to divest yourself of all those Freebie things you grabbed as a new resident that you **don't use now.**
I know you might not bear to part with them all at once, so you can do this in stages: First, delete stuff you KNOW you won't ever use.
Second, put things you think you *might* use into an Inventory Prim (I'll explain more later on using prims to store stuff). Try to match up COPY / TRANSFER items and don't mix them in the same prim. So you might have several prims: Inventory-Copiable, Inventory-Transferable. Promise yourself that you'll set a time to go through these again and delete out the things you discover you will never use.
This way, eliminating clutter will be a less painful process.

==== Using a Prim as a form of inventory control ====
You can put stuff in a prim, as I said earlier. I don't recommend it and here's why - the prim can be "rubbed out" by the asset server just like any other prim if you keep it in your inventory.
It's OK for short term storage, but for long term storage I suggest using a device. A device is also much less prone to "hackery" by some of the seedier kind of avatars, if you know what I mean.
Obviously, no device is 100% fool-proof, but it is safer than an unprotected prim lying about.

There are a couple that I have experience with: Inventory Box Organizer (IBO) at THINC (152, 50, 28) and the PixelTrix Drawer System (PDS) at PixelTrix (127, 217, 42). I have them up front here. The beauty of them is they are locked - no one can access them unless you give permission (either via the object or through friends options). They can be kept on your land and thus are safe from asset server issues.

See Picture 1.
The IBO is 3 prims when rezzed and available in four colors. The IBO will allow you place any items, from clothes to landmarks (except for scripts, put those in a box), and browse through and retrieve them with ease. If you use it for clothing, be sure to box up all items in a set and put that box in there (rather than individual items of clothing).
To take organization a step further the name is of the box is displayed, I suggest that you name the box to whatever category suits it (Jewelry, Old Clothes, Classes I've Taken).
By doing this, you can now place all your IBOs into one main IBO to take up less room.
An IBO can be left out because of the built-in privacy and security features. Only the owner may access its functions and will either timeout or it will go into "Sleep Mode". This is where the buttons and text will disappear and look like a nice storage trunk.

See Picture 2.
The PDS is designed to help organize the pages upon pages of items in your inventory. By placing your clothing and other items into drawers, you can clean up your inventory, and access your stored items through an attractive, categorized interface.

This product also allows you to share your inventory with your friends, and your Group, if you choose to do so. On the notecard named "Access List", you can list any number of friends who are allowed to take items from your PDS object.
You can grant access to people by name, or "Group" allows access to anyone wearing the same Group tag as the object.
You can also enter "Anyone" if you are so inclined. Non-transferrable items can still be stored in the dresser, and only the owner can take them.

You can retrieve items from a PixelTrix Drawer System either by directly clicking on the object, or by leaving your PDS objects at home and using a PDS Remote Access Point (sold seperately) which allows you to retrieve your items from anywhere in SL (a little slower, due to inter-sim communication delays).

==== About those Textures ====
There are a great number of texture organizers out there from free & simple to costly and somewhat complex. I will cover two versions that I have used. The beauty of this is that - once loaded - you can delete all textures from inventory.
When you need one, you rez the organizer or wear the HUD and grab your texture for building - then you delete it from inventory again since the original stays in the organizer.
Downside: they will only work with full-perm textures.
This tool is what I meant when I suggested that you put each textures from each class into an organizer, then put the organizer into the class folder with notes and build. Then you can delete the textures from the folder - and keep your inventory clean! (This assumes you purchase one that is copyable).

See Picture 3.
Texture Palette, Night Sky, at Distorted (209, 132, 116)
The Texture Palette is a simple and convenient tool for storing, searching, previewing and selecting textures. There are 3 versions included in your purchase.
The tool is packed with features like: wearable as a HUD, texture collection is searchable by texture name via chat commands, small prim count - only four prims plus number of texture panes,
Next, Previous, and Tiled buttons can also be actuated via chat commands and it has Tile Mode - showing you a tiled version of the texture you are viewing. Many other features are included.

See Picture 4.
MM TOrganizer, Memnochs Madness, at Fruggoof (105, 158, 22 )
Lestat Llewelyn has 3 versions of his TOrganizer, Basic, Deluxe and Extreme.
They range in price depending on whether you want a single organizer or a copyable one (I do suggest spending the extra $L for the copyable one. If you wind up buying 2, you've pretty much equaled the price of the copyable version) - a HUD version is included in some packages.
There is the capability of allowing others access to your textures (good if you happen to teach in SL, or want to share with others or a group you are part of).

==== All Those Sculpted Prim Maps ====
Sculpties or Sculptys have taken SL by storm in the last year or so since they were introduced.
By now, I'm sure you have been to many classes which featured a sculpted prim in it or you have collected freebie sculptie map textures.
Until recently, the only way to store them was a regular texture organizer. But not anymore!
There are "consoles" which will hold your sculpt maps and show you a 3D version of it for you to see. I suppose there are several versions of these as well, but I have notes on two of them.

I don't know much on how they work - I have just recently gotten one and loaded the sculptie textures into it.

See Picture 5.
The one I have is called the KOH Sculpt Master - Concrete (there are 2 types, a 4 and a 16)
You can modify it so that the prims created show you as the creator (instructions included)
It is the more affordable version, but don't let that fool you - it has just as many features as some of the more costly ones.

Sculptie Palette, at Night Sky, Distorted (209, 132, 116)
This tool enables viewing and searching of sculptie texture libraries and selection of a desired sculptie texture. Scultpie Palette is similar to the Texture Palette, but obviously stores, displays and delivers sculptie textures instead of ordinary textures.
Some features include: Includes two Palettes. One displays groups of 9 and the other groups of 20 3D sculptie shapes at a time.
Can store hundreds of sculptie textures per palette. Comes with 52 full perm sample sculptie textures.
Copy permission allows making multiple palettes to group similar sculptie textures.


==== Wrapping up ====
As a final thought, remember, keeping a lean and mean inventory will ultimately reward you - in that you will be able to find things easier, but it could also prevent a huge inventory loss. We have no guarantees, but the benefits still outweigh the alternatives.

I hope this class has been helpful.

Thanks for coming!!

No comments: