Collections - are there ANY good options??

[fightxsong]

I was so excited when I discovered the DJS Collection Creator - everyone seemed to think it was so great! And I guess it is, if it works like in the screenshots, with the name of the file and everything. Several frustrating efforts and I still can't get mine to work - all of the files are listed only as "Wall" or "Object" or whatever, followed by a long string of zeros and other numbers (same numbers for each file, so they don't correspond to file name or anything like that) and no preview or any other identifying features. And there doesn't seem to be any support for it. :cry:

I have several thousand pieces of CC, plus all the expansions except FT, so this means that when I want to build, say, a wooden shack, I have to go exploring far and wide to find the best "wood" wallpaper (and then of course when I finally do, I notice that the panels are vertical on the outside and horizontal on the inside). The obvious solution is to collect all my wooden wall files in one collection, but I still have to sort through pages and pages to find matching walls because the game takes so dang long to organize the contents of collections (I spent the better part of 6 hours yesterday just making ONE COLLECTION, and I gave up on organizing it pretty soon)!

Fellow simmers, what is your solution to this problem? Have you just accepted the fact that the majority of your gameplay is spent searching the catalogue, or have you discovered a program or method that makes collections easy? OR maybe you were even able to surmount the problematic Collection Creator?

additional details: May or may not be related, but I've had minor problems with SimsPE and Delphy Download Organizer too. For example, DDO always shows that I have no orphans or duplicates, even when I know for a fact that they exist.

[Mordant17]

Well, one option is to load the game with just some CC, so that only the stuff you want to add to a collection is in the game, if you know what files you want in a collection. Then, rather than having to wade through everything, there are only a few files to go through.

[Ghost sdoj]

I don't know about objects, but DJS WTF editor is -supposed- to identify all the walls, terrain paints, and floors by their in-catalog name. http://forum.jfade.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=59

(I say "Supposed to" because I haven't had any trouble with it at all, but if the DDO and SimPE aren't reading your files properly it is possible that this won't either. ) That will let you clear out all of the "alphabet soup" that the collection maker can't handle. Since it says in the description that walls and floors are not handled by the program, it's possible that not having them in the set of files you are adding might get the previews showing properly. If it's CC, you are still going to need to rename it, though.

[sushigal007]

I make my own collections in game, then hide my CC from the build/buy catalogues. I also have hiders for all the EAxis stuff that I use whenever I need to update my collections because I've downloaded more stuff.