DJS Sims

File Size: About 1 MB

The Sims 2 Collection Creator will help you to do all of the following:

• Keep Organized: Create a collection and choose a name and icon for it, then add the objects of your choice.
• Sorting Abilities: Choose the order that the objects will appear in your collection.
• Add Objects to Collections: View the name, description, and picture of the object before you add the object to the collection.
• Edit Existing Collections: Change collection files that you've recently made, or edit the existing collections that Maxis includes.
• Built in Back Up: Your existing collection files will be saved in a backup folder in the program's directory.
• Batch Add Function: Add all the package files within a given folder and it's subfolders to a collection file.
• Sort Your Collections: The program can automatically sort your collections so they show up in alphabetical order in the game
• Object Name Remembering: The program will now remember the names of any custom objects you add to a collection and will display them if you edit that collection in the future. (The program also already knows all the Maxis object names up through Seasons.)

Please Note: This version of the program does not currently allow you to add walls or floors to the collection files it makes. However, you can add walls and floors to the collections you've creating while you're in the game. From there, you can continue to edit the collections with the program, and it will preserve the wall and floor information.

Installation Information:

- If you download the installer: extract the EXE file from the zip and run it. It will place all the program files in their proper places, and create a shortcut for you.
- If you download the "no installer" version: extract the zip and it's contents into the folder of your choice, and then launch the "Sims2CollectionMaker.exe" file to start the program.

Version Information and Download Links:

Current Version: 2.0 (Electric Boogaloo!)
Copyright 2006-2007 DJS Sims and the Sims Programming Group

Changes Since Version 2.0:

• Added new version of dbpf-recompress.exe
• Fixed bug with object name remembering.

Changes Since Version 1.1.1:

• New I/O Code! Mucho fastness!
• Management of temp files generated is now smoother.
• Batch Add now features total item count, item preview, and catalog categories.
• Directory picker now starts at the Desktop instead of my computer.
• Status bar implementation for messages and other various things.
• Removal of old, unneeded code with respect to functions that were migrated to DLL files instead.
• Individual item add now features a preview image and catalog sort information.
• Included more sample icons.
• Custom content object names as well as Maxis object names (up to Seasons) are now remembered by the program and displayed while editing existing collections.
• Collections are compressed as they are created, saving on disk space and so forth.
• Program should now work on the Mac in combination with Mono.

Changes Since Version 1.1:

• Bug Fix: Batch Add now no longer duplicates the previously added group of items.
• Bug Fix: ABC Sort will no longer throw an error in some cases.

Changes Since Version 1.0:

• Support added for the new type of collection added in Pets.
• Status bar added to show what the program's doing during time consuming tasks, makes the program much less prone to freezing.
• Batch Add will now recursively search sub-folders within the folder you pick.
• Removed dependency on many unneeded DLLs.
• The program zips now contain a manual! Thanks to Jade Eliott for writing it for me!

Requires: Microsoft Windows and the .NET Framework Version 1.1.

Download Links:
Download the Installer Version: Download!
Download the "No Installer" Version: Download!

_________________
I wrote a book! Get it free at http://www.strangefuture.com/

So I adore this program...it's helped make my game MUCH more organized.

And I know that you say it can't handle wall and floor files...but might there be an update in our future to make this possible?

Secondly: is there any way to extract icons from collection files? I've got a collection from Pimp-My-Sims that has one of their nifty icons, but it's not separate from the package, and I'd like to use it for other PMS collections I've made. (If I have to go to SimPE, I'll cry.)

_________________
Cats are smarter than dogs. You can't get eight cats to pull a sled through snow.- Jeff Valdez
Visit my Live Journal

In the future, walls and floors may be possible, yes.

I can make an option to save the icon from the collection, it won't be too hard, but in the meantime, you can find the icons that it dumps out in the folder that the program resides in. They're named as RandomFileName.img temporarily, but you can change it to jpg, bmp, gif, tga or whatever to use in whatever you want. That should work as an alternative for now. I already do have a new version of this that needs testing, but I haven't got the beta testing section here set up yet. I'll let you know when I do.

_________________
I wrote a book! Get it free at http://www.strangefuture.com/

I know you can add a whole folder at a time, which is great since my downloads are organized by folder. Have you updated this recently to account for adding folders when using over a network? See, I'm on a mac, but I have I have an intel Mac so I can boot into windows. I recently had a crash so I'm looking for all those nifty programs I previously had.

You could add folders from over a network, in theory, but to do so, since the folder browser dialog starts from My Computer, you'd have to map the network location. To do this, go to my computer, choose Tools from the drop down menu, and select Map Network Drive. Then you can assign a drive letter to a network location, and it should then show up in the folder browser in the collection creator.

Try it at least and let me know what happens.

_________________
I wrote a book! Get it free at http://www.strangefuture.com/

Yep works perfectly! Thanks so much.

Awesome, thank so much for this program . . . well actually all your programs & hacks are very insightful, useful, and easy to understand and use. Really appreciate your time & talent!
Thanks for sharing!
kay

I just downloaded it, my files are such a mess, I hope this will help.

_________________
Embrace the coordination. Love it. Hold it. Be one with the matching sets.

Hey just a question here, after i make a collection file will it have my objects in it? curious becuse i wanted to make the collection files so i can have a cleaner ingame "buymode".
basically no custom objects in the main menu but still in the game via the collections.
If so how do i do that, do i just delete the objects from the download folder after making my collections?


thanks for the great program!

No, they won't actually be removed from the normal buy catalog, you'll still need them in your normal downloads folder in order for the collection to work. You CAN remove the buy catalog flags from the objects with a program like Sim Categorizer after you've added them to a collection though, and then they won't show up in your buy catalog but will show up in the collection. You still won't be able to delete the files after that though.

_________________
I wrote a book! Get it free at http://www.strangefuture.com/

Okay Thanks for that info!
i will try that.

Regarding a 'clean buy mode'....Collections are for me what keep me able to FIND things...I have about 150 collections (for 6000 objects), and they include things like "Accessories - Bathroom" and "Theme - Mad Scientist" so that I don't have to go hunting when I want AroundTheSims' bottles or the brain-in-a-jar. I also have a collection called "Every Lot", which includes the various items every lot gets...phones, coat racks, various controllers, juicer, etc.

If they're well organized by title, you can find almost anything easily....and buy mode seems MUCH cleaner, as it were.

Note: getting your collections right can take some time...spending the hours organizing your downloads folder is a great first step...finding a naming convention that works...putting random stuff from different folders into collections....but it is WORTH it.

_________________
Cats are smarter than dogs. You can't get eight cats to pull a sled through snow.- Jeff Valdez
Visit my Live Journal

So the fact that I have one huge Objects folder will hinder me...right?

lol, I still have yet to fire up this thing and give it a go. On my to do list....the real life mess is getting in the way though.

_________________
Embrace the coordination. Love it. Hold it. Be one with the matching sets.

Well...yeah. One of the handy things jfade created was a way to dump an entire folder in to the collection creator...so if you don't have things separated, it's useless.

And frankly, it's worth sorting your downloads...it helps if you have a borked file, or you want to delete an item AND its recolors, or you just can't stand how badly Peggy's hair clips and want to burninate it...and more. Don't go more than two sublevels, as I'm told it slows down the game. But you can do a lot with two levels!

There are several good threads in the community about download sorting...the definitive one is here. It promotes Delphy's organizer, but I find that I use Clean Installer as much to help the process. Also worth having: Palladin's Categorizer, found at Sims Wardrobe.

Good luck!

_________________
Cats are smarter than dogs. You can't get eight cats to pull a sled through snow.- Jeff Valdez
Visit my Live Journal

Hello,

Is this a big hassle to add abality to create clothing collection that will be visible in CAS?
I'm a programmer, however not familiar with sims too much. With a little help and explanation what should be changed I may give it a try. Jfade, do you mind if I will dig into that?

Regards,
vl

Help please,

I have been using the collection maker version one since the day it came out. and I could not live without it anymore lol...so a big thank you for this program.

This morning I have installed the version 2 and cannot make it work at all.. I have tried both version of the files and it is not working for me

here is the error message I get. which is very long, but I didn't find any email where I could send it to you, so sorry for the long message

See the end of this message for details on invoking
Just-in-time (JIT) debugging instead of this dialog box.

************** Exception Text **************
System.IO.DirectoryNotFoundException: Could not find a part of the path "C:\Documents and Settings\Lynda\Desktop\Download\sims 2\objects\mts\paradise living\PlaceHolderForThumbnailDir\ObjectThumbnails.package".
At System.IO.__Error.WinIOError(Int32 errorCode, String str)
At System.IO.FileStream..ctor(String path, FileMode mode, FileAccess access, FileShare share, Int32 bufferSize, Boolean useAsync, String msgPath, Boolean bFromProxy)
At System.IO.FileStream..ctor(String path, FileMode mode, FileAccess access)
At CCB.IO.FetchResourceCount(String PackagePath)
At CollectionCreator.frmMain.FindResource(String PackagePath)
At CollectionCreator.frmMain.PullThumbnail(String PackagePath, Int32 Mode)
At CollectionCreator.frmMain.Command1_Click(Object eventSender, EventArgs eventArgs)
At System.Windows.Forms.Control.OnClick(EventArgs e)
At System.Windows.Forms.Button.OnClick(EventArgs e)
At System.Windows.Forms.Button.OnMouseUp(MouseEventArgs mevent)
At System.Windows.Forms.Control.WmMouseUp(Message& m, MouseButtons button, Int32 clicks)
At System.Windows.Forms.Control.WndProc(Message& m)
At System.Windows.Forms.ButtonBase.WndProc(Message& m)
At System.Windows.Forms.Button.WndProc(Message& m)
At System.Windows.Forms.ControlNativeWindow.OnMessage(Message& m)
At System.Windows.Forms.ControlNativeWindow.WndProc(Message& m)
At System.Windows.Forms.NativeWindow.Callback(IntPtr hWnd, Int32 MSG, IntPtr wparam, IntPtr lparam)


************** Loaded Assemblies **************
Mscorlib
Assembly Version: 1.0.5000.0
Win32 Version: 1.1.4322.2032
CodeBase: file:///c:/windows/Microsoft.net/framework/v1.1.4322/mscorlib.dll
----------------------------------------
Sims2CollectionMaker
Assembly Version: 2.0.0.38328
Win32 Version: 2.0.0.38328
CodeBase: file:///C:/Program%20Files/Sims%202%20Collection%20Maker/Sims2CollectionMaker.exe
----------------------------------------
System.Windows.Forms
Assembly Version: 1.0.5000.0
Win32 Version: 1.1.4322.2032
CodeBase: file:///c:/windows/assembly/gac/system.windows.forms/1.0.5000.0__b77a5c561934e089/system.windows.forms.dll
----------------------------------------
System
Assembly Version: 1.0.5000.0
Win32 Version: 1.1.4322.2032
CodeBase: file:///c:/windows/assembly/gac/system/1.0.5000.0__b77a5c561934e089/system.dll
----------------------------------------
System.Drawing
Assembly Version: 1.0.5000.0
Win32 Version: 1.1.4322.2032
CodeBase: file:///c:/windows/assembly/gac/system.drawing/1.0.5000.0__b03f5f7f11d50a3a/system.drawing.dll
----------------------------------------
CCB.IOTools
Assembly Version: 1.0.2649.34291
Win32 Version: 1.0.2649.34291
CodeBase: file:///C:/Program%20Files/Sims%202%20Collection%20Maker/CCB.IOTools.DLL
----------------------------------------
Microsoft.VisualBasic
Assembly Version: 7.0.5000.0
Win32 Version: 7.10.6001.4
CodeBase: file:///c:/windows/assembly/gac/Microsoft.visualbasic/7.0.5000.0__b03f5f7f11d50a3a/Microsoft.visualbasic.dll
----------------------------------------
CCB.IO
Assembly Version: 1.0.2649.34277
Win32 Version: 1.0.2649.34277
CodeBase: file:///C:/Program%20Files/Sims%202%20Collection%20Maker/CCB.IO.DLL
----------------------------------------
CCB.Math
Assembly Version: 1.0.2681.35921
Win32 Version: 1.0.2681.35921
CodeBase: file:///C:/Program%20Files/Sims%202%20Collection%20Maker/CCB.Math.DLL
----------------------------------------
CCB.OBJD
Assembly Version: 1.0.2655.31065
Win32 Version: 1.0.2655.31065
CodeBase: file:///C:/Program%20Files/Sims%202%20Collection%20Maker/CCB.OBJD.DLL
----------------------------------------

************** JIT Debugging **************
To enable just in time (JIT) debugging, the config file for this
Application or machine (machine.config) must have the
JitDebugging value set in the system.windows.forms section.
The application must also be compiled with debugging
Enabled.

For example:

<configuration>
<system.windows.forms jitDebugging="true" />
</configuration>

When JIT debugging is enabled, any unhandled exception
will be sent to the JIT debugger registered on the machine
rather than being handled by this dialog.

Please help me because now I don't have either version 1 or 2 working....

thanks a million

Melynda

Hi there, Josh! As you know, I'm also a huge fan of your Collection Creator. However, I downloaded the Version 2.0 today and I am getting the EXACT same error messages as melyndavs. Not working at all. Thanks for your help!

This happens right after you start the program or whilst trying to add objects to a collection?

It shouldn't happen at start up at all, but if it happens during trying to add objects, this is due to an old options file. Go to your options, and change the relevant new options, then it should all be fixed!

_________________
I wrote a book! Get it free at http://www.strangefuture.com/

It happens when you try to do a collection files or add an item to a collection files.

I have tried changing the option and still having the same problem.

Thanks for answering on that question.

Melynda

My problem is fixed, after posting the last message I went back and check everything in the option. and it was the thumbnail directory that was not right.

so a big thank you again for the help

Melynda