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.
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page