Getting Started

Disclaimer: I'm not a developer of the Wardrobe nor am I a developer of RLV. I can only tell you what works and does not work for me. -- QuietToday Burner

I've rewritten this section a few times and I'm still not sure that I have it right. To tell you the truth, when I started with the Wardrobe, I just muddled through. So, you can look at this for guidance, but use your own judgment. :-) -- QTB

Assumptions

After buying the Wardrobe, most users have no idea how to begin. Many tell me that they have had it for weeks and haven't done anything because they don't know how to get started on a project that may be large. Here is a possible way to get started. This is a graduated approach that allows you to get a lot of benefit quickly and can then be extended to achieve more benefit.

Assumptions: In order to give you advice or organizing your wardrobe, I have to know some things about it. Since I can't really know how you've done it, I have to make some assumptions: Each set of items that you buy from a vendor (I call it an "ensemble") is unpacked and each ensemble is stored in a folder in your inventory. Although these folders may occasionally contain a link to a no-copy item, they mostly consist of real items -- not links. You also have folders containing other helpful items for mix-and-match, for example, a folder containing a pair of jeans that you can wear with any of several different tops. Although these folders may occasionally contain a link to a no-copy item, they mostly consist of real items -- not links. You create an outfit by creating a folder containing a list of links to real items. Although an outfit folder may occasionally contain a real item, it mostly consists of links. Until the later phases of the approach outlined below, I am assuming that you use a single AV. By an AV, I mean a combination of skin, shape, hair, eyes, etc.

Cleaning up your folder names

If you read Naming Your Folders, you already know that the Wardrobe will not work if some special characters are used in folder names. So, there's simply no alternative to getting rid of those nasty characters.Take a deep breath, and start going through the folder names of your clothes and outfits, getting rid of the special characters -- particularly the known killers listed in Naming Your Folders. I dreaded doing this, but once I got started, it went pretty quickly. Now, you really don't have to do this to all the folders in your inventory before you start using the Wardrobe. In each of the steps below, I will suggest that you clean up the names of some of your folders.

The overall approach

I recommend a graduated approach of several phases:

• Phase 1: Start small with an easy experiment
• Phase 2: Catalog your existing outfits so that you can find them easily. (For some users, this will be enough.)
• Phase 3: Catalog ensembles and individual clothing items so that you can use the wardrobe to help you build new outfits.
• Phase 4: Catalog multiple AVs so that any AV can wear any outfit.
• Phase 5: Catalog body parts so that you can use the wardrobe to build new AVs.

Phase 1: Start small with an easy experiment

Most users discover, after using the Wardrobe for awhile, that they want to redo some of their cataloguing. Maybe they want different tags, for example. So it makes sense to start small, experiment a bit, learn some things, and make changes when necessary. Fortunately, you can get good value from the organizer even if only a fraction of your clothes are catalogued. You simply have to select a useful subset of your clothes. For example, you might want to start by cataloguing your collection of hair. That provides instant value because it's oh-so-much easier to select hair based on its appearance instead of its name in your inventory. Another good possibility is to catalog your shoes. For purposes of explanation, let's decide that you've decided to catalog your shoes.And, to keep it simple, let's only catalog shoes that are not part of a larger ensemble of items. Also, let's avoid shoes that have options or choices among various pieces that you might or might not wear. Finally, if you have a lot of shoes, you might want to select some smaller group of them for your first experiment--maybe just boots.

Phase 1, Step 1: Prepare to organize your shoes. If you look back at Setting Up Your RLV Folder, you will see that I recommend creating two folders within #RLV -- one called ".Organized" and one called ".Unorganized". Inside each of them, create a new subfolder called "Shoes". Now a word about notation--when computer geeks want to talk about folder Z, which is inside folder Y, which is inside folder X, they write "X\Y\Z" with the folder names separated by backward slashes. I will do the same thing. So, if you did what asked, you now have two new folders, #RLV\.Unorganized\Shoes and #RLV\.Organized\Shoes.

Phase 1, Step 2: Gather the outfits that you want to catalog. Each pair of shoes should be in its own folder. Find these folders and drag each one of them into #RLV\.Unorganized\Shoes. After you drag a folder, clean up its name as I described earlier.

Phase 1, Step 3: Pick a set of tags that can be used to describe the shoes. Tags will help you search your wardrobe quickly. In my case, I decided to catalog shoes by type, color, metal trim, and creator. I use tags with two part names. That's best explained with an example. Suppose I tag shoes by the colors "blue" and "green". Because the tags are listed alphabetically, they will be separated. If I try to remember which tags I've used, I will have to look through all the tags trying to remember whether or not I also used the tags "aqua", "teal", etc. So I give most tags two-part names. In the case of this example, I use tags "Color:Blue" and "Color:Green". That way, all of the color tags appear together on the left side of the wardrobe's webpage. I do something similar for metal trim. Examples are "Metal:Gold", "Metal:Silver", Metal:Brass". A possible list of tags to use for the types of shoes are: Footwear:Boots, Footwear:Flats, Footwear:Heels. As I mentioned, I also tag items by creator. Finally, all of my items of any kind are classified into a few categories. Every catalogued item has a category even if that category is simply "Cat:Miscellaneous". So, to see all of my footwear, I can select the category "Cat:Footwear".

So a complete set of tags for my pair of plain red boots made by Duce is "Cat:Footwear, Footwear:Boots, Color:Red, Metal:None, Creator:Duce".

Phase 1, Step 4: Catalog each pair of shoes. Using the wardrobe HUD, pose stand, and camera, make a photo of each pair of shoes, tag it and add it to the Wardrobe. As each item is added, I select the little pencil icon (just above the photo on the web page) and edit the check boxes indicating which items to remove when this one is worn. I usually make all of the checkboxes blank except the one for shoes. This advises the wardrobe that when I choose to wear this pair of shoes, it should first remove any shoes I am already wearing.

Finally, as each pair of shoes is catalogued, drag its folder from #RLV\.Unorganized\Shoes to #RLV\.Organized\Shoes. This allows you to easily keep track of how much progress you've made and what remains to be done.

Phase 1, Step 5: Admire your work. Use your shoe catalog for a few days to see if you're happy with it. You can change the list of tags associated with each pair of shoes. You do that by clicking the pencil icon and changing the list of tags. You should also experiment with the other buttons available on the web page. When you're happy, you're ready for the next step.

Phase 2: Catalog your existing outfits so that you can find them easily.

For most users, this phase will provide the most value for the least effort. It may provide so much effort that you may decide it's enough. I'm assuming here that you've already created a number of outfits--each outfit being a folder of links to clothing items. Possibly those outfit folders are gathered in a top-level folder called "Outfits" in your inventory.

Phase 2, Step 1: Prepare to organize your outfits. If you look back at 3.3, you will see that I recommend creating two folders within #RLV -- one called ".Organized" and one called ".Unorganized". Inside the ".Organized" folder, create a new subfolder called "Outfits". Now a word about notation--when computer geeks want to talk about folder Z, which is inside folder Y, which is inside folder X, they write "X\Y\Z" with the folder names separated by backward slashes. I will do the same thing. So, if you did what asked, you now have a new folder, #RLV\.Organized\Outfits.

Phase 2, Step 2: Gather the outfits that you want to catalog. Each outfit should consist of a folder of links. Probably each of the outfit folders is inside a top-level folder in your inventory called "Outfits". If that's not true, then gather all the folders that you want to catalog by moving each outfit folder into a single folder. Clean up the names of the folders as I described earlier.

Phase 2, Step 3: Give the Wardrobe access to your clothing. For putting your clothes on, the Wardrobe will work just fine if the links of your outfits are in the #RLV folder, but the actual clothing items are elsewhere in your inventory. However, some of the functions of the Wardrobe (like the Worn Items button) will not work properly. To make everything work, you should move all of your clothes into the #RLV folder. As I mentioned in Setting Up Your RLV Folder, you might want to start with two sub-folders of RLV -- one called .Organized and one called .Unorganized. Within each one you would have two sub-folders, Clothes and Outfits. Now, take a deep breath and start moving all of your clothing sub-folders into ".Unorganized/Clothes". If you have hierarchies of nested folders, that's OK; you can move entire hierarchies by dragging and dropping. RLV, hence the Wardrobe, doesn't care about the hierarchies; it only cares about the folder names.

Phase 2, Step 4: Pick a set of tags that can be used to describe the outfits.Tags will help you search your wardrobe quickly. As I mentioned above, I use two-part tag names. Every outfit will get a category tag, "Cat:Outfit". Of course, there are various kinds of outfits. I use tags like Business, Casual, Cheongsam, Club, Cocktail, ColdWeather, Costume, Gown, Holiday, Hoodie, Kimono, Pants, Shopping, etc. The "Costume" type of outfit also has some additional tags, e.g. "Costume:Cheerleader", "Costume:HardHat", "Costume:Military", etc. The "Holiday" tag also has obvious additional tags.

I also tag outfits by the principal color in the outfit. Also, reflecting my specific interests, I have genres or families of outfits: African, Amerind, Asian, Geek, Geisha, Goth, Latex, Lolita, NonHuman, Period, and Punk. Each of these is marked by a tag, e.g. "Genre:Geek". The "period" genre has some additional tags, "Period:Hollywood", "Period:SteamPunk", and "Period:Victorian".

Finally, I tag outfits by maturity rating.

So a complete set of tags for my Victorian Nurse outfit is "Cat:Outfit, Outfit:Costume, Costume:Cook, Genre:Period, Period:Victorian, Color:Blue, Maturity:G".

Phase 2, Step 5: Catalog each outfit. Using the wardrobe HUD, pose stand, and camera, make a photo of each pair of shoes, tag it and add it to the Wardrobe. As each item is added, I select the little pencil icon (just above the photo on the web page) and edit the check boxes indicating which items to remove when this one is worn.

Finally, as each outfit is catalogued, drag its folder into #RLV\.Organized\Outfits. This allows you to easily keep track of how much progress you've made and what remains to be done.

Phase 2, Step 6: Admire your work. Use your outfit catalog for a few days to see if you're happy with it. You can change the list of tags associated with each outfit. You do that by clicking the pencil icon and changing the list of tags. You should also experiment with the other buttons available on the web page. When you're happy, you're ready for the next step.

[ I've quit editing here for now and will resume later. The text that appears below is not right yet. ]

Step 5: Get more ambitious by cataloguing some ensembles.

Before moving on to cataloguing all of your things, I recommend doing some experiments with "ensembles". I use the word "ensemble" to mean a purchase that has related items that are different but might be worn together. For example, you might buy earrings and a matching necklace. Sometimes you will want only the earrings or only the necklace, but sometimes you will want both. So you need to catalog them in a way that allows you to find and wear one or the other or both. Underwear often comes in ensembles, e.g. matching knickers, bra and stockings. Those are only simple examples, though. It's not unusual to purchase an ensemble that includes dress, hat, gloves, stockings, shoes, etc. At some point, you will need to find a way to catalog ensembles that allows you to find individual items or the whole ensemble and to select and wear the parts that you want. I discovered that I use different kinds of ensembles in different ways, so one solution is not right for all of them.

But let's get back to the point :) ... You don't need to solve the entire ensemble problem now. Instead, you need to learn how to deal with some simple kinds of ensembles. I think that jewelry and underwear are good candidates for that. Dealing with Ensembles has some ideas for how to deal with them.

Step 6: Catalog your clothes.

(More to come)