I see that the third-party Poser Library software PzDB is currently in the ‘no longer sold’ category. The Payloadz payment system refuses. The software’s ‘ping’ server is still working though, the ‘ping’ being required on loading the software. My installed 1.3 version is thus still working. So there’s hope that the problem may just be with the payment processor.
The problem may be…
1) the Payloadz payment system is kaput for PzDB and other items too, for some reason;
2) that the hefty monthly PayLoadz account payment of $29 (!) has somehow ceased, and the maker of PzDb hasn’t yet noticed;
3) the maker has turned off purchases because his MS Access reseller licence (PzDB is build on MS Access) doesn’t support the latest Windows 11. However, that is unlikely, since I read that…
“MS Access database can be sold as a standalone [custom] application with a runtime edition of Access which is licence free, if you have Developers edition of the Access/Office”.
Which was what was happening with the back-end of PzDB. However it’s said that Microsoft does not love Access and that it becomes more and more difficult to run Access on newer versions of Windows. One user of the 60-day trial (still available) reports crashes with PzDB on Windows 10, but he also has the full MS Access installed, so there might be conflicts.
Anyway, just my guesses. Let’s hope it’s just a payment system problem and that sales processing can be easily switched to Gumroad instead.
On the other hand, if it is to become abandonware then I’d suggest that perhaps what’s needed first is a small crowdfunder to raise enough to unlock the ‘ping’ and make it free + charity-ware. Even as freeware for Windows 7 and 8, it might help raise some money for charity — perhaps especially if it ran a discreet banner ad and a link inside the UI.
What are the alternatives?
1) There’s the affordable P3DO Explorer, but I find that’s impossibly slow on searches (eight minutes for a simple search for the Pitterbill keyword), and results are then mediocre. I can’t see any way, in the confusing and labyrinthine interface, to speed it up.
2) There’s the native Poser 11 Library interface, which is far better than it was. It’s now reasonably fast, but far from ideal in terms of the UI or triggering of indexing. The Search over in DAZ is not much better or faster on a large runtime. But PzDB just finds so much more stuff. For instance try a search for Aiko 3 in Poses. PzDB just finds more, presumably because of the character-based cross-referencing and clustering it does on initial indexing of the runtime. It can also show you just what you just installed.
3) Everything is free and useful for quick searches, when set to Large Thumbnails / View By Path / Search for Picture. It’s lightning fast because it builds an index first, and as such it’s probably the best sort-of substitute for PzDB for casual Poser users, in combination with RSR to PNG and the native Poser Library. It can sort by Date Created in the latest 1.4 but this needs to be manually turned on. Yet Everything is still not ideal, because you then still need to open the likely folder in Windows Explorer, and find the non-picture Poser file that can be dragged and dropped to Poser. You thus need to know what you’re looking at and the difference between your .MT5s and your .PZ2s etc. Ideally the makers of Everything would add a half-dozen features geared for Poser and DAZ content discovery.
4) If you have it, then Semidue’s Shaderworks Library Manager 2.6 still works in Poser 11, including drag-and-drop from the search results. It’s abandonware from circa 2016 and Semidue has long departed the scene. But it actually does rather a good job, and searches quickly and elegantly on a large runtime. A few seconds longer than PzDB perhaps, but quite bearable. Good results too, even though it’s searching folders only (for filenames use Everything, see above). It may need the free AVfix on some iterations of Poser 11.x. Library Manager itself doesn’t like to be run at startup of Poser 11, so you need to manually start it each session. It’s all Python so can dock with the Poser 11 UI (also Python) and replace the Library. There’s no Tkinter, so it should theoretically run on a Mac. The PDF manual is here, but the software is otherwise unavailable unless you can dig it out of an old backup drive or DVD-r.
