Question Multi same entries in "Hair" cause of identical contents in different .var

[void]

So much to know, so little knowledge yet.

While my AddonPackages directory fills up I noticed that I got identical files/assets/content in different .vars. So, regarding morphs or hair f.e. I got 6 identical hairsets per page. Sure, hairstyle01 is within girl01.var, girl02.var and girl03.var adding up to three entries.

How can I get rid of multiple copies?

 

[atani]

The simplest and safest way is to hide them - user tags or something like that. Keep visible only the version with the original hair creator, hide the repackaged versions.
More permanent measures are to remove them from the VARs, but this has downsides that can bite you in the ass later.

 

[void]

Thanks, yes, hide them would be the simplest methode, quite a lot to do, however. I wondered if VAM got an on board setting or a script that automatically removes the duplicates from displaying.

 

[atani]

Apart from Lexi hair which is kind of a weird situation, most of those copies are from poor packaging practices.
Maybe one of those VAR managers do that, but I'm not sure the parameters to identify what is the original creator and a duplicate would be easy to set.

 

[void]

So I don't understand the advantage of .var yet. Wouldn't it be easier to extract all .var? Which leads to duplicates being either overwritten or skipped which would of course increase the space used on disk a tiny bit but would sort out 10s of duplicates.

Of some I got 10, ten, X of the same hairstyles, let alone the morphs!? I admit being a bit of a messy collector grabbin as many looks as possible.

So many "features" I don't understand in VAM. Why is there no "favorite" in hairstyles?

 

[atani]

The advantage of VARs is to not have to repackage everything, you set it as a dependency and packages reuse that package. You have multiple copies of the same things because those creators don't (or didn't) know how to package correctly.
If you didn't have VARs you wouldn't have 10 identical hairs, you would have 100 or more. If everyone learned how to package properly the problem wouldn't exist anymore. That's why I often share a link to a packaging guide when I see resources with tons of dependencies.

Extracting the VARs would potentially overwrite, but only if the path would be the same. The same people who package poorly would likely also use different paths, and soon enough the same problem but in a much more difficult way to clean. This is what happened before VARs were developed, luckily I missed it.

 

[void]

So no easy way out

 

[atani]

Best option is to not unpack VARs, hide the multiple hairs, and avoid creators who don't package well.
You can also delete the hais from the VARs, but this will cause other problems.
There's some tools around to manage VARs but I never used them.

 

[ivam]

If you don't mind the increasing size of your folder, you should look at this plugin. If you just check the "remove duplicate morphs" box, it hides all morphs with the exact same name and only keeps one.

Paid Plugins - Regex Search Clothing/Hair/Morphs and remove duplicate Morphs

Regex Search Clothing/Hair/Morphs and remove duplicate Morphs A plugins to search Clothing Items, Hair Items and Morphs using Regular Expressions (Regex) Update Version 1.4: - Morphs are sorted alphabetically and there is a an option to sort "A...

hub.virtamate.com

The missing option to just have a checkbox for favourites is also a bit annoying. I mean you could create a custom tag and name it "favs" or you use this plugin

Paid Plugins - Clothing and Hair Favorites

Clothing and Hair Favorites Adds a "Fav" check box to every clothing and hair item, that you can set as a favorite. Join my Patreon to get instant access to all of my 31 VAM Plugins and future updates: VAM Translation Clothing and Hair...

hub.virtamate.com

This plugin is also nice. It shows if a clothing item or hair style has some other presets in its folder (other colors, styles, ...)

Paid Plugins - Clothing and Hair Favorites

Clothing and Hair Favorites Adds a "Fav" check box to every clothing and hair item, that you can set as a favorite. Join my Patreon to get instant access to all of my 31 VAM Plugins and future updates: VAM Translation Clothing and Hair...

hub.virtamate.com

 

[bill_prime]

@atani @void
VAR Manager has a duplicate item resolver for this exact purpose, you might want to take a look.

Apart from Lexi hair which is kind of a weird situation, most of those copies are from poor packaging practices.
Maybe one of those VAR managers do that, but I'm not sure the parameters to identify what is the original creator and a duplicate would be easy to set.

VAR Manager has an interface to hide the duplicate clothing/hair items (see below).
It identifies duplicates by clothing that has the same Creator, DisplayName, and internal uid
The idea is to automatically resolve most of this, usually be finding ONE .var that has the same Creator as the duplicate clothing item, and hiding all duplicates except for that one.

If duplicates cannot be auto-resolved, there is an interface where you can manually select which .var should be kept unhidden.
During this manual process you can also check "Set var as Master" and it will remember your selections in VAR Manager's settings for next time you use the tool.

Other - VAR Manager

Are you a .var hoarder? Does VAM take several seconds to load any menu because you have 4000 .vars? Well do I have the solution for you! VAR Manager allows you to quickly backup files that you don't want/need at the moment, making VAM much...

hub.virtamate.com

 

[void]

ahhh, thank you. I am in dire need of this, yes, I am a hoarder indees. Just moved my 200GB VAM installation from my usual game M2 disk to a fresh new 2TB M2 for endless fun - without helping with the 20 duplicate items in my clothing etc list.
This program however seems to help. Disk space isnt the problem.