Previous parts: one

Well, peeps, here is part two of my attempt to help you sort the Clothing folder in your inventory. Little did I realise when I wrote that first post just how difficult part two would be! The reason for this is purely the way that I think of my inventory (and, if you’ve learned anything from following this blog, it should be that “your inventory should make sense to you, not to someone else that doesn’t have to use it every day”) and that way is… confused at best!

I’ll explain a bit more detail below, and then we’ll try a bit more sorting, although by the very nature of that ‘making sense to you’ thing, my advice should be taken with the proverbial shovel of salt ;)

Hop behind the cut!

As before, I’ll start with the caveat that I’m using the latest iteration of the Firestorm viewer, with the old Viewer 1-style skin. Your own viewer may not look like mine.

Right, so I was blathering about my inventory thinking process (I could make it sound technical, so I will – my ITP!) I tend to think ‘by store’, so when I’m looking for boots I’ll head for Boots > PurpleMoon Creations for those fringed boots that I know I have in there, rather than wanting to dig through a huge folder called Boots. This method won’t work for those of you that might know you want red, knee-high boots but don’t have a specific store in mind, so you’d want to file as Boots > [length] or Boots > [colour]. This makes a hints and tips series a rather fraught affair wherein I wrack my poor brain for all possible filing methods (and try to create them in my inventory, to show you).

Then there’s the problem of my shopping at several stores a lot, and chucking everything from that store into a folder named after the store. Inside that folder I’ll have everything from that store, in one big muddle: pants, skirts, boots, jewellery. And I’ve been working like that for so long it’s going to take a major mental shift to train my brain into a different method. BUT, the old method isn’t foolproof (how many times have I missed a great pair of boots because they’re tucked away in the Boots folder, when I spend half my time digging around the store folders instead?)

In short, my current method could be improved on, and – since you’re reading this – yours probably could, too. So, the dilemma of trying to blog about as many different filing methods as possible will best be resolved by my detailing just one method – the one I’ll be using on my own inventory – and then mentioning a few alternatives that you might be more comfortable using. So that’s the way these posts will go from hereon in.

A note about nesting folders:
Linden Lab recommends not nesting folders too deep, and this makes sense if you don’t fancy clicking through half a dozen folders and sub-folders to get to the folder that’s holding the stuff you actually want to look through. To that end, I’ll be recommending a few more higher-level folders than you might be used to. It’s entirely up to you whether you use that option, or create sub-sub-sub folders etc. A good rule of thumb to judge which to use might be “how many of this type of item do I have, and does it justify a folder of its own?”.

Here’s a quick guide as to what I’ll be referring to when I mention folder levels:

Clothing : The main Clothing folder in your inventory
Clothing > Pants : Top Level folder (level 1)
Clothing > Pants > Jeans : Second Level folder (level 2)
Clothing > Pants > Jeans > Skinny : Third Level folder (level 3)
Clothing > Pants > Jeans > Skinny > Mesh : Fourth Level folder (level 4)

OK, here we go with some basic clothing folders. This series is aimed mainly at the ladies, but gents I will try to accomodate your inventories as well ;)

You already have some basic folders, into which (I hope!) you’ve been sorting relevant items. If at all possible, try everything on as you sort it. You’ll probably find a lot of items that you simply wouldn’t wear any more, or that just don’t work for your avatar. Since we’re going through every folder anyway, this is a great chance to weed out all the stuff you don’t want (so you can make space for more stuff you do want… er, but you didn’t hear me say that!).

We’re now going to create the basic clothing type top-level folders. These are: Coats & Jackets, Dresses, Pants, Skirts, Tops, Underwear. Those are my basics, but you may want to separate Coats and Jackets, or call the folder Jackets & Coats!. You may prefer Lingerie to Underwear, but use the names you think of. Guys, you may want to add Suits to your folder list.

Here are the new folders in Mar’s inventory:

Thankfully, Coats & Jackets is fairly easy to sort! Rather than having separate  level 2 folders for Coats and Jackets and then having level 3 folders for coat or jacket styles, Mar has opted for listing everything as level 2 folders, like this:

This way you’re only clicking four times (at most) to get to your actual item folders. To differentiate between mesh and non-mesh items, you might want a further (level 3) folder just for mesh items, but I suggest the simpler method of appending (M) to the end of the folder name.

Dresses… ah, here’s where we’re going to come unstuck, because we ladies do love our frocks and there are so many way to file these that a list is almost impossible. Mar is, of course, tempted to file by store, and in cases where she has a lot of items by one designer I suspect that’s the best way to go.

Some suggestions for filing, dependent on how you think (your own ITP!) of dresses when you want to find one in your inventory:

If you think: “I want a long, blue ballgown” – you’re considering the style first of all (you’re more likely to want a ballgown for a Christmas party, for instance) and the colour afterwards. Make your level 2 folders ‘style’. After that (if you’re a serious ballgown collector!) file level 3 ‘colour’ or ‘store’.

If you think: “I just want a summery short dress!” – you’re considering the length first of all, so make your level 2 folders ‘short’, ‘long’, etc.

If you think: “My partner’s wearing a blue suit, it would be nice if I could complement his outfit with a cream dress and blue jewellery” – you’re considering by colour first of all. Make your level 2 folders ‘colour’, then file level 3 by ‘style’ or ‘store’.

And yes, I know it’s never that simple, and it’s usually a mixture of one or other or both, at some point! See why this post is so hard for me to write? XD All I can do is make suggestions in the hope that you can take them to your own inventory and make sense of it!

Here’s Mar’s Dresses folder. (Yes, I meant ‘level 2’ there, not ‘level 1’, and ‘level 3’ where I wrote ‘level 2’. *facepalms* – hey, it’s late and I’m sleepy!)

Pants is a bit easier (thank goodness!) because we can probably agree on the basic level 2 folders for those, as follows:

Because some non-mesh pants have sculpted cuffs and other (older) ones don’t, you might also want to consider a suffix for prim cuff pants, such as (P) or something like that. Other useful suffixes might be things like (B) for tight pants that tuck into boots (although most pants can be edited to flare out if you want, some can’t, and those would be the tucked-into-boots ones) and (S) in the skirts folder to denote a system skirt. Just keep a note by your computer with your new suffix list on it, as a reminder until you get used to using it!

A side-note: what about complete pants outfits?
These are always a bit tricky to file, especially if the items in them don’t necessarily have to go together (eg: they’re not matching top/pants sets). You can either split the items, putting the tops into their own new folder in your Tops level 1 folder, or you can create a new level 1 folder for Pants Outfits. Be aware, though, that you might forget items that are in the Pants Outfits folder (will you remember that awesome top in the set you filed in there, when you’re just looking in your Tops folder for something to wear with that skirt suit?) My suggestion is the more time-consuming (and painful, sorry!) one: take the time to split the outfits into their component parts and file them accordingly.

Skirts are a bit like dresses, in that they could be filed by style, length, or colour. Again, I would use the tip I gave you in the dresses section: file according to how you think when you’re looking for a skirt. Here’s Mar’s Skirts folder:

Boys, your Suits folder is a piece of cake compared to what I’ve written already! If you have any, file them according to the situation where you would wear them. You might have formal suits that you would wear to a wedding, black or white tie suits (high formality, including tuxedos), pinstripe suits, casual suits (such as linen or rolled sleeve, etc).

Tops are actually easier to file than you might think. These I would always file by style, so Mar’s level 2 folders are exactly that:

Note that Mar has multiple colours of that top, but she’s kept only one alpha layer in the main folder for that top style. You only need one! She’s also filed the unworn sizes of top in that folder (because sometimes – while you might wear a medium size mesh jean with a system layer top, you might need the small size jean with a mesh top, because the waist of the medium jeans pokes through it).

Lastly for this post, Underwear (or whatever you’ve called it!) Into this I would file all lingerie, nightwear, and socks. For those with a large lingerie folder, create further level 3 folders for lingerie types (as suggested in this post on the old SL for Nowt blog).

Phew! While I can give you guidelines, this one’s rather down to you. Snuggle up with a pose stand for the next few weeks, try on everything and really sort out your inventory. Make a resolution that you won’t file anything in your new folders until you’ve tried it on and made a decision to keep it.