Second Life Inventory, Part 1: "How Did My Inventory Get In Such a Mess?"

Facing My Inventory Problem

I am in the process of trying to organize my over 70,000+ inventory, and I've been wondering "how did this happen?"

This is what I've figured out so far. Maybe it will help someone else.

1. I let unsorted items pile up as objects or folders without taking time to put them in their proper place.

2. I created duplicate items when I put away a copiable after rezzing it, rather than deleting it. I also created duplicates when I did not delete the original object after I unpacked it.

3. I didn't rename objects or folders to make them easier to find. 

4. I lost parts of a few folder's contents because I deleted what I thought were duplicate folders, not realizing that (although all the folders had the same name), some of them did not have all the contents.  

5. I didn't immediately get rid of spammed landmarks, notecards, and ad textures.

6. I suffer from "Freebie Frenzy".  At last year's SL19 Birthday Shop & Hop, there were 400 listed vendors, many of whom had free gifts at their booths. I am still unpacking some of them.

7. I didn't get rid of a lot of old 'bling era' clothing because I thought it might come back in fashion.

8. I bought some things that I forgot I had in my inventory.

Background:

EVERYONE GETS AN INVENTORY WHEN THEY FIRST SIGN UP

When a new Resident avatar is created, they already have an Inventory, which they can  access by pressing the suitcase icon on the viewer.

    INVENTORY TABS

Inventory Window from Firestorm Viewer. 

• My #Firestorm Tab has things Firestorm wants to put there. If you have a different viewer, you will not have this.
• 'Animations' is where animations are stored.
• 'Body Parts' refers to things like skin, hair, and eyes.
• 'Calling Cards' are created when you accept friend requests.
  
• 'Clothing' refers to individual pants, shirts, skirts, etc...
• 'Current Outfit' - what you are wearing now. 
• 'Favorites' refers to your favorite landmarks.
• 'Gestures' can include physical gestures and audio. 
• 'Landmarks' are any landmarks that are not marked 'Favorite'
• 'Lost and Found' is for items that are returned to you, for example, the thing you forgot to pick up when you used the Sandbox.
• 'Notecards' - Notecards.
• 'Objects' - Everything that can't be automatically sorted when received. Each item is shown as an object icon.
• 'Outfits' - Outfits you have put together using the 'Appearance' tab (looks like a t-shirt on my viewer).
• 'Photo Album' - Snapshots you've taken using your SL Camera tab (looks like a camera)
• 'Scripts' - Scripts.
• 'Settings' - EEP Settings. You may have more of these under 'Photo tools' under World/Photo and Video tab.
  
• 'Sounds' - Sounds.
• 'Textures' - Textures

TRASH

Under this is the Trash Bin. This is where anything you have deleted goes until you empty the trash can.

UNSORTED FOLDERS

 Unsorted folders go right under the Trash icon.

As you can see, I have unsorted inventory from way back.

LIBRARY:

These are basic items that every resident has.  You can take things out, but you cannot add anything to the Library Section of your inventory.

Items are periodically updated. You can find Old Library Content at Stillman if you want to abuse your Inventory still further.

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WHERE I THINK THINGS STARTED GOING WRONG:

 Automatic sorting stops at the tab level. If you look under the category 'Clothes', for example, you will see that clothing folders for the starter avatars like Bitsy are automatically created**, 

but when it comes to individual skins or shoes, they are all in a pile at the bottom:

 The icon for 'a package containing one or more items' looks just like the icon for an individual item. An object icon can contain folders and more objects, and folders can contain objects, ad infinitum*.

Unless you sort them out, the little object icons will all end up at the bottom of the list under the "Objects" tab. You cannot tell at this point whether an object icon refers to one item, whether it is a container for more items, or whether it was only part of another object.

Four unsorted objects in my Objects section.

Items rezzed in a Sandbox.

1. Painting, "Geronimo" by Isabel Hermano.

2. CB Photo "Beach Walk" by Chic Aeon

3. Container with the 'Spitting Nidhog Well', a landmark, and an information notecard.

4. Object originally listed as 'Shroom'. It was no-copy, and when I took it back, it was re-named Caledon Ordinalis. Object's names do not always match the folder name inside.

5. SasTech Tour HUD contained three information notecards and two scripts. This turned out to be only part of the original package.

As you can see, after these objects were rezzed, two of them were containers containing other items.

After I rezzed all the items, they ended up in file folders below the "Trash icon.

WHEN YOU REZ AN OBJECT FROM YOUR OBJECT TAB THAT IS NOT 'NO COPY', THE ORIGINAL OBJECT WILL STAY UNDER YOUR OBJECT TAB AND THE  CONTENTS WILL BE IN A FOLDER IN THE 'FOLDERS' PART OF YOUR INVENTORY.

After rezzing the object labelled "Lilith's Den - Spitting Nidhog Well" I now have the original object container and I also have the folder containing the items that were unpacked.

 Objects' and Folders' names often give little clue to their contents. Examples are: "Gift from _____", or "Valvueza", which turned out to be a special kind of horn.  A glass dome could be called a 'cloche' or a 'bell jar'. 

 Parts of a folder's contents can get deleted. Before you remove duplicate folders, make sure you save the folder with all the contents.

 When you are constantly spammed with notecards, landmarks and ad textures you can either periodically remove them, unjoin the group, or even block the sender. 

Freebie Frenzy is hard to cure. If there is not a sample of a 'free gift' you can sometimes target the item and select 'edit' to see the contents before you take it.

Next posts will be "How to Organize Your Inventory", and "How to Find Things in Your Inventory" with ideas I got from

Brace Coral,

Prokofy Neva,

Ryan Schultz,

Patience Porta,

Strawberry Linden,

Wat Denzel,

Mezzo Silverweb,

Inara Pey, and

Lectures at NCI, Dreams, Happy Hippo, and Oxbridge University in Caledon

and dozens of videos on YouTube.

*always wanted to use that word.

**and every time you use an avatar from the "Choose Your Avatar" tab, it seems to make a new folder.