Hello folks,
I am sure that many of you have a habit of collecting mods, like me. We all remember how large mod databases have vanished from the internet, and how much grief it has produced. We feared that so many great plugins would be lost forever, and that our little corner of the web, and with it, a portion of our personal world, would be destroyed and wiped clean without a trace. Thankfully, when first EricM, and then PES started to crumble, several individuals stepped in and recovered most of the would-be-lost data, so now we have Morrowind Modding History and Morrowind Nexus in their stead. I am utterly thankful to these people and feel very much indebted to them. But all these developments instigated a certain paranoia in me, fear that it will all happen once again. That is why I ended up with evergrowing gigantic collection of mods that becomes increasingly unmanageable.
So my question is, what categories do you use when classifying your hoard? What kind of software you find safe and practical in managing your collection? Or maybe you are using some powerful search engines (because let's face it, Windows search is just an excuse for it)?
Myself, I have started to use https://www.zotero.org recently - it features powerful search, allows for appointing items (any kind of files) to several collections (virtual folders) at once, classifying any documents with tags, database export (handy for moving your MW files between computers), plus taking webpages snapshots (for copying forum posts and tutorials, for example) and adding notes to files.
However, it does have drawbacks: you can no more see your collection in a traditional way, so for instance what looked before like this:
/Morrowind files
/Gameplay
/Landmasses
/Total conversions
/Utiities
/Graphic
/bodies
/heads
/misc replacers
/architecture
/redoran
/dwemer
...............etc
Now looks like that
/Zotero
/storage
/FD45
/1246
/KJ09
/76bh
/56
/67
..............you get the idea.
So I'm still debating this.
So how do You manage your hoard? Or do you just rely on Nexus and MMH?