Does anyone use CAS collections? I don't know anyone who does. Although Build & Buy Mode collections are relatively popular and with good reason, CAS collections are very rarely used. I assume it's because Buy mode and build mode have more items to sort, but people with CC including me should have more items to sort through again.
By the way, if anyone can understand what EAxis meant in the CAS Debug Mode notification by "Maxis-Created Bins will show up in collections"?
I've searched all over in all of CAS' crevices and nothing new in collections showed up! What even are "Maxis Created Bins"?

I didn't realise that Body Shop Collections were even a thing. (I've only been playing for eleven years!) I think Build/Buy collections were mentioned in the official manuals, but Body Shop ones weren't. I think I have more Body Shop CC than Build/Buy, and often have difficulty finding clothes I'm looking for. There a lot of outfits that I never / hardly ever use. (I hardly ever dress Sims of either sex in long trousers!!) I'm going to give Body Shop Collections a try.

Well, I've just made a collection for LindaSims bikinis which I downloaded some time ago. (They didn't break my game -- despite some rumours that they would! Though they are a bit odd - levitating about half an inch away from my Sims' skin!!) It only took a few minutes and it makes them much easier to find. I think at the very least I'll make a "My Favourites" collections for all the clothes I like. It might take a few hours to set up the collection, but it should make dressing Sims in CAS a lot easier! I wonder if collections still work when buying clothes in a shop. I hope they do!

How easy would it be to make custom folder icons for collections?

How did I never notice Body Shop collections before? I think I really like them!

Thanks for drawing my attention to them!

Hmm, I don't know if they show up when buying clothes.
I think they use the same icons as the build/buy mode collections, if that's what you mean, so the procedure would be the same.
I also have more Bodyshop CC than buy mode, so I was thinking if collections would help a lot to organize stuff. I've seen them briefly mentioned in a video where the creator showed them for a bit, but nothing more. I did stumble upon them while playing around in CAS, so it was a cool discovery.

Did you know there are also pet breed collections? That's pretty awesome.

Pretty sure these collections only show up in CAS, but they're useful if you have spesific outfits/items you often want to use in CAS.
I've used them a bit, but I always get frustrated with how slow the collections load, so I eventually end up not using them...

I believe slowness can be a problem. It's a nifty feature, but it can easily start lagging and such if you put too many things in it. Doesn't this also happen with build/buy mode collections? At least it does on mine, I have lots of them.
Still confused on what "Maxis-Created Bins" are. Couldn't EAxis be a bit more specific?

I would use the heck out of it if those collections showed up in the actual gameplay. It'd be amazing to be able to have collections in wardrobes for Sims of the same gender living in the same house, so it's easier to remember which clothes are for which Sim. But because it's only in creating areas, I don't really see any helpful purpose. I make a new Sim maybe once a year, if that, so what use are CAS collections? Bodyshop might be useful in some way for creating, if I were to create in my main game where there's a lot more stuff to sift through. But that loads slower, so I don't, I move whatever I need to an empty environment that loads up immediately.

I agree 100%. It is useful, but the fact that you can't use it outside of CAS is a bummer. Perhaps that actually is the reason why people don't tend to use them or even don't know that they exist.

I've been playing TS2 since it came out and I had no idea these were a thing!

With this game, you're never too sure you know everything about it. I just learned that you can do the "Open Rear Door" action on a police car to free burglars.
EAxis honestly knew what they were doing.

They're an absolute pain to make, unfortunately. Not sure why they didn't make the system as flexible as the BB collections. I've been slowly trying to make one for each pack, as a sort of poor man's EP filter, but it's tedious work.

While we're on the subject, does anyone know where CAS collections are actually saved? I would have thought they go into the same folder as the BB collections, but oddly it seems that they don't.

They are in the same place, or at least they seem to be in my game. A new .package file with a randomised name has appeared in my Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2\Collections folder at the same time as I made the new collection (for LindaSims bikinis) that I mentioned in my previous post.
[EDIT] I've opened the new collection file in SimPE, and it is indeed the one I just created for the LindaSims bikinis.

Inside the Collections folder there is an empty sub-folder called Icons. I presume that's where I have to put the custom icons for my new collections, once I've found out what size and format I have to make them in.

How weird. I didn't have any new files appear in the folder, and yet the collection appears in-game for me. I'll have to do a little testing and see what's going on

This is interesting. Perhaps clothes collections behave differently? This should get some research.
Are you sure that no new files were created? As AndrewGloria said, they have completely gibberish names at the start.

Still no idea on "Maxis Created Bins", even if I played around in debug mode. Found nothing in collections... That's weird

It's probably because they're separate for tops, bottoms and outfits. It takes so much time just to complete a top collection, I just gave up and stopped using them completely.
They do go in the same folder, I don't know why they don't on yours.

Oh, I developed a pathological fear of those things years ago. Even just clicking the button seizes up the game so bad it makes me certain it's going to crash—aka the absolute last thing I want when I've spent ages painstakingly creating a Sim (you know, a process during which you CAN'T SAVE). I would never dare touch the feature.

Does that happen every time you click on a collection, even if it's empty? I've only heard of it being like that when there are way too many items in one.

I haven't tried it in years, and honestly it would probably be not so bad on my current computer, but in the past even just clicking over to the CAS collections tab—having never used it, never created any collections, and never added anything to a collection—would fully freeze the game for a good minute or so. Can't really make use of a feature if I'm scared it's going to crash my game every time I try to use it...

I really can't understand why the game would freak out over a feature you've never even used to say that there are too much stuff in a collection. To me it just loads like every other, smoothly. That sounds weird, to be honest.

Well, even build/buy collections make the game hiccup the first time I open them during a given play session, so it might just be something about the general concept of collections. I had assumed it was like that for everyone.

That's what I was thinking. I wonder if anyone else has this lagging? I don't, and my game lags a lot .

I'm wondering if the collection menu lags more if some of the collection files are in the Downloads folder (they still work there, I've got some buy collections that kind of hang out in there). Haven't tried moving them to the collection folder, because I honestly have no idea where all those randomly placed collection files are, and wouldn't know what they were if I moved them... :/

I think they will be more useful to me. I make Sims in CAS every time I start up the game. I do this really in order to "roll the pacifier" to combat first-born syndrome. Now Sim births are really quite rare in my game, but "first-born syndrome" also affects any Sims (NPCs etc.) generated in the game. The first Sim generated in any session will be Aries and Popularity. So I mainly start CAS for utilitarian purposes, but once I'm in it, I like to play about in it, seeing what Sims generate, and seeing how I can improve them and make them prettier. (Yes, boys can be pretty as well as girls!! ) I will make them into families, I will put an adult male and female together, and see what offspring they can produce. Then I'll dress them all up. Give them nice accessories and maybe a new hairdo. Really see how good I can make them all look! Most of these Sims never make it into the game -- my 'hoods would be enormous if they did! But every now and then I'll come up with Sims that are just so gorgeous that I have to have them in my game. . . . And another new family moves into Veronaville! Or maybe they become townies. (Saves me having to build a house for them!)

It's for these Sims that I thought that it would be really helpful to have at least one CAS collection -- to save me paging through masses of stuff that really doesn't fit my playstyle. Well, the LindaSims bikinis collection was really just a "proof of concept". It worked without any problems, so today I made a CAS collection called "My Favourites" and started adding stuff to it. I've so far added clothes in categories Everyday (both separates and full outfits), Formal, Underwear, PJs, Swimwear and Athletic wear, for male and female teens and for adult females. I was able to add clothes for all these categories and ages to the same My Favourites collection without any problems. There is as yet no detectable lagging. I appreciate that might change as I add more outfits to the collection, but so far it's very good. I used to find Build/Buy collections lagged badly on my old computer (a netbook) and I generally avoided using them, but since I switched to a Dell gaming laptop three years ago, I really haven't noticed any lag at all.

So it seems that this "My Favourites" collection I've made will be really quite helpful to me, by hiding all the clothes I hardly ever use. But, unlike when using default replacements, the "hidden" outfits are only a click away if I decide I do want to use them for this Sim.

Of course, as gummilutt says, collections would be more useful still if they could be used when choosing clothes in-game. I never thought of that, but I could indeed have small collections called "Andrew's Clothes" and "Julian's Clothes", so they don't accidentally wear each other's clothes. And of course, when shopping for clothes, it would help if you could only see the sort of clothes you're looking for. So @gummilutt , do you think this might be moddable? I'm not asking you to mod it for me; I'm sure it would be difficult. I'm just asking if you think it might be possible to enable CAS collections in-game.

Thanks again FuryCat for starting a most interesting, and -- for me -- helpful thread!

^ I'm not sure if you can hide the CAS items and have them show via collections the same way as you can with buy/build. Might need some testing?

Personally, I've used them in CAS for finding things like work outfits, costumes, special formal outfits, or anything like that.

Collections can also work for body shapes (those have the other option too with the icons, but in case you just have a few and don't want to bother with the editing), color collections, favorites or other outfits you always have a hard time finding and don't want to spend ages looking for... Endless opportunities.

What you said made me think if debug outfits are placeable into collections so we don't need to turn on debug mode every time we want to make a Sim with these outfits. I kinda want to test that, it's interesting. Could EAxis really create such an easy way to access debug outfits?

To me it seems impossible, but then some people have done things we thought were impossible. So I don't really know, but I'd be surprised if it was possible. The things we've seen don't really add new things to the UI, they just sort of give it a different coat of paint, or expand it sideways. Never seen something that makes a dialog have parts it did not have previously. Someone like LazyDuchess would know better, since she actually gets in to the game itself and changes stuff.