I got really frustrated with using the Asset list to add assets to styles. I also do not like the way the Theme Editor mod handles assets because I have a huge number of assets and I do not want to go through the entire list for each theme. I want to be able to visit each asset once and add it to specific themes/styles. Much quicker that way... except that nothing is quick with the Asset editor because after a few minutes it starts redrawing the interface, which doesn't always save changes and eventually stops responding. I have to restart the game every 5 minutes which is makes managing my assets a nightmare.
SO... the bottom line is that I am writing an external utility to manage styles as quickly as efficiently and quickly as possible (and eventually themes using the theme editor mod). Since styles are imported into the theme manager, this will work for that as well. So far my style manager is working great with mods (for personally created styles). However, I do not know how to add assets from the original game and dlc's to the utility. In order to do that I would need to either read, or extract all assets from the game files. Is there a way to do that? I just want building names, types, sub-types, and pictures.