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Its time to make another thrust forward in the development of ldraw.org,
and the winter season is the perfect time for it.
So far, we've gotten the site up and its been a success. LDraw now has a
permanent home and dedicated website to the cause. Discussion on LUGNET
has helped shape the community, the program, its users, and the website for
the better. Hits to ldraw.org average at about 70 pages per hour [1], so
exposure to the site and the program is good, and its apparent we have a
large user base.
This means its time for ldraw.org to expand and fill in more of what was
originally intended. There is a need for things like the OMR, Reference
items, and more utilities listed in the Download section. Its something
that is very well within reach in the next couple of months.
Here are some of the critical need areas:
Program Support
A help desk for LDraw user questions would take care of Jacob's and my
swelling email box problem ;) Help topics for frequent problems (such as
runtime errors, etc) would alleviate a good chunk of the questions, and
then a team of knowledgeable people would answer more difficult
questions. This could run off of an ldraw.org email address [2] where the
questions are sent in to the desk.
Reference
Several reference topics are desperately needed. New manuals need to be
written for LDraw and LEdit, and MLCad and LDAO documentation needs to be
presentable as well. Also, a parts authoring tutorial would be useful for
part author hopefuls [3].
OMR
Planning on the OMR needs to wrap up and a solution needs to be developed
for the submission and storage of the files. Recall these LUGNET threads:
http://www.lugnet.com/announce/?n=251
http://www.lugnet.com/cad/dev/org/ldraw/?n=168
http://www.lugnet.com/cad/dev/org/ldraw/?n=212
(and any others I've missed)
The OMR model approval committee needs to organize the process of how they
will approve and add submissions to the OMR as well.
Download
The ldraw.org Download area needs to fatten up a bit. Utility authors need
to submit information about their programs for downloading from the
ldraw.org site, to continue to encourage the charter of the site,
'Centralized LDraw Resources.' The template for the download section is at:
http://www.ldraw.org/download/software/template.html
Its alright to fill out an email with the fields and the info and I'll
place that into the template and add it to the site as well.
ldraw.org LUG Representatives
Here's a new idea I got when making up the laminated ldraw.org name badges
for Jacob, Steve, and myself. Since LUG's are growing in size and number,
LDraw needs to be represented. Many LUG members are active LDraw users,
but these LUGs do attend/host events for the public. Promoting the Lego
hobby and the LDraw package as a means of modelling Lego is
worthwhile. Each LUG could appoint/elect one representative who will
promote LDraw at fests and events. This person would need to have a good
knowledge of the program and the community. They would receive a nice
laminated permanent ldraw.org name badge with their name and '--LUG
Representative' below their name. Thoughts?
That is all I can think of for now, but it is enough to keep quite a few of
us busy for a while. Please reply with comments and questions. And also,
please help contribute to the site with your area of expertise.
Hope all of you [Americans] had a blessed Thanksgiving!
[1] Server statistics for the first two weeks of November:
http://www.ldraw.org/statistics.19991101-14
[2] Actual @ldraw.org email addresses should be coming soon, and that will
help users contact the site staff easier. It will also relieve us of
'Email Tim Courtney at tim@zacktron.com' at the bottom of pages (which
annoys me a lot, I'd just rather give an @ldraw.org address without a name).
[3] I've been asked about the existence of such several times, so there is
a demand for it.
Now its time for the biggest shopping day of the year!
-Tim
http://www.zacktron.com
http://www.ldraw.org
AIM: timcourtne
ICQ: 23951114
You know what you'll never see?? A fat Chinese man with flaming red hair
running full speed while taking a crap. -Tom Ace
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