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<snipped>
Hi Bram,
Thanks for the questions - as Larry has said, it may be better in the future
to post these types of questions on the BrikTrak forums
(http://www.briktrak.com/forums) I try and answer all posts over there as
quickly as possible, but I'm not always able to check on Lugnet.
Before answering these specific questions, I must say that the LDraw format
model import functionality is the area that needs the most development work
doing to it. The entire functionality was brought into BrikTrak at a very
late stage and I have to admit that it is probably the area that I
personally know the least about. I am spending a lot of time making changes
to the model import functionality, so you should see a lot of changes in the
next version.
Questions like these definately help though, so please keep them coming!
Now, on to the questions;
> > 1) I often use color 256 for black rubber.
Could you modify the program to interpret color 256 as 0?
The translation of LDraw colors into Bricklink colors (and for that matter
Peeron colors into Bricklink Colors) is handled by an XML translation file
that gets installed with BrikTrak. Basically, I have a file on my server
that is basically XX Ldraw color is the same as XX Peeron color which is XX
Bricklink color. The BrikTrak client is able to update it's translation
table by automatically downloading the file (and other files for parts,
categories and more) from the server whenever the file changes. (If you go
to Support>Check for new LEGO definition files, then this starts the wizard
that checks for newer files and downloads them if needed).
Now, finding all these color translations takes a lot of time, and so far
most of my effort has been spent handling the Peeron to Bricklink ones. For
the LDraw ones, I picked as many of the obvious ones as possible, but didn't
have enough spare time to dig deeper for colors such as the rubber color
mentioned above. I will be updating the translation files soon, so I will
add this one to it.
> > 2) One part that came up as UNKNOWN was 2412a.dat. In most
cases, a part with a name like that is simply a slightly
newer version of the old part 2412.dat. Perhaps BrikTrak
should check for the number alone if the number and letter
shows up as unknown?
The trouble with doing this is that some parts do officially have letters in
their part number (printed pieces are the obvious one). If I automatically
stip out the letter, then it will fix some issues, but introduce new ones.
One idea would be to first check to see if part XXXXa exists keeping the
letters in place. If it doesn't then I could strip out the letters and check
for the part using only the numeric value. I will look into this some more,
but it doesn't seem to be an exact science.
> > 3) Is there any way to save inventories of .dat models?
Absolutely, although it may not be obvious at first.
To save an inventory of an LDraw file (or an imported LEGO set for that
matter), simply import the model as normal, Right click in the models parts
grid to bring up the context sensitive menu and select "Import these items
to the main inventory grid". When this has finished, click the left hand
"Main Inventory" button. This brings up the main inventory and you will
notice that your models parts have been copied into this view. You can now
save this inventory in Bricklink XML format by clicking the "Save Inventory"
button. This will allow you to reload it at any time.
> > 4) Is there any way to have more than one .dat inventory open at once?
You can only have one model open in the "Model Import" grid at one time.
What you can do however is import the model into the main inventory grid,
clear the model grid (right click the model grid and select "Clear All
Items") and then load second and subsequent models. If you keep loading
models and importing them into the main grid, then these are appended to any
parts already in the main inventory view, effectively merging the parts from
all the models together into one inventory.
As stated in answer 3, you can then manually edit the parts in the main
grid, save and load back in at a later date.
Hope it helps, excellent questions!
Richard,
http://www.briktrak.com
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