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Subject: 
Re: Articles on ldraw.org out of date - I can help
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.cad.dev.org.ldraw
Date: 
Thu, 17 May 2007 17:26:35 GMT
Viewed: 
2684 times
  
In lugnet.cad.dev.org.ldraw, Timothy Gould wrote:
In lugnet.cad.dev.org.ldraw, Ahui Herrera wrote:
In lugnet.cad.dev.org.ldraw, William R. Ward wrote:
I was looking through some of the articles on ldraw.org and found some to be out
of date or to have errors.  I'd be happy to help clean this up but I don't know
what the process is to get access or to submit changes...?

For example http://www.ldraw.org/Article102.html has a long process for creating
MPD files, whereas in newer versions of MLCAD you can just use the Multipart
menu to do it in one step.

It does show the "easy" way as well:
http://www.ldraw.org/Article102.html#How_to_2

The reason the EASY way is not shown first is becuase users should learn the
THEORY behind what they are doing rather than just learning how to do it.

I wouldn't call loading LPub to make an MPD the easy way. The easy way is to use
the menus in MLCad. The article is most certainly out of date.

Well, because MLCad's process is so manual, it is very easy to create MPD files
that are incomplete or not in the right order.

One of MPD's rules is that the first FILE is the top level model.  I've gotten
plenty of letters from people who say they take the MPD file they created in
MLCad into LPub and it deosn't do the right thing.  Typically because they have
not had the top level file as the first FILE.

Once you've got LPub installed, you simply open the top level file, and LPub
will traverse the entire model determining all the user defined files involved
in the model automatically.

Then you use the "Save As MPD" menu and it will write out the file as a complete
MPD and the files are in order of appearance.

Two menu item clicks and you've got an MPD file.  MLCad's process is certainly
harder than LPub's.

Maybe we're not talking the same "easy vs hard" processes?!?


Eg.
You can use a calculator to do multiplication.  Yet your school teacher first
showed you how to do it on paper the long way before allowing the use of the
calculator for the longer multiplication problems.  Why?  Without a solid
foundation you would be doomed to never understand why you got the answer you
got on the calculator.

But we don't learn how an MS Word document is formatted before using a word
processor. Personally I think the easy way should be a) right and b) first.

I agree totally.

There is a specification on LDraw.org that defines MPD file format.  Maybe you
could simply provide a parenthetical link to that document for format specifics.
Then jump into LPub and MLCad ways of doing it.


-Ahui
LDraw Help Desk

Tim

Kevin



Message has 2 Replies:
  Re: Articles on ldraw.org out of date - I can help
 
--snip-- (...) I think we're not talking about the same proccess. For me 'making an MPD file' is something you do at edit time. Editing a bunch of files, then calling LPub to join them is not as easy as editing them in MLCAD using the MPD menu to (...) (18 years ago, 17-May-07, to lugnet.cad.dev.org.ldraw)
  Re: Articles on ldraw.org out of date - I can help
 
(...) Curiously enough, the tutorial cited ((URL)) recommends making the first submodel an empty model in order to "help in speeding up the upload time" for large models. I think it's interesting that MPD is still often presented as an extension to (...) (18 years ago, 19-May-07, to lugnet.cad.dev.org.ldraw, FTX)

Message is in Reply To:
  Re: Articles on ldraw.org out of date - I can help
 
(...) I wouldn't call loading LPub to make an MPD the easy way. The easy way is to use the menus in MLCad. The article is most certainly out of date. (...) But we don't learn how an MS Word document is formatted before using a word processor. (...) (18 years ago, 3-May-07, to lugnet.cad.dev.org.ldraw)

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