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+--- Thread: New header METAs proposal (/thread-28991.html)
New header METAs proposal - Orion Pobursky - 2025-08-07
Starting this as a separate thread since I think Peter had some good suggestions:
Quote:Getting back to the original topic; I wanted to discover some way of annotating official parts with a tag that states what would need to be fixed if a part for some other reason is being edited. IMHO, the "needs work" sounds appropriate although it is not currently used or even intended for such use.
Maybe !NEEDSWORK could be added as a meta instead of being appended to the description and/or comments/!HELP.
Why not create a !BRICKLINK meta specifically for taking care of the mapping? Or a !LINK meta with two arguments - one for the authority (e.g. BrickLink), and the other for the ID?
RE: New header METAs proposal - Orion Pobursky - 2025-08-07
I like !LINK a lot. I think I'd rather use !EXTERNAL
I'm medium on !NEEDSWORK. I don't think there's enough parts in this category to warrant Yet Another META ™
I have one more suggestion:
Subcategories.
RE: New header METAs proposal - Peter Blomberg - 2025-08-08
Since !NEEDSWORK is mostly invisible to the user, could it be a flag on the PT? That would make it possible to add needswork flags to official parts whenever the needs are discovered.
RE: New header METAs proposal - Orion Pobursky - 2025-08-08
(2025-08-08, 6:00)Peter Blomberg Wrote: Since !NEEDSWORK is mostly invisible to the user, could it be a flag on the PT? That would make it possible to add needswork flags to official parts whenever the needs are discovered.
While that certainly is a possibility, a PT flag doesn't follow the part into distribution which I think "needs work" should. I'm pretty convinced that the current rule is the best solution.
RE: New header METAs proposal - Roland Melkert - 2025-08-08
(2025-08-07, 21:06)Orion Pobursky Wrote: I like !LINK a lot. I think I'd rather use !EXTERNAL
I too would rather see something like !EXTERNAL. eg:
Code:
0 !EXTERNAL "bricklink" "blabla"But I'm wondering if this should be in the part files them selves. It might be easier to maintain in a LDConfig.ldr like additional file.
(2025-08-07, 21:06)Orion Pobursky Wrote: I'm medium on !NEEDSWORK. I don't think there's enough parts in this category to warrant Yet Another META
Isn't this kind of tag more at its place in the !LDRAW_ORG meta, maybe a new qualifier?
RE: New header METAs proposal - Orion Pobursky - 2025-08-08
(2025-08-08, 20:54)Roland Melkert Wrote: But I'm wondering if this should be in the part files them selves. It might be easier to maintain in a LDConfig.ldr like additional file.
In Part file
Pro: The external number is searchable.
Con: The part file itself is edited if there are changes.
Separate file:
Pro: Significantly easier to maintain.
Con: Searching is more complicated.
RE: New header METAs proposal - N. W. Perry - 2025-08-08
(2025-08-08, 20:54)Roland Melkert Wrote: But I'm wondering if this should be in the part files them selves. It might be easier to maintain in a LDConfig.ldr like additional file.Makes sense, this is how Studio does it, FWIW.
RE: New header METAs proposal - Peter Blomberg - 2025-08-09
(2025-08-07, 21:06)Orion Pobursky Wrote: I have one more suggestion:
Subcategories.
The category is a "keyword with special meaning". I'm not a fan because any one part could be listed in many categories, but the specifications allow only one category. There are also several parts that lack a category even if similar parts have a category.
While subcategories would help organizing parts, I'd prefer a real ontology.
If the sole purpose of the category and the subcategory is to help organize the parts, why not have them in a separate file all together instead of having them as part of every single file?
How and where do software actually use the category? AFAIK LeoCAD uses a query and Stud.io use their own grouping.
RE: New header METAs proposal - Roland Melkert - 2025-08-09
(2025-08-09, 19:55)Peter Blomberg Wrote: There are also several parts that lack a category even if similar parts have a category.If no category is given the first word (excluding ~, _, =) of the description is used as the category.
(2025-08-09, 19:55)Peter Blomberg Wrote: How and where do software actually use the category? AFAIK LeoCAD uses a query and Stud.io use their own grouping.bin sorting (e.g. through filtering like in my LDCad's pbg files).
RE: New header METAs proposal - Orion Pobursky - 2025-08-09
(2025-08-09, 19:55)Peter Blomberg Wrote: There are also several parts that lack a category even if similar parts have a category.
I just checked. There are 7 parts (in the parts folder since those are the only parts that need a category) that the PT thinks don't have a category. All 7 are actually do have a proper category per the spec and the PT is wrong (probably some early bug that wasn't caught).
RE: New header METAs proposal - Peter Blomberg - 2025-08-10
(2025-08-09, 21:15)Orion Pobursky Wrote: I just checked. There are 7 parts (in the parts folder since those are the only parts that need a category) that the PT thinks don't have a category. All 7 are actually do have a proper category per the spec and the PT is wrong (probably some early bug that wasn't caught).
That's just because the category defaults to the first word of the description. Try counting how many parts have the default category when similar parts have a custom category. I just removed the last of the duplo doors from this list. Now all duplo doors should state their category as Door instead of Duplo.
RE: New header METAs proposal - Peter Blomberg - 2025-08-11
Subcategories are a wonderful idea now that I've pondered a bit. It enables all duplo animals from being mixed with small lego animals and animal parts from being mixed with complete animals. However, I do have one concern and that is the order of category-subcategory words.
Say for example that the animals category could have a subcategory for duplo and the duplo category could have a subcategory for animal. One possibility is to expand the categories so that one would select "duplo animal" as the category.