Chris Dee Wrote:That way connectivity information does not have to be repeated in patterned versions of parts with identical geometry.In such a case the snap info should be added to the e.g. 'without front face' subpart.
Chris Dee Wrote:I know that there has been a lot of talk about the inefficiency of a 'one file = one part' structure of LDraw but from a library management perspective this still works best.I think it's the power of LDraw, just look at how fast Philio sometimes prepares some unofficial part after a request. That wouldn't be possible if you had to repack the whole library every time. Also the per dat solution gives authors the chance to add info from the get go which probably results in less errors as they know the shape etc in and out.
The loose files also still gives us the option to generate a higher HQ library (basically a cache file) as we discussed a while back. So we could also add the connection info to that package but personally I would prefer it in the .dat's as diskspace isn't a real issue these days and it's also easy enough to use the library from it's zip without unpacking it if needed.