(2025-03-15, 10:20)Peter Blomberg Wrote: What about separating the underside variations into subfiles, leaving only the parts common to all variations in the main file? Complete variations could then be constructed using the shortcut approach.
The part-independent common reinforcements could also be made into primitives in the same way technic has many modular primitives to choose from. That would make the creation of mold variations a matter of mix and match.
That's already essentially the practice. Someone still has to author those subfiles/prims, and then all the different part variants, and they have to go through the review process.
The difference in my imagined method is that you only ever have to author one basic version of the part. Then any variants like underside supports, solid/hollow/blocked/vented stud, etc., could be "turned on" in your editing program, or embedding them in a meta- or shadow file, like how LDCad does with snap info.
(2025-03-15, 12:52)Willy Tschager Wrote: With so many parts still missing in the library I prefer new parts over variants.
I would agree, given the need to choose. However, new parts often tend to be fairly intricate and may be out of reach for less experienced part authors. Working on something like underside variants could allow something for those authors to work on who aren't feeling up to the big stuff.