color codes for silver vs metal ?

[Steffen]

(I am copying and pasting the discussion from
http://www.ldraw.org/cgi-bin/ptdetail.cg...144485.dat
, as that discussion will get lost once the file is released):

Magnus, Scott, Philo,

thank you very much for compiling that information!
The overview image is very instructive!

I fear that the semantics of these colors must have changed
in the past 8 years. I somehow must have missed that semantics change:
I remember that 383, 494 and "rubber black" in the early days
of LDRAW were the only "special" colors, and in those days,
usage was not the way as on your overview image here now.

However, the suggested colors purpose makes perfect sense.
It has several benefits:
(a) it gives 494 a "real" role, different from the special one
I described above
(b) it makes a difference between real metal parts and
silver colored plastic ones.

So I am 99% convinced that your table reflects the optimal solution
for using these colors, and we should use that.

There is just one remaining thing to talk about,
which also explains my confusion about this issue:

(i) we just released new parts with the recent update 2011-01,
which do not adhere to that spec, e.g.
4707c01.dat, ..., 4707c03.dat

(ii) many of my parts are now sitting for 8 years now on the PT, e.g.
http://www.ldraw.org/cgi-bin/ptdetail.cg...s/3240.dat
, and they got CERT votes despite they use the colors not that way :-|

(iii) all the electric plugs
http://www.ldraw.org/cgi-bin/ptreviewsum...ctricplugs
currently do not use that scheme

So I am 99% convinced that your scheme is a good solution.
Should we decide to apply it, then we should do the following:
- add its information to the LDRAW color chart http://www.ldraw.org/Article93.html
, where it is currently missing
- extend ldconfig.ldr by more comments, e.g. listing some part numbers as examples to avoid confusion
- update the whole library to adhere to that scheme.