Returning to ldraw, mlcad parts tree help requested

[Patrick Campion]

Hi all, my name's Pat. I've just replaced my 13+ year old home computer with a new one and I'm just installing ldraw again. Question I have relates to the parts tree hierarchy in mlcad. When I installed this all those years ago, there was a some kind of parts tree tweak available that I had installed that separated out, for example, all of the different brick types (decorated, modified, etc.) such that when clicking on the basic brick category, exactly and only that would appear in the parts preview pane, basic bricks only. Would dearly love to be able to set this up this way again.
I have no recollection on how I managed to implement this reorganization back then. Any direction on how to do so again would be appreciated.

Thanks

[Gerald Lasser]

Hi all, my name's Pat. I've just replaced my 13+ year old home computer with a new one and I'm just installing ldraw again. Question I have relates to the parts tree hierarchy in mlcad. When I installed this all those years ago, there was a some kind of parts tree tweak available that I had installed that separated out, for example, all of the different brick types (decorated, modified, etc.) such that when clicking on the basic brick category, exactly and only that would appear in the parts preview pane, basic bricks only. Would dearly love to be able to set this up this way again.
I have no recollection on how I managed to implement this reorganization back then. Any direction on how to do so again would be appreciated.

Thanks

Welcome to the forum!

As MLCAD is not actively developed anymore, I would recommend you to have a look at LDCad which is part of the All-In-One-Installer,try it!

Now to your question:

Have a look at Willy Tschager's Website, there is a extensive description of the features, among then the Organization of the Parts-Tree

Specifically you could go do this as follows:

Menu > Settings > Parts Tree > Tree Configuration

You can remove the patterned bricks when changing the "Bricks" Category to  "<Brick & !Pattern"
You can now add a new Category for patterned Bricks by adding "Bricks Patterned" with the search string "<Brick & Pattern>"

[Patrick Campion]

Welcome to the forum!

As MLCAD is not actively developed anymore, I would recommend you to have a look at LDCad which is part of the All-In-One-Installer,try it!

Now to your question:

Have a look at Willy Tschager's Website, there is a extensive description of the features, among then the Organization of the Parts-Tree

Specifically you could go do this as follows:

Menu > Settings > Parts Tree > Tree Configuration

You can remove the patterned bricks when changing the "Bricks" Category to  "<Brick & !Pattern"
You can now add a new Category for patterned Bricks by adding "Bricks Patterned" with the search string "<Brick & Pattern>"

Thank you Gerald, that was exactly the nudge in the right direction I needed.
I will have a look at LDCad, thanks also for this suggestion.

[Magnus Forsberg]

Yes, this info used to be in a file Willy is mentioning mlcad.grp, but that file is no longer installed in a new installation of Mlcad.
That file was editable and human readable, but now this info is placed in the windows registry.

[Patrick Campion]

Yes, this info used to be in a file Willy is mentioning mlcad.grp, but that file is no longer installed in a new installation of Mlcad.
That file was editable and human readable, but now this info is placed in the windows registry.

Thanks Magnus. While looking for something else (related to POVRay issues) I actually just stumbled across where I had originally found the direction I used way back in the old days to do this. It was a post by C3POwen on Eurobricks from 2012 on using POVRay. Later in that posting he discussed rearranging the parts tree into a more rational/useful arrangement and provided instruction and revised mlcad.grp file for download. 404 error if you try to download it now though anyway.

Appreciate the input from you both. Now just need to find the time to play around with things again and remember the little bits I used to know...