L3P and unofficial parts

[Damien Roux]

Hi there!

I've recently decided to use the ldraw\unofficial folders to put all the unofficial parts I'm using (instead of copying everyting in the standard ldraw\parts folder).

The problem I have is the following: when using L3Padd-On to export the model into Pov-Ray, it simply ignores the unofficial parts. It's like it is only using the ldraw\parts folder.

Does someone know how I can tell L3P or L3PAdd-On to use also the ldraw\unofficial path? I'm using lastest version of L3P and L3PAdd-On.

[Steffen]

I personally do it this way:

since the MODELS folder only contains the 2 boring default models plus some text files
(which IMHO instead should be in the LDRAW root folder, or in some history folder or releasenotes or elsewhere),
I have moved away all that contents to somewhere else, i.e., "MODELS_BAK".

I then use the MODELS folder as my folder for unofficial parts and primitives
written by myself as well as those downloaded from e.g. the PT.

My models I then create in various other folders, located arbitrarily on my harddisk.

This way also very old software like L3P, which does not know anything about custom folders
like UNOFFICIAL etc. works as a breeze.

This works with L3P (I am using L3P v1.4 BETA 20080930 (Win32)):

L3P looks first in the current folder, then in MODELS folder, then in PARTS, then in P, as far as I know.
So this works perfect for me.

It's kind of a workaround, because of course the MODELS folder is not intended for that purpose,
but because the spec said "look in MODELS first, then in PARTS, then in P", this does the trick.

[Damien Roux]

Ok, I'll try like this.

But should I understand that there is no way to change the folders that L3P will scan? Maybe there is a ini file or whatever to edit?

[Jim DeVona]

Huh, using the models folder is clever solution. I hadn't thought of that.

Damien, you might also consider LDMerge - a script I wrote to deal with programs like L3P that don't know about the Unofficial folder. It helps you temporarily move the unofficial parts into the main library and then move them back out. Admittedly it's not too user friendly and I haven't tested it on Windows much.

[Steffen]

see also this post
http://forums.ldraw.org/showthread.php?t...288#pid288
, which recommends using a source code revision control software for the LDRAW folder

[Lars C. Hassing]

Please read about ldraw.ini at
http://www.hassings.dk/l3/l3p.html#ldrawdir
/Lars