[LSC] LDraw File Format 1.0.0 comments

[William Howard]

With the BFC spec ratified and the !CATEGORY/!KEYWORDS language extension
waiting your comments, the pre-work for the LDraw Spec is almost complete.

The following are my initial thoughts/comments on what needs
clarifying/extending/changing in the current spec
http://www.ldraw.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=218

We'll probably want to split these out into seperate threads for discussion

William


Table of Contents
 1) Line type 0 thru 5 should have the type name (subfile, line, etc) added
for clarity

LDraw Files
 2) Do we need to mention file encoding (US-ASCII7, UTF-8, whatever)
 3) Should mention MS-DOS 8.3 filename format restriction
 4) Comment about every line being independant of others is not true (cf.
the BFC INVERTNEXT meta-statement)

The LDraw Unit
 5) Stud width should be stud diameter
 6) Are there any others that should be added to the list (stud height,
plate height, baseplate thickness, brick/plate wall thickness, etc, etc,
etc)
 7) As the real-life conversions given are in-accurate, we need to comment
on what these should be used for (ie approximating patterns, etc)

Line Types
 8) Type 1 is a sub-file reference and not a "part" ref (as they are also
used for sub-parts and primitives)

Line Type 0
10) We can link the comment about the first line being a title to the
Library Header spec
11) We need to say why the 0 // <comment> format prefered
12) There are now more unofficial meta-commands than official ones - we can
link to the two summary lists
13) We need to explain the significance of the ! before the <META command>

Line Type 1
14) The external link to www.geocities.com either needs removing, making
more generic (ie a search term) or the content (if relevant) including
within the spec
15) While there is no limit on file nesting, we probably need to comment
that there may be practical limits!
16) Need to add notes on how to reference subparts (s\subfile.dat) and
hi-res primitives (48\hires.dat)

Line Type 2
17) Make the <colour> a hyper-link to the colour section as per all the
other line types

Line Type 4
18) Need to add CCW wound diagram as "good"
19) Need to comment on concave quads (are they invalid in the spec?)

Line Type 5
20) The explanation in the first paragraph is mis-placed and needs moving
down below the definition of x1, x2, etc
21) Make the <colour> a hyper-link to the colour section as per all the
other line types
22) The last paragraph should reference curved surfaces approximated by
quads and not just cylinders
23) There are minor typos in the last paragraph

Colours
24) Under colour 16 it should be "sub-file" not "part file"
25) Under colour 24 it should be "sub-file" not "part file"
26) Should be "using the complement colour" (two occurances)

META Commands
27) Is this section complete? (ie all official meta-commands covered)
28) Need to link to list of official meta commands
29) Need to mention ! in relationship to new official meta commands
30) 0 STEP seems to be a shorthand for 0 SAVE then 0 PAUSE - is this true?
31) STEP does not cause all programs to stop - only LDraw
32) STEP does not cause all programs to save a bitmap - only LDraw
33) PAUSE should explain how it is different to STEP - ie no bitmap saved -
as per the description of SAVE
34) File Type also needs to include !LDRAW_ORG
35) The file type line is no longer the last line of the header, we should
link to the Header Spec here
36) The list of file types needs to be checked against the Library header
spec
37) Need to add some nomenclature for obsolete types

BFC Statements
38) Will need to link to new official spec

Other META Command
39) Needs to be "Other Unofficial META Commands"