[LSC] Proposed changes to the LDraw part header tosupport theContributor Agreement - Version 6

[Steve Bliss]

[non-LSC member post]
Ross Crawford wrote:
> Travis Cobbs wrote:
>> There was one thing brought up that we should probably decide on.  There 
>> was an alternative proposal to how we should wrap history lines.  Do we 
>> do it like in the proposal (0 //  <spaces> wrapped text), or do we do it 
>> like in KEYWORDS and HELP, e.g:
>>
>> 0 !HISTORY YYYY-MM-DD [UserName] Free text description of change
>> 0 !HISTORY YYYY-MM-DD [UserName] Second row simulating formatting
>>
>> The above format has the advantage of being consistent with keywords and 
>> help.  However, given the nature of the history lines, it might be more 
>> confusing.  Despite the fact that it's inconsistent with keywords and 
>> help, my personal opinion is that the way it is in the v6 document is 
>> easer to read.  But I don't have a strong opinion.
>
> I lean towards repeating the META tag as per example above, but I'd be 
> easily swayed either way. WRT monospaced font requirement, yes it is a 
> restriction, but I think most authors are probably still using monospaced 
> fonts in their editor anyway, and most text-only viewers still use them, 
> so it's not a big issue for me.

Since part of the goal is to increase the structure on change-comments, and 
to make the header format somewhat more formal, my preference would be to 
repeat the !HISTORY tag as necessary.  And to recommend that authors should 
lean toward writing longer single !HISTORY lines (and not feel constrained 
to the historic 80-character limit on line length).

Required each !HISTORY entry to be on a single line will make it easier for 
the PT scripts to check header formats when part files are submitted.

Steve