316 replies to this topic

[Bricksan]

Righty thanks to the support people. I tried 2003 again and no joy so updated to XP SP3 and installed 2010 runtime and the joy on my face when it ran smoothly :-)

Thanks again
Rich

[Superkalle]

Great news Rich.
And thank legolijntje for the proposal Now we now LDD Manager works on 2010 runtime as well!

[kc2dc]

Hello,

I’m trying to add a new wanted list and the option does not show up.   All I see is (No Items in Wanted List), but there is nothing under that to add a new list.  I have tried this is multiple browsers and PCs and they are all the same.

Do you guys know what I may be doing wrong?  Thanks in advance.

[clizarra]

Folks tool works great here is the catch if you have many uniqe parts 133 in mine and stores seems to max out at 207 how can you split the wanted list to find the other parts.
I found a nice LDD of BSG Viper and woudl love to build it.
help the new guy

[DLuders]

@ clizarra:  Welcome to Eurobricks!     Is the Battlestar Gallactica (BSG) Viper model this one by Greg Stinger-Bates on MOCPages?   (LDD .lxf file)

  

[Superkalle]

@clizara - Isn't that a BrickLink question rather then a LDD Manager one? Or have I misunderstood.

[Superkalle]

New version uploaded today, with support for 4.3.6.
Happy downloading.

[Classicsmiley]

Superkalle, on 10 March 2013 - 07:25 PM, said:

New version uploaded today, with support for 4.3.6.
Happy downloading.

Excellent!  I just downloaded it, and I'm glad to see that it works with Office 365 Home Premium.

Thanks!

[Superkalle]

Classicsmiley, on 10 March 2013 - 09:52 PM, said:

Excellent!  I just downloaded it, and I'm glad to see that it works with Office 365 Home Premium.

Oh, I didn't know that. Thanks for the info!

[legolijntje]

Superkalle, on 10 March 2013 - 10:25 PM, said:

Oh, I didn't know that. Thanks for the info!

Well, then I can confirm it also works in Office 2013 Professional

[Classicsmiley]

I've been using LDD Manager to create wanted lists for Bricklink, and I've come across a problem with part colors.  If LDD Manager can't map a LEGO color to a Bricklink color, what's the best way to correct it?
Specifically, LEGO color 315 Silver Metallic doesn't map to Bricklink's Flat Silver.

It would be really nice if I could change the color of parts directly in LDD Manager.  It wouldn't affect the original LDD file, of course; just the database records.

[Superkalle]

Classicsmiley, on 19 May 2013 - 03:32 PM, said:

I've been using LDD Manager to create wanted lists for Bricklink, and I've come across a problem with part colors.  If LDD Manager can't map a LEGO color to a Bricklink color, what's the best way to correct it?
Specifically, LEGO color 315 Silver Metallic doesn't map to Bricklink's Flat Silver.

It would be really nice if I could change the color of parts directly in LDD Manager.  It wouldn't affect the original LDD file, of course; just the database records.

LDD Manager actually uses the "correct" mapping as established through a long a tedious detective work (in great cooperation with Aanchir). Even so there are off course times when there isn't a straight one-to-one mapping between LEGO and BL, mostly because members at BL have not detected a new color, even when TLG introduce one (or similar cases). So the mapping in LDD Manager is actually the best we have at the moment (and I'm not saying that to brag ).

The easiest solution to your problem is without a doubt to re-color the parts in your LDD model (or you can use the feature in LDD Manager to do the same thing) to make them map to the "correct" BL color.
LEGO color 179 Silver Flip-Flop maps to BL 95 Flat Silver
LEGO color 315 has no current accurate BL color, so don't use that.

[AndyC]

It's worth noting that Bricklink's "silver" colours are rarely very accurate, so the same "real" colour often get labelled in different ways dependent on who submitted the set information. And similarly buying silver pieces can also be a bit hit and miss, since they too are subject to misidentification at times.

[Classicsmiley]

Superkalle, on 19 May 2013 - 06:57 PM, said:

LDD Manager actually uses the "correct" mapping as established through a long a tedious detective work (in great cooperation with Aanchir). Even so there are off course times when there isn't a straight one-to-one mapping between LEGO and BL, mostly because members at BL have not detected a new color, even when TLG introduce one (or similar cases). So the mapping in LDD Manager is actually the best we have at the moment (and I'm not saying that to brag ).

The easiest solution to your problem is without a doubt to re-color the parts in your LDD model (or you can use the feature in LDD Manager to do the same thing) to make them map to the "correct" BL color.
LEGO color 179 Silver Flip-Flop maps to BL 95 Flat Silver
LEGO color 315 has no current accurate BL color, so don't use that.

I've been using Brickset's parts database to double-check element ID's.  315 is a current color, so I should be able to use it.  Matching up known parts from current sets, it should be a trivial matter to map the color.
For instance, 4655241 is the 1x1 round tile in 315 Silver Metallic.  That part is only identified in one "silver" color on Bricklink.  Shouldn't it be pretty easy to create the match?  At the very least, would be possible to add user-configurable color matching to LDD Manager?

[Superkalle]

I fully see your point, but because of the limitations in how colors have been handled at BL it's not trivial in all cases. But, I'll have a look at mapping LEGO 315 also to BL Flat Silver. The problem though is that then you start doing a lot of "magic" behind the scenes, people may be confused why both color 315 and 179 will transform to Flat Silver in BL. At the moment, LDD Manager simply exposes an underlying problem that is already there from the start. After all, the problem is really the fact that the AFOL community at the moment is caught between two "systems". The BL one for ordering, and the LEGO one for LDD and/or Brickset lookup. The only long term solution would be that BL starts using LEGO-ID's (which is now possible, since all the data is published, for example at Brickset).


So, in any case, your best bet (at the moment) is to do as follows:

1) Look at BL what color the piece have there (for 4655241 this would be Flat Silver)
2) In LDD Manager check what that color that corresponds to in LDD (which will be 179 Silver Flip-Flop).
3) Use LEGO color 179 Silver Flip-Flop in your LDD model even if it says 315 in Brickset.

In the meantime, I'll think about some kind of solution to what you wrote, because you do have a point.

[Classicsmiley]

Oh yeah, Bricklink's colors have been a mess for a long time.  I've read the forum posts about metallic silver/pearl light gray/flat silver.  That's one reason that I think user-configurable matching would be very useful.
For my current need today, I just pasted the wanted list output from LDD Manager into a text editor and did a find/replace for the color numbers.

Thanks for looking into a long-term solution, though!

[Edit] It's interesting that none of the flip-flop colors show up in Brickset's list of part colors...

Edited by Classicsmiley, 19 May 2013 - 08:39 PM.

[Aanchir]

Superkalle, on 19 May 2013 - 06:57 PM, said:

LDD Manager actually uses the "correct" mapping as established through a long a tedious detective work (in great cooperation with Aanchir). Even so there are off course times when there isn't a straight one-to-one mapping between LEGO and BL, mostly because members at BL have not detected a new color, even when TLG introduce one (or similar cases). So the mapping in LDD Manager is actually the best we have at the moment (and I'm not saying that to brag ).

The easiest solution to your problem is without a doubt to re-color the parts in your LDD model (or you can use the feature in LDD Manager to do the same thing) to make them map to the "correct" BL color.
LEGO color 179 Silver Flip-Flop maps to BL 95 Flat Silver
LEGO color 315 has no current accurate BL color, so don't use that.

Actually, 179 Silver Flip-Flop doesn't (in any cases I know of) map to Flat Silver. The only parts I know of in Silver Flip/Flop (and this is after quite a bit of study) are the silver BIONICLE Kanohi masks from the 2002 sets 8559 and 8569. The "Flip/Flop" in the name seems to refer to the fact that the material appears opaque and metallic under normal circumstances but translucent when backlit. Parts in this color have a streaky and somewhat sparkly appearance that sets them apart from other, smoother silver parts from 2002 sets. 178 Yellow Flip/Flop was likewise the color of gold masks from these same two sets, and they also share all of these characteristics. 176 Red Flip/Flop is the rarest of these colors: it did not appear in ANY regular-issue sets and only appeared as the color of copper Kanohi masks in propmotional offers like this one. Again, this is the only example I've ever found of a copper part that used this color.

In actuality, most pre-2010 Flat Silver parts on Bricklink are actually 131 Silver, the same color as most Pearl Light Gray parts, and the difference in appearance is due to other molding factors like the material and surface finish of the part, not to mention the perennial inconsistency that led 131 Silver to be replaced twice with new colors (first 296 Cool Silver in 2006, which was phased out promptly due to even worse inconsistency, and then by 315 Silver Metallic between 2010 and 2011). In other words, sometimes Bricklink's inconsistent color naming occurs for a reason. Still doesn't explain why they have at least four different colors labeled as "Copper", of course.

Overall, if you want to know what color a part is, often the most reliable way to find out is through LEGO Customer Service's replacement parts database. It's not infallible — some sets, for instance, have parts and colors listed from their latest production runs rather than their initial production runs, so for instance several Knights' Kingdom II sets from 2005 that used 147 Sand Yellow Metallic or 189 Reddish Gold have those same parts listed in 297 Warm Gold, which replaced both colors. And the only parts it lists in a set's inventory are those for which images have been uploaded to the server. Nevertheless, it's one of the most reliable systems for finding the exact LEGO color for a part.

The Brickset parts browser is derived from the Customer Service database, but is cross-referenced with their LEGO set database, so going to the Brickset page for a set will let you view the set's inventory (along with a convenient number telling how complete the inventory is). Also, if you are looking for info on parts from a set released in 2006 or later, just open the set's instruction booklet (physically or digitally) and turn to the parts inventory in the back. See those six– or seven-digit numbers by each part? Those are Element IDs, and by replacing the seven digit number in this URL with an Element ID from the back of an instruction booklet, you can easily find the Design ID and color of the original part.

Yes, it's a lot more of a process than you'd need to generate a part list in LDD Manager, but usually you don't have to check each part individually. Bricklink (and consequently, LDD Manager) is very reliable with the majority of parts. Parts it helps to double-check include obscure Bricklink colors like Salmon and Earth Orange, metallic and pearl colors like Flat Silver or Copper, and transparent colors like Trans-Bright Green and Trans-Neon Orange. All of these frequently map to multiple LEGO colors.

P.S: The reason Flip/Flop colors do not appear in Brickset's database is that it is sourced from the part inventories on the LEGO Customer Service site, and that only includes parts that have pictures uploaded to TLG's server. Ones without images are still included in the customer service parts database, but are not added to set inventories. Here is just one example of a BIONICLE mask in one of these colors.

It's difficult to find examples of parts in these colors because, since they were discontinued prior to 2006, when set inventories began to appear in instruction manuals, the only way to find these parts' pages without the assistance of a LEGO employee who can access the database and find you the Element ID is to check the pages for different Element IDs one-by-one. And the only "clues" you typically get are that Element IDs tend to be roughly chronological in order of parts' appearance (with some exceptions) and that new parts from certain sets or themes are sometimes clustered together, so if you know a few Element IDs of parts from a set or theme it can be a bit easier to find others.

Needless to say, it's tedious work. Occasionally you find certain gems, though, like parts that never appeared in sets or extremely obscure colors that were never used for basic bricks: for example, 144 Army Green, 156 Tr. Deep Blue, and 168 Gun Metallic were only ever used for LEGO watches as far as I have been able to tell.

Edited by Aanchir, 20 May 2013 - 04:01 PM.