Part XML Description

Overview

For each GIF image file created in the part library, you can create an XML file with the same name. This XML file will contain useful information to describe the properties of your parts such as its different connection points. But BlueBrick can still assign a default behavior to your part if you don't create an XML file, so this file is optional. The name of the XML file must be exactly the same as the GIF file, except the extension of course.

You can duplicate an existing XML file and modify it to work faster. Be careful, the XML tags are case sensitive. Every field is optional, and the order of the fields does not matter. If one field is missing the default behavior is used instead.

File Encoding

For a good cross platform compatibility, you should clearly indicate in the header of the xml file the encoding in which the file is saved. The prefered encoding is UTF-8, because it can save accentuated character for the part description in different languages. Use a text editor to save your XML file in UTF-8. For example with Windows Notepad, choose the correct encoding in the save dialog:

And make sure the header of your file starts with this line:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

Structure of the XML file

If you don't know what an XML file is, and if you are not familiar with its syntax, I strongly recommend you search for some additional help on internet. To summarize it in few words, this format organizes the data in a tree hierarchy by using tags which are identified by being enclosed with the characters < and >. Here is the general structure of an XML part file:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<part>
    <Author>...</Author>
    <Description>
        <en>...</en>
        ...
    </Description>
    <ImageURL>...</ImageURL>
    <SortingKey>...</SortingKey>
    <NotListedInLibrary>...</NotListedInLibrary>
    <OldNameList>
        ...
    </OldNameList>
    <SnapMargin>
        ...
    </SnapMargin>
    <ConnexionList>
        <connexion>
            ...
        </connexion>
        ...
    </ConnexionList>
    <hull>
        <point>
            ...
        </point>
        ...
    </hull>
    <TrackDesigner>
        ...
    </TrackDesigner>
    <LDraw>
        ...
    </LDraw>
    <FourDBrix>
        ...
    </FourDBrix>
</part>

The different XML tags in details

For a detailed description of each XML tags, read the following sections: