Sorry for not seeing the whole thing in the case that conversions were "half-assed" and most of the legwork came from you.
No problem; thanks for your understanding!
Only having the translation table I wouldn't even call a conversion.
It was the other way round: The terrain and objects etc. already had a folder in New Formats, but there was no translation table, so levels from Old Formats couldn't be assigned their matching pieces from New Formats.
A completely not-converted graphic set is easier, because then I know I can simply drag the old graphic set on the conversion tool, creating both the pieces and the translation table in the process.
The annoying part was that there were conversions, but changes had been made to the converted version that weren't reflected in the translation table (e.g. the translation table still referring to the old exit of desert_md when that exit isn't part of the collection anymore), or, worse, the translation table wasn't available at all.
This problem likely doesn't occur to graphic set creators, because if they were the ones who did the conversion, they themselves obviously have the tables on their PC, so they personally don't experience any issues in converting such levels. Thus, they forget to share the translation tables with everyone else, or send them to Nepster / Nessy so that they can include them in the next update, etc.The issues arose from the fact that we had frequent updates to just the styles folder, but without the matching updates of the data --> translation folder.
Hence, we should probably make it a habit that every zip-download that includes an update to the style folder also includes the translation folder.Of course, we need to make sure we have a complete translation folder at one point in time in the first place, so we can simply add any updates to that. Otherwise, we would always provide the translation folder together with the styles update, but the translation folder would still be missing some translation tables.
Apart from that, I wholly support your suggestion of graphic sets being "public domain" for forum users if the creator / manager of that tileset has been inactive for a while. "Public" in the sense of "the Lemmings public needs to agree on any changes made", not "free for individual modification"
.
At the same time, if it isn't fine for individuals to single-handedly add pieces to a tileset, then it shouldn't be fine either for graphic set creators to single-handedly remove pieces. Because that's basically just like a non-agreed-upon culling of a feature: It messes up every level created in that tileset so far, and with a single "delete" click, causes everyone else a bunch of unnecessary work. Missing teleporters / receivers, exits, terrain, removal of rotated pieces, and then, even if you adapt the translation table, the replacements for the missing pieces are misplaced in the level because they're different in size, etc.