Lightworks Tip:

Racks And Rooms

by Patrick Gregston

One of the legacies of evolving software is that the techniques developed under one version become irrelevant within the new version. So it is with the practice of putting doors within rooms, within rooms. This method of organizing material and edits is superseded in version 4 with the introduction of the Rack. Racks can be stacked within one another, made permanent and so on. Besides reducing the clutter within a room, a rack makes the labyrinth of doors unnecessary. Most importantly, the backup tool backs up the racks, so that your structure is protected.

Doors leading to doors was/is problematic, due simply to the possibility of a door file becoming corrupted and cutting off access to all doors that were nested within the corrupt room. And since room files are not backed up, the eventuality of having to rebuild a room was certain. It is usually just a matter of how harshly would the application of Murphy's law, to any given circumstance, be. As in most instances, application of the corollary to Murphy's Law (any disaster prepared for is unlikely to occur) is the best defense.

While version 4 variants provide us with racks, the flaw in Backup ( failure to backup rooms) can be easily prepared for. From DOS, use XTREE to access the LWPROJ directory. In the LWPROJ root there are files with the ROO suffix. Tag them all and copy (Control-C) to your backup optical disk (know which DOS letter is its address!). You may want to view each file and create a "cookie/room" list so you know which file(s) to copy from, should any room ever get corrupt. Remember to do this regularly, since restoring the ROO from the disk will return the room to its state at the time of the backup copy.

I have batch files to do this for me and have made them part of a regular DOS level maintenance program. Be aware that writing/using/changing software without the permission of the owner of the system can violate agreements between manufacturers, owners, vendors and users.