Create   |   Details   |   Archive   |   Crew   |   Sharing   |   Import   |   Backup

Shows and Plots are the fundamental organizational tools in Lighting Designer. A Show is a single job, which contains Plots, which are individual lighting setups.

Create

To create a Show or Plot, tap the +Show or +Plot buttons in the bottom left corner of their tables. When you create a new Show, LD will name it and automatically create a Plot with it. To delete a Show, either swipe the table row right-to-left and then Delete, tap the select button (top right), select the Show, and tap the Delete button at the bottom, or open the Show details and tap the Delete button. You can also make an exact copy of a Show by swiping right-to-left and tapping Copy, or by selecting it and using the Copy button at the bottom of its detail table. The same actions work for Plots (except swiping, because they’re not in individual rows).

Details

Every Show and Plot has a unique set of details: title, Lock (for Plots), shoot dates, crew, and description. The table will also display the date created and date edited.

You can sort your lists of Shows and Plots by one of three properties: title, start date, or the date it was last edited. You can also filter the chronology of the list among Past, Present, Future, All, and All Times (which displays each Show or Plot differently based on when it occurs), as well as Archived, which shows you only Shows that have been archived. Switch the sort direction between top-down and bottom-up by tapping the up/down arrow button. To change the title of a Show or Plot, either press and hold the title in the list, or open its detail table.

Tapping the select button allows you to select multiple Shows or Plots to Archive, Copy, or Delete.

Archive

To save space on your device and clutter in your Show list, you can “archive” a Show. This will remove it from your list of Shows, and delete its Plot renders to save space on your device. You can always change your Show sort chronology to Archive to view all your archived Shows, and open their Plots normally; from there, you can un-archive your Show (you will need to open and re-render your Plots).

Crew

You can also add Crew to your Shows and Plots by choosing contacts from your device, or by filling in custom information. This works best if your contacts have both a phone number and an email address, so you can email them copies of your Plot, but they will still be added to your Crew even if they just have a first name. You’ll always be able to modify this information later.

To add Crew, select the Add Crew button in the bottom toolbar of the detail table. This will present a list of all your contacts. Once you’ve chosen a contact, LD will prompt you to select which position they will fill, and allow you to choose among multiple emails and phone numbers, if they have more than one. If you add a Crew member for the whole Show, they will be added to every Plot in the selected position; inversely, if you remove a Crew member from the whole Show, they will be removed from every Plot to which they were attached. To remove Crew, tap the Edit button, and use the red buttons to remove Crew members individually (or swipe right-to-left and tap Remove).

To change a Crew Member’s info, tap the Edit button and select the individual. In this view, you’ll also be able to add the selected Crew Member to all the Plots in the Show, or remove them from all Plots except the selected one.

Sharing

LD allows you to easily send your creations to your Crew, to keep them up-to-date. You can email or save images to your Camera Roll for Shows and Plots, and you can also Tweet or Facebook Plot images.

To email a Show, tap the arrow button in the top right of the detail table and select the Email option. In the presented sheet, select what items you want to include, as well as who you’d like to send them to. (This is why it’s convenient to have email addresses for your contacts.) The preview on the right will show you what your email will look like. When you’re done customizing, tap Compose, and send the email.

The images are full-size renderings of your Plots, which are created when you open your Plot and make changes. Equipment lists will lay out all the gear in your Truck by category, whether it’s for the full Show or individual Plot. Crew lists include each Crew member’s position, name, phone number, and email address.

Selecting Share will open the traditional iOS sharing view, allowing you to save the image, print, send by iMessage, and post to social media. You also have various other storage options depending on your device’s apps, such as saving a Show or Plot to Dropbox or Google Drive. This can be a valuable way to save backups of your Shows just in case you lose your device.

Import

To open a .ldshow or .ldplot file from an email, Dropbox, Google Drive, etc, just tap on the file and select “Copy to LD.” This will open LD and the Import window, where you can choose which Show to add Plots to (or just import the .ldshow as a new Show). Tap the “Import” button and the data will be added to your device.

Backup

Every time you send LD to the background, it will perform a complete backup of your user data (as long as it’s been at least 30 minutes since the last auto-backup). It will always keep the latest three backups stored, so if you need to, you can Restore Backup from the Browser menu. After you confirm this choice, LD will replace its current data (Shows, Plots, and any images like Plot renders or Gel gobo patterns) with the data from that backup. It’s a worst-case scenario action, but could be very useful if you find yourself in trouble.

Note: when you restore from a backup, LD automatically performs Reset Sync if you’re using it. This ensures that the restored data takes priority over any other data on your devices. Be aware of this if you’re using iCloud Sync.

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