LDI Product Preview: Lightwright 5 From John McKernon Software

Lightwright 5 software for managing theatrical lighting paperwork is now available from John McKernon Software, featuring Lightwright/VectorWorks Data Exchange, a new way to share data with VectorWorks Spot­light 2009, keeping the plot and the paperwork synchronized in realtime. This new version also keeps a complete history of who made changes in the worksheet and when, allowing a user to undo another user’s changes. Worksheet Rec­onciliation takes advantage of the history log by showing where two sets of data disagree, allow­ing multiple versions of the file to be worked on simultaneously. Users can also keep any number of show files open at once, and multiple users on a network can share worknotes and files. Worknotes have also been reconfigured, with adding, editing, and prioritizing now more flexible and a “distribute” feature that prints personalized worknote lists for multiple recipi­ents, emails worknotes from within the software, and sends them to other users on the network. A color scroll design window allows choosing of colors from palettes of all the major color brands and dragging them into a graphical view. A mov­ing light wheel design window provides a graphic picture of the wheel, with any number of holes, with indicator notches and rotating gears. Addi­tional features include global search in any data category, live counts for a running total of lights and accessories, 18 user-definable columns, and automatic dimmer load balancing.