"Missing Disks" behavior needs a rethink

There's a new thing in FCP 4 where it doesn't automatically reset your scratch disks, if one or more is offline. That's cool. But the new behavior is kinda clunky, to me.

Unless I'm missing something, if I have taken a scratch disk temporarily offline, I have to actually CLEAR that scratch disk from my System Prefs, before I can launch FCP. I can't just uncheck it, for capture or rendering. The "Missing Disks" dialog won't let me continue unless i actually CLEAR the mising drives and volumes. That can be a lot of volumes on a big project, some of them being on a network.

Which means have to reset it, when I bring the disk back online. This is a needless pain, seems to me. Particularly if I'm on a PB and going from the studio to a location to Pete's coffee and the beach and back all the time, all on the same project.

Why in the world should i have to tediously reset all my scratch drives, each time I come back to the studio, simply to launch the application? Why can't i just acknowlwdge that they are missing for now, and reassign my active video and render scratches with the check marks?

I love that they give us new features, but you'd think they could think them through a little more.

--Ralph

I've started locking my prefs file again to keep the prefs on my PowerBook set to the primary when I take it elsewhere or start up FCP with drives offline. Works, but I haven't had to do that in a while. Still I like this for multi labs, because it makes my kids think about it rather than let the machine default to the startup drive. Maybe an option for this behavior in the general prefs would have been a better implementation?

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I've started locking my prefs file again to keep the prefs on my PowerBook set to the primary when I take it elsewhere or start up FCP with drives offline.

Hmmm... I don't think I know that trick. How does that work.

--Ralph

if you lock the FCP 4 preferences file, it keeps the DEFAULT prefs the same every time you open FCP. You can change them if you want, but the changes don't stick from session to session. I used to do this to keep my kids from going to the start up drive. If you do it in FCP4, you'll get that re-assign every time the drives are missing, but when you go back home and reconnect the drives, it will see its drives right off in Scratch Disk.

I like the feature, guys. It was a badly needed watchdog. Worth the annoyance of having to reset, methinks.

As for locking the prefs file, what prevents you from adjusting the settings you want, THEN going in and locking the file?

- Loren
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I like the feature, guys. It was a badly needed watchdog. Worth the annoyance of having to reset, methinks

Well yeah sure, Loren, it's better than nothing. Granted. But why have an annoyance at all? Why not have a feature that is smooth and sleek and simple from the beginning, no sweat?

It's really just as simple to design it so it works in all situations, from day one, as it is to do this sort of stop-start design in fits and farts method.

Am I asking too much?

--Ralph

[ Am I asking too much?]

No, probably not. But that watchdog has already saved me some headaches so i defend it.

- Loren
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unless I miss your meaning. When the prefs file is locked you CAN change the prefs, the changes just don't stick from start up to start up. Changes only happen to the prefs loaded into RAM, not saved on disk. So the idea is to set them the way you want and lock it, then when you reset it because the drive is missing, the original stays in the prefs file. This really helps if you are using scratch disk folders instead of a single volume, like I do in my own persnickety manner