Modifying a LCC file

[Steven]

I added some display elements (a neighbor) to the left of our current display, so I needed to shift the Animation display to the right. There is currently no way to do this using the LOR II sequence editor, so I needed to edit the animation in the LCC file directly.

I could have manually modified all the "" tags, but I have hundreds, so I found an easier way to do it.

• First, I made a copy of my LCC file, but renamed it ".XML" instead of ".LCC".
• Then I created the following file, called "move30.xsl":

<?xml version="1.0"?>













">










" channel="

"/>

• Next, I added this second line to my ".XML" file, after the first (existing) line:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="no"?>
<?xml-stylesheet type="text/xsl" href="move30.xsl"?>

• Now, I used Firefox (IE would probably work too) and loaded the ".XML" file. This produced a screen with the new animation XML code.
• I copied what was on the screen of my browser, and replaced the stuff in the existing ".LCC" file between the and tags, using Notepad.
  
• Finally, I imported the newly modified LCC file using the sequence editor. Magic! My animation had moved 30 columns to the right, making room for the new elements on the left.
• Just to make sure the LCC file was good, I re-exported it.

I learned this technique from the book XPath Kick Start: Navigating XML with XPath 1.0 and 2.0 that was lying around the office, but you could probably find this information online.

[hobbes]

This is very interesting. Using this type of technique you could probably write other types of 'programs' to alter the animation file for other uses. Thanks for the info.

tom.

[doublea]

this is very cool, I have made note of this, Ive wanted to do things like this in the past.

[Richard Hamilton]

Steven wrote:

First, I made a copy of my LCC file, but renamed it ".XML" instead of ".LCC".

• 
  
• Then I created the following file, called "move30.xsl":

Yo Steven, I am curious why you renamed the LCC file to XML? Is it because you want your XML editor to automatically open the LCC file when you click on it, or to have your editor recognize it?

You seem real savvy about this stuff so you probably know this... but why not associate the LLC file extension in Windows with your favorite XML editor? That is what I do because as I find myself looking at those files a lot and sometimes modifying them as you do. As you've discovered, some things are just a lot faster to edit in a file than do them in a sequence.

OK LOR, I can hear you screaming back there on the East coast to think that I edit your sequence files, but programming is sort of second nature to me. The key word here is backup, backup, and more backup.

[Steven]

Richard Hamilton wrote:

Yo Steven, I am curious why you renamed the LCC file to XML? Is it because you want your XML editor to automatically open the LCC file when you click on it, or to have your editor recognize it?

I don't have an XML editor that can add an integer to a certain value from every instance of a certain XML tag. So the only "XML editor" I used was "Wordpad" and Firefox. I also wanted to show that this could be done on any computer with a modern Internet browser without installing anything else.

I renamed it XML for two reasons:

1. I didn't try it, but I think that Firefox or IE won't apply an XSL template to an "LCC" file.
2. In my method, I had to add that extra "xml-stylesheet" tag to the LCC file, and I didn't want to give that back to the sequence editor.

[Richard Hamilton]

OK Steven, I see.

FYI... I associated the file extension of LCC with WordPad so that when I doubleclick on it, the file opens in WordPad. I have been able to apply an XLS template to an LCC file on two occasions. I'm glad that LOR decided to use this format. It is just so much simplier to use and debug.