How Rooster saves your work, and undo

Rooster saves as you go

There is no Save command and nothing to remember. Rooster writes your projects to your Mac shortly after every edit - within a second, even in the middle of a run of changes - and again when you quit or switch to another app. (Command-S is Play/Pause.)

Each save replaces the whole project library in one step, so a crash mid-save cannot leave it half written.

Your recordings are never changed

An edit is an instruction the project keeps - "skip from here to here", "put this title there" - not a change to the file. Your recordings and imported files are read, never written. Effects such as Studio Sound write a new, separate file and leave the original as it was. That is why any cut can be restored and any effect removed.

Undo and redo

• Edit > Undo, ⌘Z, takes back your last edit. The menu names it - "Undo Split Clip", "Undo Remove Filler Words" - so you know what will change.
• Edit > Redo, ⇧⌘Z, puts it back.
• The timeline's toolbar has the same two as buttons.

A batch - a set of filler words, every shortened pause, a group of deleted clips - is one step.

Undo history belongs to each project, and lasts until you quit Rooster. It is not saved, so after you reopen Rooster, Undo starts fresh; your edits themselves are all still there. Transcribing a project again can also clear steps that no longer make sense against the new transcript.

While you type in a text field, or in the script in Correct mode, Undo first takes back your typing, then project edits.

Try something without losing what you have

To experiment - a vertical cut, a shorter version, different captions - make a version rather than undoing your way back afterwards. Right-click the project in the sidebar and choose Make a Version…. Choose what to make it from (The whole transcript, or the words you had selected), its Shape, its caption Look and its Version name, then press Make Version. A version is a separate project on the same recording: editing one leaves the other alone.

If Rooster cannot save

If the disk is full or the folder cannot be written to, Rooster says Rooster couldn’t save your projects. Your edits are still in the window; free some space and make another edit to try again. Do not quit until it saves.

If Rooster cannot read your project library at all, it leaves the file exactly as it was rather than writing over it, and says nothing you do will be saved until that is fixed. Your video files are untouched either way. Contact support if this happens.

When Rooster will not quit

Rooster will not quit while a recording, an export or an effect is running, and says which. Stop it, or wait for it to finish.