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What it is

Show the root by hitting Alt-r.

In vvvv you can place one patch into another in a hierarchical fashion. And every hierachical system has one single chief. We call the chief of a patch system "Root".

And typically

So if you close the root patch vvvv will ask you if you want to quit it or start with a new, blank root.

The Root patch typically contains

• configuration nodes
• node representations of temporary patches and patches that you opened via the windows explorer.
• node represenations of GUI nodes like Finder (VVVV), Inspektor (VVVV) or ProjectExplorer (VVVV).

You usually don’t need to see this patch, as vvvv manages its content on its own. But if you like, you can use it just like any other patch to create nodes and patches. You are also free to delete the nodes in the root patch.

Since beta25 vvvv comes with a standard root "root.v4p", which lies just besides the vvvv.exe.

So you may change that file to fit your needs, but be sure to save it manually whenever you are happy, since you won't be asked to save the file when closing vvvv.

What to do with it?

Since you can only open this patch once, this is the best place for nodes that you only should have once.
So the most important thing you need to know about the root is:

Your own Roots

You may store a root at another location and open it as the root from within the windows explorer. Do that by right clicking on a v4p file and choosing "Open as Root".

Or open it from within a batch file with

(...)\vvvv.exe /r "my root.v4p"

Creating batch files for your projects is recommended. That way you don't mess up your application folder with project specific files and projects can share one vvvv folder.
At the same time you don't need to right click

Batch files also work nicely in a bogroup situation where you might want different batch files for different startup behaviours for different servers and clients.
For those who know the file: Avoid using "args.txt".

Several Roots

"There is only one root." is only true if vvvv is not running as client in a boygroup.

In that case vvvv would also get the roots of the servers, but typically the nodes of the server root would not be boygrouped directly and the client would just use its own root to configure correctly.

Small note on the NodeList Node

Note that also the search path of the NodeList (VVVV) are only necessary to specify for active patching. Only the node browser needs search pathes to present a list of available nodes. You don't need a NodeList (VVVV) for just opening patches, since from beta25 on all external references are stored within the patch.