I've done something similar many times. In my case, each "region" is actually an event, and is a play from an American football game. I give the client a test DVD with the plays in chronological order, with the event number embedded in the video (like your on-screen timecode). The client then gives me a list of the order he wants to see those events, i.e., instead of 1, 2, 3, 4, ... etc., his list will now be 4, 1, 3, 2 ... etc.

My solution was to create subclips from each event, and put the original event number into the subclip name. Thus if the original event was "Football63.avi" the subclip becomes "063Football63.avi".

To re-order everything, I run the script to create these subclips. I then go to the project media listing, and sort on the Name column. This puts all the subclips together. I then simply rename each subclip. For instance, here are the subclip names created from the original clip names:

001 - TTF - Restored (clip_01).avi
002 - TTF - Restored (clip_02).avi
003 - TTF - Restored (clip_03).avi
004 - TTF - Restored (clip_04).avi

Remember, these are subclips, not the original media files. My script appended the three digit number to each clip. I then go to each of these clips and change the initial three digit number to match the order to the client wants. Thus, to make it easy to demonstrate, if the client wanted all the clips in the reverse order, I would rename as follows:

004 - TTF - Restored (clip_01).avi
003 - TTF - Restored (clip_02).avi
002 - TTF - Restored (clip_03).avi
001 - TTF - Restored (clip_04).avi

I then click on the name column in the Project Media section so these are ordered with "001 ..." first, "002 ..." second, etc. I then drag these to the timeline, and I now have the order that the client wants.

Of course if the order involves re-ordering where each "clip" actually consists of multiple events from multiple media files, then it gets more complicated. However, if Vegas can "smart render" your particular media files, then you can simply use one of the various "batch render" scripts to render each region into a separate media file. I have one which appends a number to each render, starting with 001, then 002, etc. The batch render creates a new file on your hard drive for each region. You simply do the same re-numbering on these files that I described above, and then drag those renumbered, smart rendered clips back to the timeline.

I have other things I've done as well. The key part of the idea is to get a list that looks like the list the client gives you, and then rename something -- subclip or file name -- so those names look like the client's list, sort the list, and then drag that sorted list back to the timeline.

I think this is about as fast and foolproof as something like this can be. The tricky part is to come up with something that matches how your project looks on the timeline. If you've already applied a lot of fX and track controls, then it is going to be very difficult, if not impossible to do what you want. However, if your project is a cuts-only rough edit, then one of the two techniques I just described should work.

[edit]
Here's what the project media section looks like before I run the script, and after:

Here's the script:

/*



  Script: Events To Subclips.js

  Based on scripts by Sony Media Software & John Rofrano

  

  This script creates Subclips from selected events,

  and then places them in the root mediabin.



  This script is only supported by Vegas version 6.0c and above.



  Converted from C# to Jscript, and modified to work with 

  events instead of regions by John H. Meyer on January 31, 2007.



*/



import System;

import System.Text;

import System.Collections;

import System.Windows.Forms;

import Sony.Vegas;



try {

        var processedClipCount : int = 1;

        var trackEnum = new Enumerator(Vegas.Project.Tracks);



        while (!trackEnum.atEnd()) {   // Go through all tracks



            var track : Track = Track(trackEnum.item());

            var eventEnum = new Enumerator(track.Events);

            if (!track.IsVideo()) {    // Only process video tracks

              trackEnum.moveNext();

              continue;

            }

              while (!eventEnum.atEnd() ) {  // Go through each event on this track

                  var evnt : TrackEvent = TrackEvent(eventEnum.item());



                  if (!evnt.Selected) {      // Only process selected events

                    eventEnum.moveNext();

                    continue;

                  }



                  var activeTake : Take = evnt.ActiveTake;



                  if (null == activeTake) {  // Only process events with active takes.

                    eventEnum.moveNext();

                    continue;

                  }



                  var media : Media = activeTake.Media;

                  if (null == media) {

                    eventEnum.moveNext();

                    continue;

                  }



                  // Initialize variables

                  var takeOffset   : Timecode = activeTake.Offset;

                  var labelprefix  : String;



                  var clipName : String = System.IO.Path.GetFileName(media.FilePath);



                  // Append counter to media name and pad with leading zeros so media can be sorted in MediaBin.

                  labelprefix = RepeatedConcat("0",3-processedClipCount.ToString().length) +  processedClipCount.ToString() + " - " + clipName;

                  // Create the Subclip

                  var clip : Subclip = new Subclip(media.FilePath, takeOffset, evnt.Length, false, labelprefix);

                  Vegas.Project.MediaPool.RootMediaBin.Add(clip);

                  processedClipCount++;



              eventEnum.moveNext();

            } // End While Eventenum



        trackEnum.moveNext();

        } // End While TrackEnum



        MessageBox.Show(processedClipCount.toString() + " regions/subclips processed.");



} catch (e) {

    MessageBox.Show(e);

}



function RepeatedConcat(concatStr,intCount) { 

    var arrTmp = new Array(intCount+1); 

    return arrTmp.join(concatStr);

} 



/*

function LeadingZero(count) { 

return System.String.Format("{0:d8}", count); 

} 

where 'd' is for integer formatting, and 8 is the number of digits 

you want, leading zeros are forced of necessary to fill that many places. 

*/







/* END OF SCRIPT */

Leslie, I'm trying to apply a system, a system of Workflow as per JM's suggested tried and tested way WITHOUT creating Subbies or Sub Renders!

Yes John, that's a truly fine approach. I got a NUMERIC+ALPHA paste into Vegas, hoping to Sort on the now NEW Order. But I can't get Excel to CONCATENATE the NUMERIC with the ALPHA, the LEADING ZEROS go AWOL.

Col1 Col2
014 . . and . . John Meyer says I should

becomes

14John Meyer says I should

Excel is correctly, but unfortunately, PARSING out that leading ZERO.
24

It's correct but not what I believe I'm wanting to achieve and thusly get a proper REORDERED set of ROWS:
1
2
3
.
.
.
.
51
52
53

Cheers

Grazie

You can force Excel to format numbers with leading zeros, using this custom format:

Yeah, I was trying to be clever by bringing the 2 Cols together.

Grazie

If you need more help, you can send me the Excel file along with a request for what needs to be done. Also, if my workflow doesn't fit your project, send me the VEG file, and perhaps I can come up with some other ideas.

Excel is one of my specialties. I can't say that I've done every possible thing there is to do in Excel, because that would take a lifetime, but I've done quite a bit. A great Excel resource is this forum:

Mr. Excel Forum

It is, IMHO, the finest forum on the Internet. You can post a question -- even the most complex question imaginable -- and within an hour, you'll have one or more very detailed solutions. Note that I said "solutions" and not "responses." The people in that forum are amazingly knowledgeable, and eager to share what they know. They usually solve your problem with the first post you get back from your initial question.