I have some questions about importing as images. I am a long-time user of both MobileSheets and MobileSheetsPro. I used to use PDF files almost exclusively, up until I started getting the "black screen" issue. Because of that issue, I'm now using PNGs more and more.
However, there are things that are not clear to me. In the Import dialog, I get the choice between "Guess title from filename" and "Use filename as title". There's no option to "Enter title here:". That would be handy.
It seems like the import dialog wants files like:
Seaside Rendezvous1.png
Seaside Rendezvous2.png
Seaside Rendezvous3.png
I'd rather create a directory in DropBox with filenames like:
Seaside Rendezvous/pg1.png
Seaside Rendezvous/pg2.png
Seaside Rendezvous/pg3.png
but I don't want the song to be called "pg". Is there a way to make that work?
Tim Roberts
Tim,
Does using PNGs prevent the black screen issue completely? That is really interesting as it points to a problem in one of the PDF libraries, but users have experienced it using both PDF libraries, which is why I thought the problem was either device specific or in my rendering engine somewhere. I'm looking to switch to a different PDF library, so I'd be curious if that could potentially prevent the black screen issues.
You are not the first user to want more control over how the batch importing extracts song titles. Another user also wanted to be able to use a directory as the name of the title, but I haven't added support for something like that. Are you wanting another format string type approach to specify which part of the directory structure contains the title? In that case, I could add %TITLE% as an option under the "Parse directories for metadata" dialog, and that would override any other selection.
Thanks,
Mike
Well, when I first encountered the "black screen" problem, the working theory was that it was a resource problem in PDF rendering, and that switching to images would eliminate it. I have seen the problem 15 or 20 times, ALWAYS with PDFs. I just finished doing two months of rehearsals and two weeks of performances of the musical "Shrek" with a 325-page score which I imported as PNGs, and the problem never occurred. That's good evidence, but it is sporadic enough that I can't be 100% sure.
I use a small fraction of the features of the app, so I haven't thought about the global implications of my request. In this SPECIFIC case, I was talking about single file import, rather than batch import. In that case, in the drop down that offers "Guess title from filename" and "Use filename as title", I'd like to have a third option to "Use this as the title" with a text box. I haven't thought about batch import. In my example above, I can imagine something like "use directory name as title", but what happens if the import directory contains both individual files and folders? That gets ugly. Feature creep.
While I was exploring, I also thought maybe I create an empty song with all the metadata, and then fill in the files later. I could not find an option to do that. Is "import" the only way to create new songs?
Tim
You can use the song editor to create the song, which gives you control over the title and other metadata. Or you can create using Import->Local File, then edit the song and change the title afterward.
I can't really add a "Use this title" setting to the import dialog, because you can technically import any number of files at once. That means ten songs could be created with one import, and you wouldn't want them all using the same title. That's why I need to find an approach that will work in both cases.
(03-14-2017, 05:22 PM)Zuberman Wrote: [ -> ]Does using PNGs prevent the black screen issue completely? That is really interesting as it points to a problem in one of the PDF libraries, but users have experienced it using both PDF libraries, which is why I thought the problem was either device specific or in my rendering engine somewhere. I'm looking to switch to a different PDF library, so I'd be curious if that could potentially prevent the black screen issues.
For what it's worth, I have now had 2 instances of the black screen issue using PNGs. The most recent one was on stage, and came in Act 2 on the closing night of "Beauty and the Beast". That caused great panic and consternation, but I had gone through rehearsals and 5 previous performances without an issue.
It seems that the problem must be related to a resource shortage. (Garbage collection delay?) If I kill the app and restart it every few days, it doesn't happen at all. Sometimes, I can induce the problem if I scroll quickly forward and backward. It might be possible to set up an automated test by flipping pages randomly and looking for a big black square in the resulting bitmap.
I had similar thoughts about the problem. So I set up an automated test to run overnight where the application turned pages every few seconds and checked for the case where the image was black. This never happened. As far as I can tell, it's actually not a problem with a black bitmap being generated, the problem is that the container for the image is either not rendering correctly on the screen, or the bitmap is not being assigned to the container class correctly. I could certainly go back and try to run this test again but with much faster page turns if you think that exacerbates the problem. You said you can induce the problem yourself though. If it's really that easy, then I should be able to reproduce it just by turning pages quickly on my Galaxy Note 12.2", correct?
Thanks,
Mike