In our band most sheets are numbered. So I'm starting the sheet's name with its number for sorting purposes.
That has the effect that of my ~500 sheets, in the alphabetical selection screen, ~450 are crammed into the # section and the remaining ~50 (those that did not yet get a number or temporarily lost it) can be found sorted with their first letter, and that section easily jumped to by selecting the respective letter. Additionally that means the alphabetic sorting is lost for anything that has a number - in case I want to access it via its name. I can still find it via the filter, but that's clumsier and also creates the additional fuzz of working around the keyboard problem with a Pad connected.
A quick fix would be to add numbers to the jump points (i.e. 0-9 instead of #) which would at least ameliorate the first problem a slightly. (Most of our stuff is numbered 1xx - 2xx, so it would only help some)
If I could envision an ideal solution, I would:
- add an additional sheet number column
- add an import toggle to read sheet number and sheet name separately from file name (via naming convention)
- allow to toggle jump points between alphabetic (sorted by sheet name) or numeric (sorted by sheet number)
--- step size for numeric could be fixed (for example 50) or dynamic based on min/max numbers
I understand what you're looking for and why. My Bigband also sorts numerically. Personally I prefer alphabetically and I don't think numbers for the whole collection make much sense since I have other bands and many more songs on the tablet.
But maybe you are interested in my way of dealing with the “Bigband numbers“?
I used one of the user defined non group fields to put in the number (like BB054 actually).
I let the field show in the title with title formatting so the number is visible. I also can conveniently search for the numbers with the search fields if need be.
That's enough for me.
But maybe Mike can add another sort option (by user defined field 1 or 2). I see some usage for that and your needs should be addressed as well, I guess.
07-30-2016, 03:06 AM (This post was last modified: 07-30-2016, 05:43 AM by Zubersoft.)
I can certainly consider adding those concepts. One thing I've been wanting to develop is multiple levels to the alphabet list on the side (so you could tap the first letter, and then it would show a second list that is the second letters of all words starting with the first letter). This would allow the list to be used to jump to songs with much more precision, especially in the case of libraries with thousands of songs. I could actually take this further and make it so that you, if you long press a letter, it pops up that second list, and if you long press any of those letters, it pops up another list and so on, until a letter is normally tapped. If # was long pressed, it would show first numbers. This could be applied to the numeric sorting options you've described so that you could actually drill down fairly quickly. This may not be necessary if step sizes are used like you mentioned instead of just the first number.
Mike
UPDATE:
I just implemented what I described above and it works fairly well. I think using it, you would be able to jump to any number in a couple of presses. It's probably not as fast as what you've described though, so I will still consider that in the future when time allows.
(07-30-2016, 03:06 AM)Zuberman Wrote: One thing I've been wanting to develop is multiple levels to the alphabet list on the side (so you could tap the first letter, and then it would show a second list that is the second letters of all words starting with the first letter). This would allow the list to be used to jump to songs with much more precision, especially in the case of libraries with thousands of songs. I could actually take this further and make it so that you, if you long press a letter, it pops up that second list, and if you long press any of those letters, it pops up another list and so on, until a letter is normally tapped. If # was long pressed, it would show first numbers.
I can see where this might be of use with numbered charts, but I think it would be quicker to use the existing search feature when looking for a title. It never takes me very long to find an obscure title. Thinking about it, I don't see why 'search' wouldn't work well with numbers?
Graeme
1: Samsung 12.2" SM-P900: Android 5.0.2
2: eSTAR GRAND HD Quad-Core 4G 10.2": Android 5.1
Searching is definitely plenty fast for users who are able to access the virtual keyboard with a bluetooth pedal connected (as described here http://www.zubersoft.com/mobilesheets/fo...hp?tid=487). Some users aren't able to do this though, so this feature would help them as they can't access the virtual keyboard.
I can see your point Mike, but I've never had this inaccessible virtual keyboard problem on any of my tablets (and I've now used four different makes for MSP) so it's always been a mystery to me why some users have this?
Graeme
1: Samsung 12.2" SM-P900: Android 5.0.2
2: eSTAR GRAND HD Quad-Core 4G 10.2": Android 5.1
There are far too many mysteries like that... I can definitely see why developers like developing for iOS - you only have to worry about a few tablet models and a few OS versions.
08-01-2016, 10:56 PM (This post was last modified: 08-01-2016, 11:08 PM by itsme.)
Using one of the user defined non group fields Custom / Custom2 as proposed is imho the way to go.
It is already available, including the possibility to sort by Custom / Custom2.
Useful improvements would be:
- allowing to rename the (non group) user fields, like it is the case for the user defined group
- adding more user defined fields and/or user defined groups
- adding a way to allow fast and convenient switching between several title format / caption format settings
Thus it would improve MSP also for users (like me) that do not number their songs. They could use the additional fields flexibly for other purposes.
We both are right: the "Songs" screen has the sort options "Custom", "Custom2", and more, other screens do not support them.
So the feature request should be refined to:
Please support the extended sort options (like the ones of the "Songs" screen) also for other screens that show many songs: Collections, Albums, ...
(08-02-2016, 05:57 AM)itsme Wrote: We both are right: the "Songs" screen has the sort options "Custom", "Custom2", and more, other screens do not support them.
So the feature request should be refined to:
Please support the extended sort options (like the ones of the "Songs" screen) also for other screens that show many songs: Collections, Albums, ...
08-04-2016, 11:27 PM (This post was last modified: 08-04-2016, 11:32 PM by Fela.)
(07-30-2016, 03:06 AM)Zuberman Wrote: I can certainly consider adding those concepts. One thing I've been wanting to develop is multiple levels to the alphabet list on the side (so you could tap the first letter, and then it would show a second list that is the second letters of all words starting with the first letter). This would allow the list to be used to jump to songs with much more precision, especially in the case of libraries with thousands of songs. I could actually take this further and make it so that you, if you long press a letter, it pops up that second list, and if you long press any of those letters, it pops up another list and so on, until a letter is normally tapped. If # was long pressed, it would show first numbers. This could be applied to the numeric sorting options you've described so that you could actually drill down fairly quickly. This may not be necessary if step sizes are used like you mentioned instead of just the first number.
Mike
UPDATE:
I just implemented what I described above and it works fairly well. I think using it, you would be able to jump to any number in a couple of presses. It's probably not as fast as what you've described though, so I will still consider that in the future when time allows.
That sounds useful and should address my concerns. Will test it ASAP
EDIT: If you say you implemented it, does that mean only in your DEV build? I can't seem to get that to work in my version.
08-04-2016, 11:40 PM (This post was last modified: 08-04-2016, 11:42 PM by Fela.)
(08-01-2016, 10:56 PM)itsme Wrote: Using one of the user defined non group fields Custom / Custom2 as proposed is imho the way to go.
It is already available, including the possibility to sort by Custom / Custom2.
Useful improvements would be:
- allowing to rename the (non group) user fields, like it is the case for the user defined group
- adding more user defined fields and/or user defined groups
- adding a way to allow fast and convenient switching between several title format / caption format settings
Thus it would improve MSP also for users (like me) that do not number their songs. They could use the additional fields flexibly for other purposes.
Good point about additional sorting options. I never noticed those as I'm usually working in collections, sorting scores by instrument (trombone, accordion, choir) and for some reason sorting options are limited there. Until now I had no reason to assume it's different in songs. Edit: Although, now I'm thinking about it, it would probably use the same alphabetic system and thus also miss granularity for numbers.
The main problem would be populating those fields though - and renaming all existing songs by removing the numbers. At that point I would probably start to dig out forum entries about the DB location and what's needed to manipulate that directly...
