[StuartV]

I thought custom page ordering and a BT page turner were going to solve all my page turning woes for charts with DS al Coda. And they do, if I use my tablet in Portrait mode , where I can see a whole page at once.

But, the tablet I am thinking of using is my Samsung Galaxy Tab Pro 8.4. And that screen size is small enough that I may want to use it in Landscape mode. Testing it is when I realized that custom page ordering was not going to help me at all. I set up the page turner buttons to do "Scroll down, Turn Page if at Bottom". That works fine for just going straight through.

But going from a DS on Page 3 to the top of Page 1 and hitting PgDn 2 or 3 times to bring the S into view is not going to work very well for me.

Problem 1:

So, I realized I needed to use Hot Links instead. To make that work, I have to set the Page Turner action to Activate Next Link or Go to Next Page. So now, when I start the chart, I can see the top of Page 1, but when I hit the next button, it goes to page 2, instead of scrolling down.

Page 2 has a link to take me back to the S on Page 1. But, in Landscape mode, the link is not in view on the screen when I first get to page 2. When I hit Next to scroll down and bring the line with the link into view, instead, it activates the link (that I can't see) and takes me back to page 1.

I need a set of actions for "Scroll down, activate link if in View, go to next page if at bottom". And corresponding up/previous action.

Going to the next page when I'm not to the bottom of the current page is not cool. Activating a link that hasn't scrolled into view on the screen yet is also not cool.

I really can't see a reason why you'd want a link to ever activate if it's not in view. IOW, the UI doesn't need to say "activate link if in view" as the "if in view" should be implicit for all link activations.

With a set of actions for "Scroll down, activate link, go to next page if at bottom" (and up/previous), it seems like it would be reasonable to also make those the default actions for pedal PgDn/PgUp. They would provide "expected" behavior whether the device is in portrait or landscape and whether the user had set up any hot links or not.

Problem 2:

And when a link is activated, instead of displaying the end page with the link at the bottom of the screen, why not put it as high on the screen as possible (limited by not having the bottom of the page higher than the bottom of the screen)? If the link takes me to the coda, and the coda is only 2 or 3 lines, why should I have to scroll after I get there in order to see it all?

I guess a workaround be to put the end link a couple of lines down, but that seems like kind of a hack. And has the potential to display incorrectly if I move the chart to a different device. I.e. the top part of the coda could be scrolled off the top of the screen if a new device displays less vertically.

Problem 3:

When I'm in Landscape mode, scroll to the bottom of the screen, and then Next takes me to the top of the next page, if I hit Previous, it takes me back to the top of the previous page. In that mode, Previous ought to take me to the bottom of the previous page, not the top.


If I have missed something that would address any of these issues, I would be very happy for someone to tell me!

[BRX]

Why does custom page order not work for you? You are aware that you can duplicate pages in the page order if needed or wanted? I simply prepare my sheets with duplicating pages and cropping the not needed parts so I can scroll it continuously from top to end even through repeats, d.s. codas etc.

[StuartV]

Why does custom page order not work for you?

screen size is small enough that I may want to use it in Landscape mode. Testing it is when I realized that custom page ordering was not going to help me at all. I set up the page turner buttons to do "Scroll down, Turn Page if at Bottom". That works fine for just going straight through.

But going from a DS on Page 3 to the top of Page 1 and hitting PgDn 2 or 3 times to bring the S into view is not going to work very well for me.

But, I didn't realize that I could crop the second page 1 to just remove all the parts before the S. So, if I chop off everything above the S, with a custom page order , then pressing Down on my BlueTurn on page 3, would take me to page 1 with the S being right at the top of the page. Similar for cropping the bottom to delete everything below the coda mark, so Down would take me to the coda without having to PgDn to the bottom.

Thanks for the suggestion!

[StuartV]

I just tested it and that does the trick for me. Custom page order and crop the pages as necessary. And set the pedal action to "scroll. Next page if at the bottom." Makes it all work just like I need it, whether I'm using Portrait or Landscape.

So, the only problem I have left with Landscape is that going to the previous page puts me at the top of the page, instead of the bottom. If I'm playing something that has a repeat that starts on one page and ends/goes back on the next page, that could be a problem

But wait! If I use the vertical scroll mode, instead of Single Page, then PgUp works just fine.

Man! This software is amazing!

Thanks again, BRX!

[Zubersoft]

I'm happy you have everything working to meet your needs using the approach BRX suggested, but I still think you made some good points about things like activating link points that aren't visible. I'll try to work on addressing some of those issues. As for why turning backward doesn't go to the bottom of the page, it's because with normal page turns, I don't store the amount scrolled when the page leaves the screen. So when you return to that page, it just goes to the top. I added the half page turns in landscape option to sort of address this, as that mode will go back to the bottom half of the page when you go backwards. I don't really want to change this behavior at the moment, as I would recommend to most users that they try to prevent the need to turn pages backward (by using other things like custom page orders and cropping, as you have done). While some users would like it if I went to the bottom of the page when turning backward, I think other users might not like this, especially if they are just turning pages backward to get to the beginning of a different song.

Mike

[akoster]

StuartV,

Good to see you made it over here from talkbass. Nice review you wrote over there.

Arnie (ak56 on talkbass)

[StuartV]

I'm happy you have everything working to meet your needs using the approach BRX suggested, but I still think you made some good points about things like activating link points that aren't visible.  I'll try to work on addressing some of those issues. As for why turning backward doesn't go to the bottom of the page, it's because with normal page turns, I don't store the amount scrolled when the page leaves the screen. So when you return to that page, it just goes to the top.  I added the half page turns in landscape option to sort of address this, as that mode will go back to the bottom half of the page when you go backwards.  I don't really want to change this behavior at the moment, as I would recommend to most users that they try to prevent the need to turn pages backward (by using other things like custom page orders and cropping, as you have done).  While some users would like it if I went to the bottom of the page when turning backward, I think other users might not like this, especially if they are just turning pages backward to get to the beginning of a different song.

Mike

Hey Mike,

Thanks.

On the backwards page turn thing:

- When I put it in Vertical scroll mode, paging backwards works fine. If I'm at the top of a page and hit the PgUp button, the current page slides down and just the bottom part of the previous page comes into view. It seems like it should work the same in Single Page mode.

- Another reason this is important to me is that "Debounce" doesn't seem to work for me. I even set Debounce to 2 seconds (the max it allows, I think) and it still scrolls just as fast as I can tap the PgDn button on my BlueTurn. So, it's very easy for me to accidentally page too far and need to flip from the top of one page back to the bottom of the previous page.

All that said, it has become SOMEWHAT academic for me. I am using MSP in portrait mode with vertical scrolling now. As a result PgUp works just like I need it to. And I'm using custom page ordering and cropping, rather than hot links.

And I'm planning to buy a new tablet with a bigger screen, so I can continue to use MSP in portrait mode, but not have to wear glasses to see the music. :-)

So, really, my biggest problems that persist are that I have no control of the song title when I import a PDF, and the virtual keyboard is not accessible when the BlueTurn is connected. These two things put together kicked my butt at rehearsal the other night. Every time the band leader would call a new song, that I had not already imported into MSP*, I would have to go find it and import it. But, since every PDF is named "Bass.pdf", they always import with a song title of "Bass". So, after every import, I would have to pick up my BlueTurn, turn it off, wait for my tablet to notice the connection was gone, so I could use the keyboard, edit the song and change the Title, then turn the BlueTurn back on and wait for it to connect. While the entire rest of the band sat there waiting on me, just to be able to start playing the chart.

If the keyboard thing was fixed, so I could use the virtual keyboard while the BlueTurn is connected, OR if the song import gave me a way to set the title from a directory path template, that would all be a LOT faster. The latter would mean I could set it up and then not have to do any typing at all on an import.


*why not just import them all ahead of time and be done with that? This band has a library of something like 200 charts. Every chart for bass is named "Bass.pdf" and uses a parent folder name to identify the song title. All the charts for all the instruments are in this one folder structure. So, with the current capabilities of MSP, I would have to manually import each song one at a time and manually edit it to enter the song title. I'm not likely to take the time to do that for 200 songs. Thus, I am importing them as needed.

[Steve B.]

So, really, my biggest problems that persist are that I have no control of the song title when I import a PDF, and the virtual keyboard is not accessible when the BlueTurn is connected. 

If the keyboard thing was fixed, so I could use the virtual keyboard while the BlueTurn is connected, OR if the song import gave me a way to set the title from a directory path template, that would all be a LOT faster. The latter would mean I could set it up and then not have to do any typing at all on an import.


*why not just import them all ahead of time and be done with that? This band has a library of something like 200 charts. Every chart for bass is named "Bass.pdf" and uses a parent folder name to identify the song title. All the charts for all the instruments are in this one folder structure. So, with the current capabilities of MSP, I would have to manually import each song one at a time and manually edit it to enter the song title. I'm not likely to take the time to do that for 200 songs. Thus, I am importing them as needed.

The on-screen keyboard should be available for you, normally there is an icon that appears in the notification area to allow it's use when you have a physical 'Bluetooth keyboard' in use.

Importing a mere 200 songs is really not that much work...cut-and-paste and the companion app on your computer would only take a couple of hours at most. If it saved me: A) time later, and B) embarrassment, I would certainly make the effort. 

[StuartV]

The on-screen keyboard should be available for you, normally there is an icon that appears in the notification area to allow it's use when you have a physical 'Bluetooth keyboard' in use.

Importing a mere 200 songs is really not that much work...cut-and-paste and the companion app on your computer would only take a couple of hours at most. If it saved me: A) time later, and B) embarrassment, I would certainly make the effort. 

I've been through the whole thread on the virtual keyboard. I posted details there about how I cannot access the virtual keyboard on my tablet when the BlueTurn is connected. The info posted in there does not work for me. I don't have the little icon that lets me turn on the keyboard.

But, I got a new tablet on Friday, just to use with MSP. My previous one is a Galaxy Tab Pro 8.4. Not quite big enough to read the music without glasses (which I hate). I got a new Tab S2 9.7, which worked great at a gig on Sunday. I will have to check it to see if I can get to the virtual keyboard on it when the BlueTurn is connected.

As for importing 200 songs, manually typing in the names of 200 songs as I import them sounds like a huge pain in the butt to me. I'll stick to importing them on a case by case basis. If it gets annoying for the people that have to wait on me, maybe they'll start letting us all know the songs to prepare *before* each rehearsal... ;-)