[Pflichtfeld]

A little strange behavior:
   

In collections one chooses "Nothing" in the list. Shown as in screenshot is NOTHING
In any other field on chooses Nothing from the list. Shown is ALL.

When highlighting all list-entries by selecting "choose all", all the entries are listed in the combobox, which is not so helpful, because one sees only one or two entries.

My I propose a solution?
Choosing "Choose nothing" leads to "Nothing" in the combobox. (uniform for all the field-combo-boxes)
Chossing "All entries" leads to "ALL" in the combobox. (uniform for all the field-combo-boxes)

According should be the filtering.

TH

[Zubersoft]

There may be a translation differences here. In English, the other dropdowns say "Any", meaning any value will be considered a match. The idea was that, if you selected specific values, those would be listed, otherwise any value would be considered a match, hence the wording. Saying "None" makes sense if we think of it as "No filter is selected", but it doesn't really make sense in the context of "None will be matched". Having said that, I'm not opposed to changing all fields to say None if nothing is selected or All if all are selected. I'm curious what people think is the most intuitive wording though. My own personal opinion is that I think I prefer "Any" when nothing is selected and "All" when all values are selected, but I don't know if that's confusing to some people, as I think some people may expect to see something more like "None", meaning nothing is selected.

Mike

[itsme]

Anyway: Pflichtfeld is right, that "Collection" is different from all the other filter selections

[Pflichtfeld]

In English, the other dropdowns say "Any", meaning any value will be considered a match. The idea was that, if you selected specific values, those would be listed, otherwise any value would be considered a match, hence the wording. Saying "None" makes sense if we think of it as "No filter is selected", but it doesn't really make sense in the context of "None will be matched".  ...  My own personal opinion is that I think I prefer "Any" when nothing is selected and "All" when all values are selected, but I don't know if that's confusing to some people, as I think some people may expect to see something more like "None", meaning nothing is selected.

Mike

Thanks Mike.
I originally was pointing to the inconsistent behaviour  of the collection-field compared to the other fields.

But then:
what you write makes no difference for me in the result of the filter: If one searches ANY or ALL, that is the same match in search, isn't it? Or did I understand something wrong?
But, if ANY (with having selected no entry) and ALL (with having selected all entries) leads to the same filter-result, that is an oxymoron, mathematically wrong and not logical.
But I can see your problem: How to treat the search with the item NOTHING? Imho the result should differ from a ALL-filter, shouldn't it?
I would expect (and propose), that a NOTHING-filter shows all songs, which actually have NO ENTRY in this field. This would be mathematically correct and for some users probably helpful:
"Are there any songs, where I forgot to assign a specific value in this field?", "Show me all songs without an entry in field A but with other filters in field B, C..."
BTW: The default for this dropdowns should be ALL. And opening a dropdown with ALL should show all the list-entries selected. This would make it clear.
Your interpretation with ANY and ALL confuses imho.

But definitely: A wonderful program!

[Pflichtfeld]

Mike

Please don't be cross, when I add an example for the confusing situation at the moment:

   

In collection-field, I choose nothing and it shows correctly NICHTS.
The 8 entries in the Verlauf-list have three different collection-values: DUETTE, EXERCISES and JAZZBOOKS.
If I write in the search on top: "Duet" nothing is found.
That means: the collection field (with entry NICHTS) is not included in the search. You could define this NICHTS in this manner, but I do not suppose it to be a help for your users.

(Please excuse my tenacity)

Yours TH

[Zubersoft]

Any or All would result in the same thing, but with the current implementation, it's more efficient to have nothing selected (Any) so that MobileSheets just ignores the field when processing all of the songs versus checking each song to see if one of their values matches the list of every value in the application. I don't have specific optimizations to detect when the user selected everything and to ignore the field in that case, because that involves more code, and also creates issues when the user adds new fields - just because the user selected all values before, does not mean that MobileSheets automatically selects any new fields that are added in the library. That's what the "Any" selection means. I don't really want to change all this behavior and potentially introduce unexpected bugs. So I'll just change the wording for the collection field to match the others and I won't be changing the logic. There is no reason to "Select All" if you just want MobileSheets to use every value - select nothing in that case. The reason for the "Select All" is if you want to select all initially but then uncheck a few specific values. Alternatively, you could just select those values and then select "Exclude" as the mode.

Mike

[Oz Cello]

TH, you're right that the search doesn't seem to match text in the name of collections. Collections is also not listed in the first dropdown where you choose which field you're searching in. Maybe that's why there are no results from the names of collections? You can search the name of collections by going to the collections tab and using the search filter there. Not sure why it would be excluded from the main library search though. Might be an oversight.

In answer to Mike's question about which terms seem intuitive, I think 'any' is the only one you need. The 'mode' of the search takes care of the other options discussed. While you could use 'none' to mean 'no label assigned', that meaning wouldn't be clear from the word 'none' and the same result can be achieved by selecting 'unassigned' for the search mode. The same goes for using 'all' to mean 'has a label' - it would be ambiguous and would have the same effect as choosing 'assigned' for the search mode. I think 'any' is reasonably clear in meaning that no filtering is done for that group, but an alternative might be just to leave it blank when no filtering is applied. I can't think of a reason why 'any' should become 'none' in collections. It doesn't seem to behave any differently and should probably follow the same pattern as the other filters.

[Zubersoft]

Thank you for the feedback Oz - I have already made the change and the collections field now shows up with "Any" like the others.

I will have to look into the search/filter if it's not working for collections. Should hopefully be an easy fix. The search dropdown doesn't actually have every field - you can't select Collection, Source Type, Sort Title, Rating or Setlist. I could always decide to change this, by I just assumed that the collection field is something you usually filter on directly versus using it with the search text field.

Mike

[Oz Cello]

Mike, I wouldn't have any use for limiting the search field to collections or for searching on the main library page for names of collections but maybe TH or others would. While we're talking about word choices, using the word 'piece' instead of 'song' isn't 'classical terminology' and shouldn't be described that way in the settings. Guy

[Zubersoft]

Then please provide a description of how to distinguish those two words to a general user, along with a the short title that should be used in the settings. I need a  description that will be meaningful to both users who only use things like lyrics and chords as well as musicians who use scores with staves and such. This also applies to the dialog that is shown when a user first installs the app that lets the user decide between which terminology to use. If it shouldn't be described in the way that I have described it, then please provide the way in which it should be described.

Thanks,
Mike

[Oz Cello]

If you want to stick with the set up you have now ('song' is default, 'piece' is an option) then could the setting not just say "use the term 'piece' instead of 'song'"? I don't know whether you have a particular style for the questions the app asks on first installation nor how the question is phrased now but I imagine you would go with something like "MS uses the word 'song' by default - would you rather use the term 'piece' instead of 'song'?"

To a chunk of your potential market it might look a bit amateurish to call the word 'piece' the classical equivalent of the word 'song', as might using the word 'song' to describe music that isn't intended to be sung. Some number of people will cringe a bit when they see that. They may or may not be wrong to do that but they also may be less likely to use or buy the app.

Given that you're aiming at all users of sheet music, I think I would've gone with 'piece' as the default with no option offered. I realise that calling a pop song a 'piece' is a little weird but it's considerably less weird than calling a piece for percussion ensemble a 'song'. Yesterday by the Beatles is a great piece of music but Schubert's String Quintet in C major is not a song. The other option that comes to mind is 'sheet'. It's a bit grammatically weird but works well with the name of the app. I don't know how well 'sheet' would translate to other languages though, whereas I think 'piece' has an equivalent in other languages. 'Number' might be another option - great musical connotations but no idea how it translates.


I had a quick look at some other sheet music apps. A bunch of them go with 'score'. At least one uses 'song' but it says that it works best with text files of chords and lyrics. At least one uses 'sheet music'. I wouldn't be surprised if none of them offer options. 'Score' suggests not chords/lyrics. 'Song' suggests not instrumental/not staves etc. 'Sheet music' is unwieldy (it's an uncountable noun - you don't usually refer to 'a sheet music' or 'two sheet musics'). I think 'score' and 'sheet music' both sound a bit more serious or formal than 'song' which possibly helps those apps come across as a bit more reliable. I think 'piece' would work that way a bit too.

Anyway, I imagine 'song' might be your preferred term so by all means stick with that as the default if you want. It's your baby after all. But for the sake of marketability please consider avoiding suggesting that 'piece' is the classical equivalent of 'song' and avoid calling instrumental pieces 'songs'. And please be aware that no offence is intended - I'm a big fan of your work and I advocate for the app every chance I get.

[Zubersoft]

Fair enough, I will change the name of the setting to:

Use the Term "Piece" instead of "Song"

on the settings screen. This isn't something I have strong feelings about, but if it's going to matter to some users, I'd rather take the approach that is going to rustle fewer feathers.

Thanks,
Mike

[Pflichtfeld]

Finally let me list the basic possibilities of searching/filtering via a field (A) using the example of Mobilesheets.

1. we want to filter / search in field A:
  1.1. we want to search within all list entries
  1.2. we want to filter/search only certain list entries that we select beforehand
  1.3. we want a NOT filter that shows us songs that do not have certain list items
  1.4. we want a filter that shows us songs that do not have any list entry in field A at all (a special case of 1.3)

2. we want to exclude field A completely from the search/filter. Results from field A are not found/considered in the search.

Mobilesheets, as far as I can see, can currently do 1.1, 1.2, and in the collections-field also 2.
(Certainly: you can limit the search to only one field and thus exclude the others all. But the exclusion of only one field is currently only possible in the Collection field).

TH