[anno_visser@hotmail.com]

My wife and me sing in a choir and use the same library but make different annotations, she for soprano me for tenor.
How should i sync the 2 tablets ?
Previously i used 2 way sync but then i was adviced to use update folder/update device sync which works fine but excludes the above.

[Zubersoft]

You can uncheck the option to sync annotations on the sync library screen to ensure annotations are not lost during the sync, but you can't merge annotations using the sync feature.

Mike

[anno_visser@hotmail.com]

Sorry i don't understand how this is going to merge her and mine annotations in 1 song, i would like to merge annotations which are made at the same time from 2 devices.

[Zubersoft]

Oh sorry, I misread your post (it was late). You can't merge annotations - it's just not supported, as there are too many things that can go wrong because there is no way to uniquely identify annotations to understand when annotations have been edited or removed. You can use multiple layers and have her annotations in one layer and your annotations in another layer, but that will only work if you only annotate on one device at a time before synchronizing changes. I may support an option in the future to choose which layers are synchronized (based on layer name, as it would be far too tedious to try to provide a selection UI where you could dig down into every page of every song to pick individual layers).

Mike

[anno_visser@hotmail.com]

Oh sorry, I misread your post (it was late). You can't merge annotations - it's just not supported, as there are too many things that can go wrong because there is no way to uniquely identify annotations to understand when annotations have been edited or removed. You can use multiple layers and have her annotations in one layer and your annotations in another layer, but that will only work if you only annotate on one device at a time before synchronizing changes. I may support an option in the future to choose which layers are synchronized (based on layer name, as it would be far too tedious to try to provide a selection UI where you could dig down into every page of every song to pick individual layers).

Mike

Thank you for the clarification about the annotations are not possible to merge. 
So what if i create two songs of the same pdf , let's say an A and a B version.
She makes annotations on the A version and I on the B version, after the choir we come home and start syncing. 
Is there a possiblity to make it work ?
How should i do the syncing then ? 

Maybe for background info....
It's still not clear to me what 2 way syncing does.
Since i am a new user, i don't have a lot of experience but from my little experience, the 2 way sync was working fine untill i started to use setlist and deleted/renamed some setlists then the 2 way sync didn't work as expected. if 2 way sync is working like google drive desktop then it should be fine. During choir practice while we sing i don't make new setists only annotations, i am thinking perhaps i can use the two sync then ?
(just thinking up loudly here)

[anno_visser@hotmail.com]

Oh sorry, I misread your post (it was late). You can't merge annotations - it's just not supported, as there are too many things that can go wrong because there is no way to uniquely identify annotations to understand when annotations have been edited or removed. You can use multiple layers and have her annotations in one layer and your annotations in another layer, but that will only work if you only annotate on one device at a time before synchronizing changes. I may support an option in the future to choose which layers are synchronized (based on layer name, as it would be far too tedious to try to provide a selection UI where you could dig down into every page of every song to pick individual layers).

Mike

Thank you for the clarification about the annotations are not possible to merge. 
So what if i create two songs of the same pdf , let's say an A and a B version.
She makes annotations on the A version and I on the B version, after the choir we come home and start syncing. 
Is there a possiblity to make it work ?
How should i do the syncing then ? 

Maybe for background info....
It's still not clear to me what 2 way syncing does.
Since i am a new user, i don't have a lot of experience but from my little experience, the 2 way sync was working fine untill i started to use setlist and deleted/renamed some setlists then the 2 way sync didn't work as expected. if 2 way sync is working like google drive desktop then it should be fine. During choir practice while we sing i don't make new setists only annotations, i am thinking perhaps i can use the two sync then ?
(just thinking up loudly here)

[anno_visser@hotmail.com]

Hi Mike, 
I don't know what to do with this answer, i've moved on to having two different songs on two different tablets which are using the same library and edited during the same choir session.
This has nothing to do with merging annotations anymore but i am afraid i might have not been clear about that. 
 i just want to understand if the above is possible or not and if yes how.
And basically i would like to have a clarification of what two way sync does and doesn't do.

[Zubersoft]

If you have two separate songs, there is no way to merge the annotations from the two. As mentioned, you could just have one version of the song with one PDF, but use multiple layers in the annotations editor (tap the icon with two stacked rectangles and add a separate layer). If only one of you annotations at a time before synchronizing changes, then you could at least keep the annotations separate if needed. Or if that is not a problem, you can use a single layer, but still only one person would be able to annotate inbetween synchronizations. Two-way synchronization does not have access to the history of deleted objects in the library, so when it sees something that one device has that the other does not, it assumes something new was added and synchronizes over that change. So you really need to use a one-way synchronization, which means only making changes on one device at a time. If that is not possible, then you can use two-way synchronization but anything that was deleted will be recreated. It's just a limitation at the moment until I have time to start tracking deletions in the database so MobileSheets has context about whether something is new or not.

Mike

[Skip]

Could it be done serially? Singer 1 annotates, layer 1, sync; singer 2 annotates, layer 2. sync, just switch tablets between syncs. That's probably what Mike is suggesting.

[anno_visser@hotmail.com]

obviously there is a problem with the 2 way sync and mike doesn't want to clarify what is possible and what is not possible so how to work with it.
then he deliberatly answers vague answers, trying to brush things under a carpet with wrong copy and pastes and pretending not to understand my request. 
What a dissapointment, i don't mind it doesn't work but the way my request for help has been dealt wih is below par.

[Geoff Bacon]

@anno_visser

Sorry. but I disagree with your previous post; Mike has responded to you 3 times on this thread and I doubt that you would have had any response from other program providers during that time (if ever?)

Okay, the answer is not what you wanted but, like any other program,  you need to adapt your method of working to what it supports.

Reading Mike's reply, he has given you a working method :-
1) If you want to keep your annotations separate then you each need to use a separate layers
2) When updating, he says only update one tablet at a time and do a one way sync across to the other one.
3) Then repeat the sync the other way.
4) He also says that you can't both make annotations before synching the tablets

Re vague answers - your post was vague ("musings") and not a precise question; he can't be expected to guess what you are wanting to do.

I'm always amazed at how helpful and responsive Mike is to his users so it must be quite hurtful to him to read your last post.

I suggest you experiment to find something that could work for you e.g. agree that one tablet would be the master and manually making similar annotations to that on the "slave" before syncing (not ideal, depends on the type and quantity of the annotations).
Another possibility is that you have a copy of the files on a cloud service and, after updating one tablet, you sync to this cloud storage. The other user can then sync the other way before making their own annotations.
 
Geoff
PS: I only have a single tablet so can't help with any specific advice re syncing

[Zubersoft]

obviously there is a problem with the 2 way sync and mike doesn't want to clarify what is possible and what is not possible so how to work with it.
then he deliberatly answers vague answers, trying to brush things under a carpet with wrong copy and pastes and pretending not to understand my request. 
What a dissapointment, i don't mind it doesn't work but the way my request for help has been dealt wih is below par.

I'm not sure how this cannot be more clear: "If you have two separate songs, there is no way to merge the annotations from the two". I understand that this does not work well for you with your setup - there's not much I can do about that at the moment. I have also clarified both here and elsewhere on the forum that the two-way sync can't handle deletions of things in the library due to the lack of a history of deleted objects in the database. There is no way I can magically make that work without that information. This is a lot more complicated than a basic file-based sync - I'm effectively merging databases from multiple devices and have to handle many different scenarios, and some things the database just wasn't originally set up to handle cleanly (i.e. merging annotations from two different users in the same song under the same layer without causing a complete mess of things). 

Saying that my answer was vague, or that I would pretend not to understand your request - that is both hostile and untrue. I always do my best to help people and explain what the app is currently designed to do. Saying that I copied and pasted answers? Nothing could be further from the truth, and it takes me a considerable amount of time to respond to every person individually about their questions, requests and problems. I'm sorry that you don't feel I helped you sufficiently. There's always lots of different ways to go about solving problems with the tools that are available. I was suggesting that only making changes on one device at a time in between synchronizations would be the cleanest and easiest approach. You could also set up completely independent libraries for you and your wife and sync those separately (Settings->Library Settings->Switch Library). Having multiple versions of songs is also an option, and you both annotate those separately. I still think if you want to use the two-way sync though, you are going to run into issues with deleted objects, so maybe using the sync feature isn't the best for your setup. You can also share things using .msf files (https://youtu.be/9quzb3a-djU).

Geoff - thank you, I appreciate it.

Mike

[GraemeJ]

obviously there is a problem with the 2 way sync and mike doesn't want to clarify what is possible and what is not possible so how to work with it.
then he deliberatly answers vague answers, trying to brush things under a carpet with wrong copy and pastes and pretending not to understand my request. 
What a dissapointment, i don't mind it doesn't work but the way my request for help has been dealt wih is below par.

Seems to me your only problem is with yourself.

Mike has answered all your questions and suggested ways in which you can achieve your goal.

To accuse Mike of giving 'vague answers' is extremely unfair and totally untrue.  Of all the software I have ever owned/used, his support is 150% and way above that of anyone else, including major software companies - many of them don't give you any answers at all.  For a single developer, providing a software that works across three (or is it four now) platforms, I'm amazed at just how much support he can supply.

Nobody is forcing you to use MSP, if you don't like it, find another app - although you'll be hard pushed to find anything as comprehensive as this one!

I think the least you could do is apologise for your unreasonable comments.

[Lester]

Anno_Visser, if you don't understand Mike's replies, tell us which bit(s) you don't understand and maybe we, - other MobileSheets users - can help, explain.

[IanMSpencer]

It might be fair comment to say that two-way sync is a feature that perhaps should be deprecated as it can't achieve what most people would expect it to do, (which to me is magically work out the latest versions of things from the two sources and work out what has been deleted and come up with the latest result, or alternatively completely overwrite the slave copy from the master, deleting any orphan files). That's not what it does, but MS provides other methods of distributing songs, and experienced users use these ways to use multiple devices, so it is a matter of exploring the best way of solving your issue. From what you have said, my advice is to set aside two-way sync and look at other methods of keeping devices in line, whilst minimising your efforts.

There are several ways of keeping identical copies across devices, and one of the quickest & easiest ways is to use backup, either via the Companion (which is super-speedy) or via the backup option within the App itself to a Cloud service.

The way I would tackle the different versions would be having two different versions of the song using the same file. You then have your own annotations and yet share the same file. What I do find a little awkward is that if I wanted to update a file, I would like to go into the song, select the file and import a replacement file, but that isn't how it works - I may not have entirely understood the existing mechanism but I find it hit and miss as to whether an import will associate with a song I have, and as I have different versions which may or may not be different files, I'd prefer a more explicit mechanism (thinks, time for a suggestion).

Your other option is to consider whether, once issued, does your music change much, or are you actually trying to solve a theoretical problem, and it might be easier just to maintain two independent devices, while keeping a common source folder on the main PC. So I have evolved one place I put my source music, and consider that the synchronised source from which I can take versions as and when. If I update something, I now try and make sure I stick with the same file-naming convention (e.g. add the instrument it is for if it is unique to the instrument). So then if there is an update, I can import it, and MobileSheets should prompt to slide the new version in under the annotations, which if the layout hasn't changed, should keep the annotations intact.