10-15-2016, 05:27 AM
Thanks for all the replies.
I would never have guessed anyone would be importing 100s of songs in one PDF.
As a professional software developer myself, I certainly would not push for a change that would make lots of users lose a whole bunch of work.
At the same time, I imagine most of you can appreciate the feeling that, if the user opens a song and edits the custom page order, the page numbers referenced make the most sense if they are treated as referring to the pages the user sees, in the order the user sees them. E.g. if the user enters "4" in the custom page order field, it is most reasonable for the user to expect that to be used as referring to the 4th page displayed when the user pages through the song without any custom page order defined.
I think there is a fairly straightforward solution to this that would allow existing users to still do what they are doing with no new work:
When you edit a song and go to the Files tab, what is displayed is a list of files and a text input field for "Page Order".
This thread is really about how to interpret the Page Order field. What was not clear to me from just looking at the UI and using the app is that "Page Order" is a Per File setting. I looked at it and thought it was a Per Song setting.
For those of you who are using CSV files and importing one PDF with 100s of songs, am I correct in thinking that the result is you get 100s of songs in your Song list in MSP and each song just has one file attached (the imported PDF), with a Page Order that just specifies 1 (or maybe 2) page out of that PDF? I'm thinking of my Real Books where most (all?) songs are just 1 page.
It seems to me that the straightforward way to deal with this is that each file should have a "File Page Order" attribute, which would replace and take the value of the current Page Order attribute.
And each song should have a Song Page Order field. I.e. this would be the only "new" piece of data to be edited (by the user) and stored.
The files with their File Page Order would work exactly as they do now.
The Song Page Order is the only new piece of data and it would let you define a custom page order where each page number used refers to that page number as seen by the user as they page through the song (assuming no song page order defined).
I mean, in the grand scheme of things, using a field called page order just to let the user specify a page or two to use out of a 200 page PDF is not very intuitive or logical. But, it is what it is and there is a user base that should not be inconvenienced for no good reason. Similarly, telling the user that they can define a custom page order, but they can't use "2" in it, even though they just hit Pg Dn and viewed the second page of their music is also not very intuitive or logical. If this were being done from scratch, I would have suggested having a per-file attribute that just defines which pages to make available. I.e. if you import a whole Realbook just to create the song Blue Bossa, then you would import it and specify the page number for Blue Bossa. But, that would not be termed a page order. It would just be an attribute of that PDF that is one file component of that song. As it is, the app is using this one field, Page Order, for two different purposes. One purpose is simply to pick 1 or 2 pages out of a multi-hundred page PDF. I.e., it's being used as a filter. The other purpose is to actually have the app show the pages of the song where some pages are repeated and to define the number and order of those repeated pages. I.e it actually defines an ordering that allows repeats. Using one field for two different purposes is rarely an optimal software design.
And please don't take any of that as some kind of slam of MSP. MSP is awesome! I have wanted software like this for years and I am equally disappointed that it took me this long to find it and ecstatic that I finally have found it! I love it so much, I went out and bought a new tablet and Bluetooth page turner just to use with it. It really is fantastic! But, that doesn't mean there aren't possibly ways to make it even awesomer! :-)
I would never have guessed anyone would be importing 100s of songs in one PDF.
As a professional software developer myself, I certainly would not push for a change that would make lots of users lose a whole bunch of work.
At the same time, I imagine most of you can appreciate the feeling that, if the user opens a song and edits the custom page order, the page numbers referenced make the most sense if they are treated as referring to the pages the user sees, in the order the user sees them. E.g. if the user enters "4" in the custom page order field, it is most reasonable for the user to expect that to be used as referring to the 4th page displayed when the user pages through the song without any custom page order defined.
I think there is a fairly straightforward solution to this that would allow existing users to still do what they are doing with no new work:
When you edit a song and go to the Files tab, what is displayed is a list of files and a text input field for "Page Order".
This thread is really about how to interpret the Page Order field. What was not clear to me from just looking at the UI and using the app is that "Page Order" is a Per File setting. I looked at it and thought it was a Per Song setting.
For those of you who are using CSV files and importing one PDF with 100s of songs, am I correct in thinking that the result is you get 100s of songs in your Song list in MSP and each song just has one file attached (the imported PDF), with a Page Order that just specifies 1 (or maybe 2) page out of that PDF? I'm thinking of my Real Books where most (all?) songs are just 1 page.
It seems to me that the straightforward way to deal with this is that each file should have a "File Page Order" attribute, which would replace and take the value of the current Page Order attribute.
And each song should have a Song Page Order field. I.e. this would be the only "new" piece of data to be edited (by the user) and stored.
The files with their File Page Order would work exactly as they do now.
The Song Page Order is the only new piece of data and it would let you define a custom page order where each page number used refers to that page number as seen by the user as they page through the song (assuming no song page order defined).
I mean, in the grand scheme of things, using a field called page order just to let the user specify a page or two to use out of a 200 page PDF is not very intuitive or logical. But, it is what it is and there is a user base that should not be inconvenienced for no good reason. Similarly, telling the user that they can define a custom page order, but they can't use "2" in it, even though they just hit Pg Dn and viewed the second page of their music is also not very intuitive or logical. If this were being done from scratch, I would have suggested having a per-file attribute that just defines which pages to make available. I.e. if you import a whole Realbook just to create the song Blue Bossa, then you would import it and specify the page number for Blue Bossa. But, that would not be termed a page order. It would just be an attribute of that PDF that is one file component of that song. As it is, the app is using this one field, Page Order, for two different purposes. One purpose is simply to pick 1 or 2 pages out of a multi-hundred page PDF. I.e., it's being used as a filter. The other purpose is to actually have the app show the pages of the song where some pages are repeated and to define the number and order of those repeated pages. I.e it actually defines an ordering that allows repeats. Using one field for two different purposes is rarely an optimal software design.
And please don't take any of that as some kind of slam of MSP. MSP is awesome! I have wanted software like this for years and I am equally disappointed that it took me this long to find it and ecstatic that I finally have found it! I love it so much, I went out and bought a new tablet and Bluetooth page turner just to use with it. It really is fantastic! But, that doesn't mean there aren't possibly ways to make it even awesomer! :-)