1. Can I fully match all forScore metadata fields and content with those in MobileSheets? (E.g., 'Difficulty,' 'Tempo,' and such.) <- Confidence Level=High.
Yes, I believe so. I don't know how much freedom forScore allows with creating custom fields. I am planning on expanding the number of custom groups and fields with the next major update.
2. Can all metadata fields in MobileSheets be 'auto-populated' from fields in the imported PDF doc? (E.g., 'Keys,' 'Difficulty,' and such).
Not every field, no. I'm currently looking for all of the group types in the PDF metadata (Artist, Album, Composer, Genre, Key, Collection, Setlist, Signature, CustomGroup, Year, SourceType), as well as Duration and Keywords. No other fields are extracted from PDF metadata currently.
You can certainly use the batch import with directories to populate metadata. The problem with csv files is that you can't batch import them, so you'd have to do it one song at a time. I am going to try to add support for importing multiple files at once through csv in one of the next major updates. Unlike the current csv import feature, you won't pick which songs to create - it will just create one song for every file found in the csv.
The last thing I should mention is that I'm going to try to add basic support for importing forScore 4SC and backup files. Over time I may be able to extract more information, but my shorter term goal is to at least be able to extract all the metadata and PDFs. This may include Setlists - it will just depend on how difficult it is to parse through the files. I'm going to have to spend some time figuring out the file formats for this.
3. Is there some way to migrate over setlists as well? <- Confidence Level=Low.
.mss files could certainly work for that. It's also supported with PDF metadata, or when using the batch import feature with the option to populate metadata from directories. Or as mentioned above, if I can figure out the file formats, that may be a more direct way, but that's going to take me a while with all of the other ongoing work, so it may be faster for you to figure out a different solution in the meantime.
4. Is there some way to migrate over forScore 'bookmarks'? These are sets of pages within a large PDF document that are treated in forScore as an individual score (including the ability to set unique metadata for the bookmarked page-set). The typical use-case being a book of songs where you've 'bookmarked' 1-2 pages that is one of the songs in the book. I know MobileSheets can do this as well; just don't know how I'd migrate over that internal information. However, the forScore metadata export CSV file does contain the information that would be needed to do it.
This is one of the biggest incompatibilities. The problem is that bookmarks only link to a single page in MobileSheets right now instead of a range of pages. This means they can't be used to define a psuedo-song like you can in forScore. That is something I will probably address at some point, but it requires some pretty significant design changes, and I'm not sure how far I want to go down the rabbit hole with this. I have the "Create Snippet" feature in MobileSheets for this purpose where a separate song is created in the library from a range of pages in the original PDF. This serves basically the same purpose, but I'm not sure how this differs from the bookmarks approach in forScore, and what benefits using bookmarks has over this.
5. Can the CSV file modifications be scripted to make this step more reliable for others wishing to use this process?
I'm not sure if you are asking for changes from me with this, or if it's just a general statement for anyone interested in helping write scripts to generate CSV files to move the data over.
Question for Mike: Can you answer question #2 above? (Note: I did a quick test to try to populate the 'Keys' field in MobileSheets, but it did not auto-populate upon import. I just created a field in a PDF doc as "Keys=D." But maybe the content has to be a number or some other way that you're encoding the Keys field internally?)
I'm looking for "Key" at the moment (I don't pluralize any of the group fields when looking for metadata, so it's Genre, Key, Year, etc). I believe you need to add a field like, <xmp:Key>C</xmp:Key> which is under the rdf: Description element in the metadata. Let me know if you need more information on this.
Mike
Yes, I believe so. I don't know how much freedom forScore allows with creating custom fields. I am planning on expanding the number of custom groups and fields with the next major update.
2. Can all metadata fields in MobileSheets be 'auto-populated' from fields in the imported PDF doc? (E.g., 'Keys,' 'Difficulty,' and such).
Not every field, no. I'm currently looking for all of the group types in the PDF metadata (Artist, Album, Composer, Genre, Key, Collection, Setlist, Signature, CustomGroup, Year, SourceType), as well as Duration and Keywords. No other fields are extracted from PDF metadata currently.
You can certainly use the batch import with directories to populate metadata. The problem with csv files is that you can't batch import them, so you'd have to do it one song at a time. I am going to try to add support for importing multiple files at once through csv in one of the next major updates. Unlike the current csv import feature, you won't pick which songs to create - it will just create one song for every file found in the csv.
The last thing I should mention is that I'm going to try to add basic support for importing forScore 4SC and backup files. Over time I may be able to extract more information, but my shorter term goal is to at least be able to extract all the metadata and PDFs. This may include Setlists - it will just depend on how difficult it is to parse through the files. I'm going to have to spend some time figuring out the file formats for this.
3. Is there some way to migrate over setlists as well? <- Confidence Level=Low.
.mss files could certainly work for that. It's also supported with PDF metadata, or when using the batch import feature with the option to populate metadata from directories. Or as mentioned above, if I can figure out the file formats, that may be a more direct way, but that's going to take me a while with all of the other ongoing work, so it may be faster for you to figure out a different solution in the meantime.
4. Is there some way to migrate over forScore 'bookmarks'? These are sets of pages within a large PDF document that are treated in forScore as an individual score (including the ability to set unique metadata for the bookmarked page-set). The typical use-case being a book of songs where you've 'bookmarked' 1-2 pages that is one of the songs in the book. I know MobileSheets can do this as well; just don't know how I'd migrate over that internal information. However, the forScore metadata export CSV file does contain the information that would be needed to do it.
This is one of the biggest incompatibilities. The problem is that bookmarks only link to a single page in MobileSheets right now instead of a range of pages. This means they can't be used to define a psuedo-song like you can in forScore. That is something I will probably address at some point, but it requires some pretty significant design changes, and I'm not sure how far I want to go down the rabbit hole with this. I have the "Create Snippet" feature in MobileSheets for this purpose where a separate song is created in the library from a range of pages in the original PDF. This serves basically the same purpose, but I'm not sure how this differs from the bookmarks approach in forScore, and what benefits using bookmarks has over this.
5. Can the CSV file modifications be scripted to make this step more reliable for others wishing to use this process?
I'm not sure if you are asking for changes from me with this, or if it's just a general statement for anyone interested in helping write scripts to generate CSV files to move the data over.
Question for Mike: Can you answer question #2 above? (Note: I did a quick test to try to populate the 'Keys' field in MobileSheets, but it did not auto-populate upon import. I just created a field in a PDF doc as "Keys=D." But maybe the content has to be a number or some other way that you're encoding the Keys field internally?)
I'm looking for "Key" at the moment (I don't pluralize any of the group fields when looking for metadata, so it's Genre, Key, Year, etc). I believe you need to add a field like, <xmp:Key>C</xmp:Key> which is under the rdf: Description element in the metadata. Let me know if you need more information on this.
Mike