09-26-2023, 11:41 AM
Amy, yes, that's a bit different to the way I have it set up. I have one pdf for each piece with all the parts in the same pdf. I was aware that each piece just has the one folder and that the various pdfs for a piece would all go into that folder even if they're coming from different libraries but it hadn't occurred to me that they would overwrite each other. Good to hear from Mike that only the title needs to be the same for the parts to be matched using the leader/follower function. I guess like Mike says you'll need to label the parts' pdfs individually (Yellow V1.pdf, Yellow V2.pdf etc) and then import them to the different libraries with the same song title. I think that might be how you originally had your pdfs named so hopefully you still have a copy of them with those filenames.
What you should end up with on your main tablet is a folder for each piece with four pdfs in each folder, one for each instrument, with each library only referring to the pdf that goes with that instrument. My guess is that when you sync each library to a cloud folder, it will only copy over the pdf that's relevant to that library (syncing the first violin library should only copy the first violin pdfs etc) but because you're wanting to keep the parts secure you may want to do a test run of the sync and then make sure that the pdfs for the other instruments aren't also being copied over to the cloud folder.
I imagine that using four tablets with just one library on each tablet would also work if you happen to have four tablets to work from, and it would mean that you wouldn't have to go back to having unique filenames for each instrument. I like being able to just work on one tablet when I'm adding a new piece but if you don't have the pdfs saved with the original filenames and don't want to have to rename them all again then you could move to working with 4 separate tablets.
I haven't used the Song ID field. It sounds like you'll be better off using titles to match pieces because that will save you the time needed to allocate an ID number to each piece. If you can't get it working using titles then Song IDs could be worth trying. I have my libraries set up with a custom sort title so that on the library page classical pieces are displayed with the composer's last name before the piece and non-classical pieces have the name of the piece first and then the artist in brackets - Schubert Ave Maria, Yellow (Coldplay) etc, with Schubert in the composer field, Coldplay in the artist field, and the titles in the title field. I have the leader/follower function set up to match on the custom sort title so that it distinguishes between pieces with the same title by different artists/composers.
Guy
What you should end up with on your main tablet is a folder for each piece with four pdfs in each folder, one for each instrument, with each library only referring to the pdf that goes with that instrument. My guess is that when you sync each library to a cloud folder, it will only copy over the pdf that's relevant to that library (syncing the first violin library should only copy the first violin pdfs etc) but because you're wanting to keep the parts secure you may want to do a test run of the sync and then make sure that the pdfs for the other instruments aren't also being copied over to the cloud folder.
I imagine that using four tablets with just one library on each tablet would also work if you happen to have four tablets to work from, and it would mean that you wouldn't have to go back to having unique filenames for each instrument. I like being able to just work on one tablet when I'm adding a new piece but if you don't have the pdfs saved with the original filenames and don't want to have to rename them all again then you could move to working with 4 separate tablets.
I haven't used the Song ID field. It sounds like you'll be better off using titles to match pieces because that will save you the time needed to allocate an ID number to each piece. If you can't get it working using titles then Song IDs could be worth trying. I have my libraries set up with a custom sort title so that on the library page classical pieces are displayed with the composer's last name before the piece and non-classical pieces have the name of the piece first and then the artist in brackets - Schubert Ave Maria, Yellow (Coldplay) etc, with Schubert in the composer field, Coldplay in the artist field, and the titles in the title field. I have the leader/follower function set up to match on the custom sort title so that it distinguishes between pieces with the same title by different artists/composers.
Guy