[Zubersoft]

Version 3.8.32 is now available for Android and iOS and is awaiting approval in the Microsoft Store for Windows. FastSpring Windows users can already download and install the update if desired. One of the biggest changes for Windows is the entire rendering engine has been replaced with Skia, which is the same rendering engine used by Android. This change has brought about some significant benefits:

• Using the same codebase reduces how much time has to be spent porting changes, and reduces the likelihood of Windows-specific bugs
  
• Skia is considerably faster at measuring text than the old engine (Win2D). This means that text and chord pro files load considerably faster, which is the most apparent when loading a setlist containing many text and chord pro files. What may have taken 8-10 seconds before will now take less than a second.
  
• Unusual rendering issues occured on ARM-based devices like the Surface Pro X, especially with annotations (weird streaks and lines would show up on the screen). These issues are not present with the new implementation.
  
• I spent a lot of time and effort optimizing pinch zooming with the new rendering engine, so it is now possible to zoom in further, and it will be much smoother than before
  
• The new implementation does not rely on GPU rendering which may improve the stability across devices with different hardware
  

While I did an extensive amount of testing with three different devices, it's possible there may be issues that occur that I was unable to catch. For users that have performances coming up, I would recommend disabling automatic updates and only updating when there is no risk. 

The update also contains some important fixes for Android and iOS. Version 3.8.33 is currently awaiting approval for iOS to fix a crash related to the annotation layers window. The full list of changes can be found below:

Changes Affecting All Platforms

• Fixed issue where "Automatically Add Matching Audio" would not work when importing through a cloud service
  
• The audio player tempo and pitch shift buttons are now tinted to show when a tempo adjustment or pitch shift is active
  
• Added option while synchronizing to only show differences
  
• Tapping a song in the left-side list in the group editor will now scroll the right-side list to that song
  
• Fixed issue where hiding the bookmarks window with a touch action wouldn't stop it from being shown when the overlay is displayed
  
• The notes popup is now automatically hidden if a different song or setlist is loaded while using the connect tablets feature
  
• Added support for populating tempos through PDF metadata
  
• Added icon to the layers window to control whether the active layer is automatically expanded
  
• The annotations editor will now properly respect landscape half page turn positions when turning pages with the single page display mode
  
• Added code to ensure only valid tempos are assigned through PDF metadata or csv files
  
• Added code to prevent an invalid cropping rectangle from being used with automatic cropping
  
• Fixed incorrect label in the library window settings, and also fixed the collapse icon color when night mode is active
  
• Text and ChordPro files will now ignore | characters on chord lines when calculating if a line is mostly chords
  

Android v3.8.32

• Fixed issue where MobileSheets could potentially load in an invalid state if it was suspended in the backgrounded
  
• Fixed PDF rendering issues on some devices when rendering preference is set to "Speed"
  
• Fixed bug with deleting a bookmark where multiple prompts could be displayed
  
• Fixed bug where adjusting the contrast or brightness in the image correction screen would prevent any further adjustments from taking effect
  
• Fixed issue with the face gesture screen on smaller devices
  
• FastSpring users will now download updates through a CDN which can speed up downloads for some users significantly
  

Windows v3.8.32

• Replaced entire rendering framework with Skia which provides many new benefits
  
• Fixed rendering issues on ARM-based devices like the Surface Pro X by switching to Skia
  
• Optimized zooming implementation to provide smoother zooming at higher levels
  
• Significantly faster loading of text and chord pro files now due to fast text measurement with Skia
  
• FastSpring users will now download updates through a CDN which can speed up downloads for some users significantly
  
• Fixed incorrect display of ignored articles in the settings
  
• Fixed issue with keywords not being sychronized with the library sync feature
  
• Fixed issue with horizontal scrollbar interfering with icons in annotations command bar
  
• Fixed issue with release notes not correctly using the user's preferred date format
  

iOS/iPadOS/MacOS v3.8.32

• Fixed issue with files uploaded to OneDrive containing spaces being incorrectly encoded
  
• Fixed bug with disconnecting and reconnecting bluetooth MIDI devices that would cause duplicate connections
  
• Fixed incorrect error message when setting the metronome to visual only
  
• Colons are no longer allowed in filenames and are stripped from any imported file to ensure compatibility with other platforms
  
• Fixed bug where directories in the MobileSheets folder could be incorrectly deleted under certain situations
  
• Increased maximum zoom allowed on pages by ~60%
  
• Fixed text color bug when "Use Dark Theme" is enabled at the same time as "Skip Viewing Groups with One Song"
  
• Fixed issue with the switch library screen not working properly on phones
  

Mike

[sciurius]

Good job!

[Oz Cello]

I just updated 4 devices (Boox Max 3) to 3.8.42 (from 3.8.38 or 39 I think). The release notes mention resizing the switch library screen to accommodate the screen size but the list still only takes up the top half of the screen and requires scrolling to see the last few libraries. Should it be using more of the screen now?

Some time ago I whittled the genres list down to 3 genres but after the update all the default genres had all been added back in, at least to 3 of the 4 libraries (the 4th library only had the 3 genres I've been working with). The devices have identical libraries and the default genres had been added back to the same 3 libraries on each of the 4 devices even though each device was on a different library during the update.

I then added some pieces to the libraries. The way I usually do that is to add them to one library, then export the new pieces as a single msf to a local file, then switch to the other libraries and import the msf to each library in turn, adjusting the metadata for each library as I go. The problem this time was that I couldn't get the msf files to import in the other libraries. The export from the original library seemed to work but when I tried to import it to a different libary it just gave a message saying 'failed to import file abc.msf. successfully imported 0 of 1 files'. I managed to get a few of the pieces from the msf to import by unticking the box that includes metadata in the export but that defeats the purpose a bit and didn't work at all for some of the pieces. I managed to get those same pieces to work (metadate included) by exporting each piece as an msf rather than putting them all in one msf but it only worked for 2 of the 3 libraries I was trying to import into and didn't work at all for a couple of the pieces. I could still import them to any of the libraries from the original pdf. The issue was only with importing msf's. I don't think I've seen an msf import fail before.

I tried exporting some pieces that had been in the library since before the update to msf to see if I could work out whether the issue was the way the pieces were being created since the update or whether it was the way the msf was being generated. I made two msf's with a couple of older pieces in each and one of the them failed to import but the other seemed to work. Not sure what that all means.

Guy

[Zubersoft]

That release note was about the width, not the height (I should have been more specific). It was in response to forum threads about the add button being cut off on some devices as the list was wider than the screen. You still have to scroll the list if you have many libraries.

If you want to share the .msf files that failed to import to mike@zubersoft.com, I can take a look at them. As far as the default genres being added back, that is truly bizarre. There is a flag stored in the main configuration file for MobileSheets for each library that indicates whether the default groups have been added to it. So what must have happened is, after you updated your tablets, the configuration file was modified unexpectedly during the update process which is not supposed to happen (that's not something MobileSheets would do itself), and this removed or changed the flags that indicated that the defaults were processed. I've heard reports of this the settings files being modified duriing an update from some users over the years and I still have no idea why Google's installer framework can do this, or how to prevent it. I may need to start taking precautions like backing up every preference file when MobileSheets is closed, and if an update occurs, automatically just restore all the saved preferences, overwriting any modifications the update may have made. 

Mike

[Oz Cello]

I've just emailed you some files. I guess it's possible that the same glitch that's allowing the change to the default genres flag might have also caused the issue with importing msf's. Maybe a re-install would resolve it? Odd that all four tablets have the same problem though.

Thanks, Guy

[Oz Cello]

Hi Mike. That latest update looks to have taken care of the msf import problems I was having. Thanks as always for your quick response. Guy

[Zubersoft]

I'm glad to hear that - thanks for following up.

Mike