[Barrie Brailsford]

Hello there, 

Firstly just to say what a fabulous app this is. 

My usage case is that I am using this to display Organ music and my preferred method of advancing the music is to use the continuous scroll with a delay time set and scrolling to the end with a fixed duration. I set the scroll delay to a duration that gives time to play about 2/3 of the first page before the scroll commences, starting the scroll manually by touching an appropriate point on the screen. I would typically have the scroll delay set between 15 to 25 seconds. My observation is that currently the only indication of whether there is a current active scroll running from the start of the piece is when the message box briefly pops up to say scroll starts in x seconds. During the delay time it's possible to become unsure of whether or not the scroll has actually been started or not. The only way to verify whether it has been started is toggle the state once or twice again. 

My suggestion is just to have a setting that allows the display of some sort "Scroll running" indicator overlaid on the display whenever the scroll is active. Some what similar to the arrangement that you have for displaying the metronome.

[Geoff Bacon]

I would like this - I use scroll times of about 150 seconds and it is very easy to forget if you have started scrolling.

It might also be nice to have a the indicator as a toggle - this would be automatically displayed as "not scrolling" if scrolling information was set and it would be change to "scrolling" when that was started.

Geoff

[Zubersoft]

So my question is this: is what you want an indicator of how long it is until the next scroll occurs? Or do you literally want something that just indicates that the automatic scrolling is active even while the screen is actively scrolling? Correct me if I'm wrong, but while the screen is scrolling, it's pretty obvious that scrolling is active, so it seems unnecessary in that situation. However, it's when there is time until scrolling starts, or a pause between scrolling events where this indicator seems more useful. Also, should I just display a counter that is the number of seconds until the next scroll occurs? Or would you prefer either an icon that changes color or the words "Scrolling", or something of that sort?

Thanks,
Mike

[Barrie Brailsford]

Hello Mike, 

Thanks for taking the time to consider this. 
As you say when the scroll is actually taking place that is pretty obvious. My initial thought was just some sort of stationary icon, possibly with a  transparency, displayed when there is a scroll pending after a delay, or while it is actually happening, but as you mention some form of indication of how long before a scroll delay  event expires might be of use to some people. In that case, some sort of animated progress bar  or a digital countdown might be appropriate. For my own purposes I would be happy with just some relatively small unobtrusive icon that was visible whenever scrolling was enabled. I wouldn't suggest dedicating too much screen space to it You could possibly give multiple display style choices as with the metronome. You already have the little rectangular icon with the downward pointing arrow to represent scrolling in various places in the app. That would be a good candidate for interface consistency for one option.

[Geoff Bacon]

Hi Mike

Most of my songs don't need scrolling so I tend to forget to start it on those that do.
That is why I suggested a toggle: when displaying the first page of a song that has scroll settings (perhaps only those with an initial delay) it would be nice if MSP showed a "scroll not started/enabled" indicator - this would remind me to start it.
After triggering scrolling, I would be happy with a "scrolling enabled" indicator although others might prefer a countdown (whichever is easiest)
As you say, there is no need to display the indicator once visible scrolling has started.

To make it more complex, it would be nice if the user could specify the position for the indicator (smart button?)

Currently, if I forget to start scrolling for a song with a long initial delay, I have to revert to turning pages (I will have reached the bottom of the page before the long delay expires)
This could be overcome by a smart button or touch action that could "Start Scrolling Immediately without any initial delay"; it would treat the initial delay/pause as 0 seconds and honour any other scroll settings.

Others might have different requirements

Thanks for looking at this

Geoff

[Zubersoft]

Unfortunately, I can't know whether a user has configured scroll settings or not, so I wouldn't have a good way of knowing when to display an indicator to toggle it. If you just need a reminder, I would advise inserting an annotation somewhere on the page as a reminder. If there is an indicator of when scrolling is going to begin, the combination of these two would let you know whether or not the song requires scrolling and whether it is started. You can already assign touch actions to start/stop scrolling, so I think a dedicated icon that is always displayed might be overkill.

I think I will move forward with a countdown indicator, but I suppose I will have to make this an optional thing as some users probably won't want it.

Mike

[Geoff Bacon]

Thanks Mike

I already use an annotation but I still sometimes forget to start scrolling (the annotation just gets treated as page decoration!)

I know there is a touch action for start/stop scrolling and I use this when the song starts. However, if I do forget to trigger it, this action isn't any use for me because the long delay before visible scrolling means that I reach the bottom of the page before the scroll shows.

I suppose I could just do a touch action with a short delay near the bottom of the page but, if I do that, I might as well just use a page turn (which is what I'm trying to avoid).

Geoff

[Zubersoft]

Smart buttons don't currently support an action to "Start/stop scrolling", but there is no reason I can't add that. Would that solve the issue for you? You can insert a button on the page to start scrolling, and you know if you see the button that you need to tap it. I am going to add additional styling options for buttons at some point.

Mike

[Geoff Bacon]

I think a smart button would be great

Thank you
Geoff

[Zubersoft]

Quick Follow-up: version 3.8.7 will introduce start/stop scrolling as a supported action for smart buttons, but the countdown timer will be scheduled for a different update as I haven't had time to work on it yet and I need to roll out some bug fixes.

Mike

[Barrie Brailsford]

Thanks for looking into this.

[Geoff Bacon]

Thanks Mike