[rwstout]

I'm puzzeled: I want to swap an annotated PDF with a revised version and keep the annotations.
I tried importing a new PDF, but sometimes that results in a new song.
Then I tried swapping the PDF, but then the annotations disappear.
Is there a setting I for keeping the annotations during a swap of is there another way that I overlooked?

[McAroni]

If you just swap the file, the annotations should remain. At least at android.
You could try. To Make a copy from your song with annotations and swap the file there. But there should be no difference. 

As a side note: you should swap the via the swap file dialog.
Long press a song -> press the three dots-> swap file. 
If you  swap the file with in the "file" dialog of the song you will loose your annotations.

[rwstout]

If you just swap the file, the annotations should remain. At least at android.
You could try. To Make a copy from your song with annotations and swap the file there. But there should be no difference. 

As a side note: you should swap the via the swap file dialog.
Long press a song -> press the three dots-> swap file. 
If you  swap the file with in the "file" dialog of the song you will loose your annotations.

You are right: that's what I did (Long press a song -> press the three dots-> swap file).
The problem seems to be the syncing.
When I upsync the swapped library to Dropbox (sync annotations=off), and then downsync it to the voice-library on my tablet (Samsung  A9+) (sync annotations=off), I get the swapped PDF, but the annotations that I made on the tablet are gone for that song.

[Zubersoft]

Something definitely sounds like it's not working as intended if you switched off the option to sync annotations but your existing annotations were removed. I'll have to see if I can reproduce that.

Mike

[rwstout]

Something definitely sounds like it's not working as intended if you switched off the option to sync annotations but your existing annotations were removed. I'll have to see if I can reproduce that.

Mike

Thanks Mike!

[Zubersoft]

I just tested this and it worked fine:

1) I synchronized device 1 to a Dropbox folder
2) I synchronized device 2 to that same folder
3) I annotated one of the songs on device 2
4) I swapped a file for that same song on device 1
5) I synchronized the change to Dropbox
6) I synchronized the Dropbox folder to device 2 but unchecked "Sync annotations"
7) I loaded that song on device 2 and verified my annotations were still intact

So I'm going to need specific steps for reproducing this issue if you believe there is a bug.

Thanks,
Mike

[rwstout]

1. I imported PDF-1 into library on device 1.
   
2. I synced device 1 up to Dropbox.
   
3. I synced down to device 2.
   
4. I annotated PDF-1 on device 2.
   
5. I swapped PDF-1 for PDF-2 on device 1. (in library: longpress on PDF-1, menu, swap).
   
6. I synced device 1 up to Dropbox.
   
7. I synced down to device 2.
   
8. I lost annotations on device 2
   
   
9. All syncs: sync annotations=off.
   

[Zubersoft]

Is this on Windows, Android or iOS? I tested between Windows and Android, and it sounds like I did exactly what you did but it worked fine for me.

Thanks,
Mike

[rwstout]

Is this on Windows, Android or iOS? I tested between Windows and Android, and it sounds like I did exactly what you did but it worked fine for me.

Thanks,
Mike

The main app works on a Chromebook in Android, the other on a Samsung tablet.
It used to work fine, but somewhere along the road (could be after the last update) the annotations got lost.

[rwstout]

If you just swap the file, the annotations should remain. At least at android.
You could try. To Make a copy from your song with annotations and swap the file there. But there should be no difference. 

As a side note: you should swap the via the swap file dialog.
Long press a song -> press the three dots-> swap file. 
If you  swap the file with in the "file" dialog of the song you will loose your annotations.

To make sure that I use the right settings: here they are:

[Zubersoft]

So that is very different from swapping in a file with the same name. If you are swapping in a file with a new name, MobileSheets will interpret that on the other end as you deleting a file and replacing it with a new file. That's going to trigger a very different series of events on the secondary device, as it will first remove all of the pages associated with the old file, then copy over the pages for the new file from the other device. I'll have to review this logic to see if there is anything I can do to improve this, but if you replace 111_Test_1.pdf with 111_Test_1.pdf (instead of 111_Test_2.pdf), then you shouldn't encounter that problem.

I know from a user perspective, it seems like this should be a simple exchange and the annotations shouldn't be impacted. However, the synchronization feature is merging libraries and has to handle all sorts of potential situations with the types of changes the user may have made. So removing the old file and inserting the new file is how it handles a file change (it doesn't know that the swap file feature was used on the other devices - it just sees it as a new file replacing the old). There is a lot of logic when using the swap file feature that preserves things like annotations because it assumes this is the correct thing to do. With the sync library feature, it's not entirely clear if this is always the right thing to do. The user may have replaced the old file with a completely different file with different page sizes, and the annotations on the old pages might not even be valid on the new pages. Regardless, I'll probably have to try to insert additional logic to preserve annotations, and leave it up to the user to delete them if it wasn't the right thing to do to keep them.

Mike

[rwstout]

Hi Mike,

I completely understand what you mean.
I can understand both ways of thinking and how the 'receiving' side can't distinguish a swap from a replacement.
Maybe you could add a switch/flag on the Song-level in the swapping screen through which the user indicates whether the new file is a new version of the PDF of a new version of the song (or 'Synced devices must keep/remove annotations').

Maybe you could use that information in the sync logic where the code has to determine whether to keep or trash the annotations.
Something like: if a new PDF is found for this song: if Keep_annotations = true: keep annotations, else: delete annotations.