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Hi Mike,
how about a feature to hide songs from being displayed in the song library (only there, not from search, collections, setlists and recents)?
As I mentioned before I like to use the complete fake books and other collections on my tablet. But I don't want them necessarily displayed in the song library together with the single songs.
It would be neat to have a checkbox or something in the song preferences to hide/show it in the song library so you can exclude "non-songs", placeholder or even duplicates from being shown.
This could be also useful for your workaround for setlist specific annotations in that other thread (hiding the extra copy from the library. I like your idea of song versions too though).
If you provide such a "hidden feature" there should be a possibility to show all/hidden/not hidden songs, too.
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I have a separate collection for placeholder non-songs.
And I organize my songs in collections. One collection per band or line-up plus some additional collections for "to be edited", "to be practiced" and so on. The filter functionality of MSP allows most of the selecting I need, it provides also a filter for "no collection applied"
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There's already a lot of know-how, tips & tricks and knowledge in the forum. But it is hard to find the relevant information when I need it. How about setting up a wiki or the like to improve accessability? I open a new thread about this.
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@itsme
I second a wiki. Good idea.
But I'm not sure if you're arguing against my suggestion or if you're only suggesting "workarounds".
In this case I'm aware of the filter and collection abilities. I think collections are rather the obvious place for placeholders and fake books regardless if they show up in the song library or not.
But wouldn't you like and use a hide feature to unclutter the song library if Mike supports the idea, finds the time and isn't too much work?
I agree, it's not vital, but I think it would be an improvement.
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I don't really have an opinion on this idea, as I doubt if would make any significant way to how I work (I don't use full books, only individual charts).
However, I have a feeling in my water that there should be one area within MSP where everything is displayd, no matter where else it might be hidden. That area is obviously the 'Songs'tab.
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(02-12-2016, 02:54 AM)GraemeJ Wrote: However, I have a feeling in my water that there should be one area within MSP where everything is displayd, no matter where else it might be hidden. That area is obviously the 'Songs'tab.
That's why I wrote:
"there should be a possibility to show all/hidden/not hidden songs, too."
Guys, I'm talking of an optional feature which wouldn't affect your previous usage at all. If you don't want/need to hide songs, don't do it.
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02-12-2016, 07:39 AM
(This post was last modified: 02-12-2016, 07:40 AM by itsme.)
I don't want to argue with anybody.
I use complete fakebooks, but I discarded my original idea of importing the whole fakebooks into MSP. I found a workflow that works almost perfectly for my needs without overcrowding my MSP library with thousands of songs, only using existing functionality.
Here it is:
Step 1:
I copy a selection of my fakebooks on the tablet. For every fakebook I create an album of the same name in MSP and add two "songs" to the album, one for the fakebook's table of contents and one containing the complete fakebook (PageOrder 1 - last page).
=> the books are accessible in MSP by looking up songs in the TOC and navigating to them via MSP's "go to page". For songs that I plan to use I create new MSP songs by copying an existing one from the respective album and adapt the title and page order. Not very comfortable yet, I would have to open the TOC of various books to find a specific song, just like using paper books...
Step 2:
I merge a list of all songs of all the fakebooks on the tablet into one XLS file that I also copy on the tablet.
=> I can look up a song in the XLS and find the right fakebook PDF and page order to copy paste it to create new songs much faster as above
Step 3:
I create a CSV for every fakebook and copy it into the same folder as the PDF on the tablet
=> voila. The library contains only those songs that I really need. Thousands of songs available on the tablet that can be added fast and conveniently: looking up the right fakebook PDF in the XLS then open the fakebook's CSV with MSP's CSV import function and select the song in the following song selection dialog
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BRX, I definitely understand the appeal of such a feature, but I think itsme has the right idea here. If I add a property to songs that determines if they are hidden or not, this is essentially like assigning them to a collection of hidden songs. In fact, your "Show/Hidden/Not Hidden" is basically equivalent to the include/exclude/unassigned options for the collections filter. One option would be to just place all your placeholders and other "hidden" songs in one collection, then you can select "Exclude" and filter on that collection. Or if you aren't using collection for anything else, you can assign all of those "hidden" songs to a collection and select unassigned for the collections filter to only show the other songs in your library.
The only difference I can see between what I've described above and adding a new hidden property would be if I made the filter selection persistent, as then you wouldn't need to set it every time. If that's all you really need though, I can add an option to save/reload the filter selections so that you would only have to set it once and then forgot about it until you need to edit a hidden song.
If this will not work for you or is in some way more cumbersome than a new property, we can discuss it further. I just don't want to add too much redundancy as it can get confusing/overwhelming for users (perhaps we are already there...).
Mike
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No, you're right. Making an "exclude collection" and working with the exclude filter would have the same effect.
I'd very much like the persistent/reloading filter selection then, though.
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02-12-2016, 11:48 PM
(This post was last modified: 02-13-2016, 12:21 AM by itsme.)
Trying to hide all songs that are NOT in any collection I looked for filter setting "exclude unassigned" without success.
"Include" combined with selecting all existing collections via "select all" does the job.
Persistent filter settings seem useful to me.
There's a common situation where I miss it: preparing a gig with one of my bands.
Everytime when I close and reopen the setlist editor I have to re-set the filter "include" ThisBand's collection
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Setlists probably are an exception: filters should not be applied when a setlist is displayed to avoid songs diappearing unexpectedly from an existing setlist. And when the setlist editor is opened, filters shall be applied to the right-hand-side list of songs available for adding, but not to the setlist itself at the left.
Please correct me if I am mislead.
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I agree with itsme - filtering a setlist makes no sense at all. The clue is in the name, it's a complete and ordered list of the numbers you are going to play at a specific gig or gigs.
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Filtering of a setlist in the setlist editor has never existed, and I certainly hadn't planned on adding that. As you suggested, if the filter was transferred from the library screen to the setlist editor (which is technically separate from persisting the filters on the main library screen between application loads), it would only apply to the songs in the library song list.
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