[despe]

First of all, thank you for amazing app.

Here is few suggestions for new features and improvements to MSP. I decided to put them all under same subject because, atleast for me, they are related to each other.
 
New feature: Send setlist
It takes quite a time to sync setlist between band members and since it has to do manually double checking for errors can be really time consuming.
 
I would like to suggest a feature, which allows users to send the setlist in such manner that others could sync their app without exchancing actual notes, just the list of songs. For example, drummer and keyboards propably have totally different notes same song.
 
I'm thinking setlistdata could be in all different format or file, which could be possible to send or sync via dropbox etc.
 
Since you then could send setlistdata, there needs to be way how to tell MSP which song is which. Songname can be sufficient but what if same user has both keyboard and guitar notations on device?
 
This leads to my another suggestion...
 
New feature: Select role / intsrument / key / arragement / other parameter
At the moment you need to make different songs for multiple parts of same piece. I would like suggest a feature, which adds role-property for songs. This would allow band members to sync their databases as a whole, each song contains all the notation available on different instruments. Then, by selecting "role" one could select which notation to look at. Maybe a tool to take quick glance of what guitar is up to next?
 
Feature could be also more versatile. Say you want to select between singers who sing to different key.
 
I think this might be achieved with bookmarks except that is there is no way merge song data nor you can't select which bookmark to load first, atleast not on all songs at once with simple change of role or singer.
 
 
Improvement (setlist): Colour by parameter
Would be nice to colour songs by style, tempo or some other parameter. This would help when building sets by visualising for example how the tempo changes during the set or to check if you play tangos in pairs. I'm thinking the coloured highlight could be easily added to parameters already showing in setlist edit-mode.
 
 
Improvement (setlist): indent / group setlist + manage song number in set / group
I usually play 3x10 songs on an event. Each song can be in any set, so when planning setlists I've noticed that instead of creating 3 different setlists it is easier to create just one to ease moving songs from set to another and avoid doubling.
 
For this I would suggest feature to indent and group songs in hiearchy-like manner. Number of songs, duration and moving songs in list would follow also hiearchy.


Waiting for your replies.

-despe

[Zubersoft]

If you long press a setlist on the setlists tab and select Share->Share song list, that creates a .mss file that does exactly as you describe. It's just the setlist and the list of songs. The other users have to have the same songs in their library (the names have to match). If multiple songs are found with matching names, it will then look at files to try to find the best match.

My solution is to implement something called song versioning. A song can have multiple versions where each version can have different files, cropping, annotations, etc. You can choose what version of a song to use for each setlist, and what version is loaded by default if the song is loaded by itself.

Do you just want the song title to be colored in the setlist window? Or are you looking for coloring somewhere else?

Other users have requested the ability to create dividers in setlists both for visualization purposes, but also so that each section can have it's total duration listed. You'll have to decide if dividers would be enough or if you would want indentation in addition to the dividers. I'm not sure on the timeline for this one though as it requires big changes to the editor, and I have to determine if I'm going to support it only for setlists or other group types as well.

Thanks,
Mike

[itsme]

Colouring would be really useful.
Depending on the content of certain fields as proposed might be useful for some users.
For me it would be enough if I could set a background colour manually per song, e.g. in the song editor. With multi-select (existing multi-select mode works great!) it would be easy enough to use.
The background colour should be applied to the whole song title line (or title line and caption line or independent colours for title and caption) wherever the song shows up in a list within the library: setlists, songs, albums, collections...

[despe]

If you long press a setlist on the setlists tab and select Share->Share song list, that creates a .mss file that does exactly as you describe. It's just the setlist and the list of songs. The other users have to have the same songs in their library (the names have to match). If multiple songs are found with matching names, it will then look at files to try to find the best match.

My solution is to implement something called song versioning. A song can have multiple versions where each version can have different files, cropping, annotations, etc. You can choose what version of a song to use for each setlist, and what version is loaded by default if the song is loaded by itself.

Do you just want the song title to be colored in the setlist window? Or are you looking for coloring somewhere else?

Other users have requested the ability to create dividers in setlists both for visualization purposes, but also so that each section can have it's total duration listed.  You'll have to decide if dividers would be enough or if you would want indentation in addition to the dividers. I'm not sure on the timeline for this one though as it requires big changes to the editor, and I have to determine if I'm going to support it only for setlists or other group types as well.

Thanks,
Mike

Thanks, I'll put that to test.

I've used something like that myself by versioning keyboard notation (kb) and guitar (gtr) of a same song.
If I understand correctly you use duplicate of songs and use custom parameter for version?
 
Either way, I don't see them as a long term solution. How does one manage the library and song metadata when versions build up? Seemless switching between versions would mean that versions needed to be in setlist for quick recall. Unless all notation/versions are on same song one could use bookmarks.

I was thinking since it is already possible to view different parameters as a part of song syntax they could be highlighted. So, it could be general property for specific part of syntax.
 
That said, there is also a risk library or setlists ends up looking like a christmas tree if too many higlighted syntaxes at same time. I would leave that to user discretion though..

For workaround, I'm using certain songs as placeholders like dividers named "set 1", "set 2", etc.

[despe]

Colouring would be really useful.
Depending on the content of certain fields as proposed might be useful for some users.
For me it would be enough if I could set a background colour manually per song, e.g. in the song editor. With multi-select (existing multi-select mode works great!) it would be easy enough to use.
The background colour should be applied to the whole song title line (or title line and caption line or independent colours for title and caption) wherever the song shows up in a list within the library: setlists, songs, albums, collections...

I prefer colours to be binded to some property or parameter so that colours could be managed by changing the setting for property instead of multiple songs.
 
I like the idea of colour for titleline and colour being universal.

[saxsim]

If you long press a setlist on the setlists tab and select Share->Share song list, that creates a .mss file that does exactly as you describe. It's just the setlist and the list of songs. The other users have to have the same songs in their library (the names have to match). If multiple songs are found with matching names, it will then look at files to try to find the best match.

My solution is to implement something called song versioning. A song can have multiple versions where each version can have different files, cropping, annotations, etc. You can choose what version of a song to use for each setlist, and what version is loaded by default if the song is loaded by itself.

Such feature is not really practical. I would second the idea suggested by despe. I for example make songs for the whole band and it would be great if I could share the whole songs, not only setlists (because other band members don't have songs that setlist contains). So I prepare all the sheet music in Sibelius, print out pdfs and in MobileSheetsPro Companion I create songs, where all the sheet music could be imported and each bend member would only see the PDF according to the instrument they play (the role they choose).

[BRX]

I'm not against colouring features. But I think you didn't quite see what Mike meant and means to do with it when you called versioning impracticable. It will be a killer feature and I'm looking forward to it.

[saxsim]

Don't get me wrong, it would still be useful feature, but I think there would just be simpler to add files to songs and mark them according to the person / role and then let you choose your role and show you the file accordingly. Versioning suggests that each song would have many versions, which is a little bit impractical (I don't understand if such feature already exists - maybe I would change my mind then, but for the sake of argument let's assume that such feature does not exist) since:
a) You would have new version of a song for each instrument, which you can already do now using collections.
b) How about when you actually need to make a new version of a song, e.g. for a specific event? Imagine, you have 10 different band members and everyone of them needs a different sheet. With two versions of song that would mean 20 different entries. That's very impractical. Still, I would love the versioning feature because for such cases, but in pair with roles feature.

I currently use collections for different band members, but this way sharing the setlist just doesn't work. And also all the tablets have all the songs on them, which with 80 songs that our band performs totals to around 900 entries. And also when creating the songs on PC, I have to duplicate songs for each member and then delete the file and add a new one.

[BRX]

Well, maybe Mike should explain what he has in mind. AFAICS your 'role' is essentially the same as a version (or a subcategory of a version).

Still for use with one shared setlist you still have to distribute or reference all the different parts.

You can already add different files to a song BTW.

My solution to your needs would be to put all parts (roles) into one file = song which is shared with all and can be referenced in one shared setlist. The parts/roles can be bookmarked in the PDF so each player can jump easily to his/her part when the song is opened in the setlist.

[saxsim]

Well, if it's a non-existening feature it doesn't really matter. I guess we all want the same thing.

I am aware that you can add multmultiple files into one song but that does not help me at all. Also with bookmarking the pdfs. Try to understand where I am coming from - I write all the sheet music, load it into the database, so the other band members don't have to do a thing - they just come to a gig  and play. They don't wanna scroll through 12 pages long pdf to find their part while performing on stage, for each song. Not everyone is that tech-savvy.

About versioning - to me the name suggests that it is a different version of a song, not a different part of the same song.

[Zubersoft]

The concept behind versioning is that you will be able to have multiple versions of a song that you can switch between. For each setlist, you will be able to choose which version of the song is used. On the songs tab, you will be able to choose the default version used (what is used by default for setlists and what is used if the song is loaded by itself). There will not be multiple entries in the songs list - just one single song entry with a toggle for the version. This will get you most of what you want. The problem is that you want to easily be able to share the library with others, and not require them to update their setlists to pick each version of the song they want. I think what you really want is both song versioning, but also a role selection. You want to be able to assign each version of a song to a role, so that a user can just pick their current role, and the correct song version will be loaded for each setlist. Not every user would need the role feature though (that's really more for bands). In that case, I'm going to need to support the concept of role just being set to "None" or "Default", so that most users don't even have to think about it. When choosing what version of a song to use for a setlist, you would be given a choice - either pick a specific version, or pick a role. That way it works in both cases. If this all sounds good to you, I'm going to update my write-up for the versioning feature to include this role concept.  There will be a new dropdown on the song editor screen so that, for each song version, you can pick what role it's associated with. If multiple versions are associated with the same role, the first version in the list will be used when figuring out what version of the song to load in a given setlist.

Thanks,
Mike

[NeoCZ]

I really like your description, Mike. I like combination of versioning and roles, both seems useful in different cases. Also I agree best would be to set role to "none" by default and if anyone needs different roles (keyboard, guitar, etc), they can add them for specific version of song. 

Just an idea (maybe it was said before) - would it be possible to give each version custom name? Like version 1 would be called "chords only" and version 2 "keyboard solo"?

[Zubersoft]

Yes, I plan on allowing each version to be named (I'll provide a default name that can be changed).

Thanks,
Mike

[saxsim]

Hello,

thank you for the very prompt response. What you are proposing sounds great! Looking forward to testing it out.

[BRX]

Mike, in regards of the planned versioning feature (this post is as good as any one you mentioned it):

If you haven't already considered it

Can you provide a column in CSV import to assign a version of the song for the import?

Will it be possible to convert a big database with lots of different versions of a song (all with the same title) somehow automatically to versioning  so there's only
one song as the main version and the rest are sub-versions?