[Waldbaer]

Hi MobileSheets community,
I'm just diving into this app and I'm very happy how actively it seems to be supported and developed.

I'd like to be able to attach files to my songs, that are not directly useable in MobileSheets itself. I just want them have at hand while viewing a song and maybe have a list where tapping on an entry will open the file in an app that knows what to do with it. So either links or copies of the files.

Maybe I should explain what I intend to do with this: I'm a teacher, so I have many simple pieces for my students. Often I'll have the right song, but want to edit it slightly to make it fit the current situation, so I need to get from viewing the song in MobileSheets to opening the corresponding file in MuseScore/Finale/whatever as fast and easily as possible. I can imagine this with other files too, maybe a corresponding video file... well everything is connected (of course you know), not just sheet music and audio. 

What do you think about it, is this even an old idea (difficult to search for it... at least I did not find it here)?

[Skip]

I think you would be happy with the "Smart Button' capability. In overlay mode, click on the center icon [a hand with finger on a square]on the lower right. This is the Smart Button popup. Press the plus, seta name for the button, then select  the button action. 'Open file in external app' is near the bottom of the list.

[Waldbaer]

Hey, thank you, I missed that one completely, though I guessed these "Smart Buttons" might have some kind of sense... Thank you for the eye-opener!

Is there a way to show and hide smart buttons? If not, I'll probably put them on an additional blank page, but perhaps I don't need that.

It's a little complicated to implement these buttons, though. Maybe it might be possible to add some drag&drop mechanism for this? I imagine if I drop a file on a page/song in MS, it will add it to the sheets/audio files or if it cannot read it, create a button for it. This could come in very handy for all files, I'd think, especially when you're adding several songs and might have to create many of those links...

[itsme]

Just that kind of links that you are talking about are already possible in MSP. I use them frequently and successfully.

[Waldbaer]

Just that kind of links that you are talking about are already possible in MSP. I use them frequently and successfully.

...what exactly are you talking about? I found the smart buttons (thanks to Skip), but drag&drop creation of them or other file connections does not work for me (no matter what kind of file and where I dropped until now). Do you know still another way? As I said, I'm not that experienced yet... 

[Zubersoft]

I don't currently support drag & drop as the code was converted from Android where there is no concept for drag & drop, and I envisioned most people running the app on a tablet such as a surface pro 4 where it's not convenient to multi-task to drag & drop files from Windows explorer. I can certainly consider adding code so that if a file is dropped on the page it will create a smart button with the file's name set for the caption that triggers the file to be loaded when tapped. I can also look into supporting dragging & dropping files on the library screen to import them if the file type is supported.

Mike

[Waldbaer]

I understand, that‘s what I guessed when I found out it does not work currently. On a Surface though, I think drag and drop is very convenient as soon as I have configured split screen (ohne half MS, ohne half Explorer). I thought, Android does support splitscreen-Multitasking, too, doesn‘t it?

But probably you‘re right that not that many people are using this feature since it‘s a little hidden (I found it by accident, too). I like it, though, and I use it e.g. for colleages who have forgotten their (paper) sheets: two PDF-readers displaying different parts (sometimes even in the same file) side by side independently: A little small, but works and is much better than having these guys sitting around uselessly at a rehearsal.
That‘s another reason I asked for the „show folder Button“ in the other thread, by the way: It always takes precious time in these situations to open the explorer and navigate to the directory of the file that I‘m actually already working with.

[itsme]

I'm talking about file links in the PDF. They are supported not only by MSP but also by PDF XChange Viewer on Win10.
For an example see
https://zubersoft.com/mobilesheets/forum...p?tid=3161
I use Sciurius' PdfLink script to add them to the PDF:
https://github.com/sciurius/pdflink
The difference to MSP SmartButtons is that PDFLinks are stored in the PDF whereas MSP SmartButtons are stored in the MSP database.
PDFLink tool allows even applying links to all songs in a PDF fakebook by providing a list of files and PDF pages through a CSV file.

[Waldbaer]

This is at least an interesting way, too, thanks for posting it! 

[itsme]

For using Smart Buttons you might also take a look at
https://zubersoft.com/mobilesheets/forum...p?tid=4095

[Zubersoft]

I've added drag & drop support for creating smart buttons (when viewing a score) and to import files or folders on the library screen.

Mike

[Waldbaer]

Hi Mike,
finally I find the time to answer after testing the finally released new version. Your improvements in drag&drop support work seamlessly and logical as far as I see it, so thank you for implementing it!


Importing could become still considerably easier, I think, if you could add the d&d also to the "files" and "audio" tab. What do you think?

Some more explanation: I just hate navigating to the same folder more than one time and often I have one or more PDFs of one song, different audio files and other connected files for one song, all in the same folder or subfolders. That means navigating to the folder in Explorer (1) and drop one file for song creation in the library, go to the files section/tap "add files" and navigate (2) to add other notation files, change to audio/tap "add files" and navigate (3). Do this for multiple songs and go crazy. ;-)

BTW: I now think it's useful that dropping a file on the page just always creates a smart button, not depending on the kind of the file as I thought first. Could help to keep things organized (e.g. for my big bands add the my section mate's parts  as pages to have them at hand for me if he may not be at the rehearsal, but add other parts as smart button to open them seperately in another app and maybe have them split screen for other players).

[Zubersoft]

I've added drag & drop support to both the files list and audio list. Wasn't hard to do.

Thanks for the suggestion,
Mike

[Waldbaer]

Great, thanks again once more, I‘m lucky that it was not that complicated! One never really knows as a user which things are complicated... some things feel easy but turn out a hell of an effort. ;-)

[BRX]

Waldbaer, we have similar needs and uses for the smart buttons. I create smart buttons in my bigband sheets for invoking the scores as well as in other sheets for other “unknown“ files like ABC, IRealPro, mscz etc.

And I also have asked for simplifying the adding process (also for audio). 

Expanding on your thread here, Mike, how about something like a floating or docked file picker window within MSP which can be used the same to drag and drop files in different scenarios like adding audio in song or listview, adding smart buttons and maybe more?