[Oz Cello]

Hi Mike. I'm still using the Onyx Boox Max 3 tablets which are Android, plus I have the trial version of the app on a Win10 laptop, a Chromebook and an Android phone. The combo of MSP and the 4 Onyx tablets has been great for our quartet.

Thanks for the 'system file browser' advice, I hadn't thought of that. Just tried it on the Chromebook and it worked (gave me access to the 'computers' tab of Google drive which was accessing a backup from a different computer). I'll try it on the Onyx tablets tomorrow and let you know if it doesn't work but I imagine it will.

Much appreciated. Guy

[Oz Cello]

Using the system file browser does work on the Max 3 but it's not straightforward. At first it showed a list of options one of which was 'drive' (with the google drive logo) so I chose that but it just showed the 'my drive' drive. When I went back to the initial list of options there were now 2 options called 'drive'. When I chose the second one it again showed the 'my drive' drive but then when I pressed the back arrow it gave me another, different list of options, one of which was 'computers'. Once I got there it was all good - the backups were accessible. So, doable with a bit of mucking around.

Oddly, when I first tried getting to the 'computers' tab through the drive app it just showed as empty. I tried restarting the app etc a few times but it still showed empty. Then I switched off optimisation for the drive app and tried again and it showed my backups. No idea whether the optimisation was changing anything or whether it just took that long for the backups to start to show up, but I don't think the drive app usually takes that kind of time to update.

Anyway, all just FYI. Cheers, Guy

[Oz Cello]

Hi Mike,
Recently I've been using the 'sync to cloud folder' function to keep the libraries on the different tablets in sync with each other and I thought it had been working but now I'm not so sure. The other day I updated the title of some pieces on one tablet, then synced the cloud folder to that tablet, then synced the other tablets to the cloud folder. When I tried to use the follower/leader function to play those pieces it wouldn't bring them up on the other tablets and it turned out that that was because the titles hadn't updated when I synced the other tablets to the cloud folder. I checked the settings in the sync dialogue and realised that I hadn't selected 'check for updated files in cloud folder' so I tried it with that selected and it took a lot longer and still didn't update the titles. In the end I went back to using 'sync to device' and that did update the titles and bringing them up on the other tablets using leader/follower now works. Should the 'sync to cloud folder' function update the titles?

When I went back to using 'sync to device' I noticed that there are still a couple of glitches there. You updated the dialogue so that the device which is being used as the server shows the device name of the device it's connected to, or at least I thought that was what you were planning to do. What it actually shows is the device name of the device itself (the server device). It would be more useful if the dialogue on the server showed the device name of the client device so that you know which device you're updating.

Also I was doing the sync to device using bluetooth and that occasionally fails. When it does fail, the server device just continues to show 0% in the progress bar but the client device says that the sync has been successful even though it hasn't. Would it be possible to have the client device say that the sync has failed in that situation, and if possible have the server device say it too?

Earlier in this thread I mentioned that when the page alignment is set to centre and the piece doesn't fill the screen to the top and bottom it would position the page in the centre to start with but then when I turned the page it would send the page to the top of the screen first and then require an extra touch to move to the next page. You fixed that but now when there is a piece where the page doesn't extend to the top and bottom of the screen, if the piece is the last piece in a setlist then it aligns it to the top of the page from the outset, even with alignment set to centre. No biggie but thought I'd mention it.

Also touching the right side of the screen with the overlay on will still sometimes advance the piece by half a page rather than a full page if vertical scrolling is on.

Just thinking about my first point at the top of this post and realising that the titles might not have updated in the cloud folder when I did the first sync. Presumably it shouldn't be necessary to select 'check for updates files in cloud folders' when syncing the cloud folder to the device though - the titles on the device would automatically update the titles in the cloud folders wouldn't they?

Just one other thing. When I'm syncing the libraries it would be great if the sync dialogues said which library I was in so that I can be sure that I'm not syncing the wrong libraries together. I imagine that will be irrelevant when the versioning update happens and it may not be a feature that many people use but if it's an easy fix then I would appreciate it.

Guy

[Zubersoft]

Yes, sync to cloud folder should pull over the changes so long as you've selected the correct settings. I would recommend setting the sync type to "Update Device" and the merge behavior should be "Always use data from folder". That should pull over any changes so long as the changes were pushed to the folder. If they were not, you need to push the changes from the other device with sync type set to "Update Folder" and merge behavior set to "Always use data from device". That is a fool proof way to ensure changes are always synchronized.

The name that is shown when using "Sync to Device" is the manufacturer and build of the device (at least when picking which server to connect to). If you are saying the server device is incorrectly showing the name of the client, i can look into that. Bluetooth is a different beast with this as the name that is reported can also be based on the name you've selected in the bluetooth settings of the device. I would never recommend using bluetooth for library synchronization though - it's far too slow and unreliable for large file transfers. As far as displaying error states on both devices - that entirely depends on whether they are aware there is an error. They don't have complete status over what the other is doing. The server device is the one doing 99% of the work, and just pushing data to the client and requesting data when needed. So it's the one that should always be displaying the most recent status. The client is not aware of what is going on with the server except for at a few points in the processing. While I could add a lot of unnecessary processing to have the client also report the same status as the server, that seems unnecessary to me and I think the effort would be better spent elsewhere. As far what you saw, the client finished it's processing and so it believe the sync was successful. I'm not sure how you got to the point that the server reported failure but the client reported success, as the client should only finish once the server has given it a message indicating everything is finished.

I can look into the issue with the page not centering when time allows. Thanks for letting me know.

The logic to determine whether a full page should be used or a half page is based on whether the page extends more than the tablet height. This seems to work reliably for me, so it's not working for you, we will need to coordinate and I'll need you to send me some sample files that aren't working for you so I can try to reproduce what you are seeing. I'll also need to know exactly what settings to use to ensure everything is rendered in the same fashion (is the title bar always displayed, what page scaling is used, what display mode settings have been changed, etc).

It is not necessary to to enable the option to "Check for updated files in the cloud folder". It's actually not recommended to check that unless you are manually replacing files in the sync folder and you want MobileSheetsPro to process those new files correctly.

I can certainly add a little label somewhere on the sync screen indicating what the current/active library is if that will be of use to you.

Mike

[Oz Cello]

Those were the settings I was using to sync to the cloud folder (update device/always use data from folder, update folder/always use data from device, check for updated files in the cloud folder not selected) but I've just gone back and tried it again (changed a title, synced to cloud folder, synced a different tablet from the cloud folder) and this time it worked fine. Not sure what happened last time but all seems to be good now so I'll probably go back to syncing over wifi via a cloud folder and I'll keep an eye out for titles not updating (although I don't often have cause to change titles).

When I sync to device over bluetooth the 'device sync activity' dialogue has a field that shows the connected device. On the client you have to choose which device to connect to and that correctly shows the device name (i.e. the individual one I've allocated through the bluetooth settings) of the server device. Once the connection is made there is a field on the server device which also says that it is showing the connected device but the name that shows there is the allocated device name of the server itself. For example I have a Max 3 that I've named 'cello' and one called 'viola'. If I'm syncing them over bluetooth with cello as the server and viola as the client then on the viola device it will give the connected device name as 'cello' as it should, but on the cello device it will then show the name of the connected device as 'cello' where it should say 'viola'.

Because I have four tablets and each one has four libraries I have to do 12 syncs to keep the other 3 tablets up to date. When I do those syncs via bluetooth there are usually 3 or 4 that fail and have to be repeated. When they fail what happens is that the server device continues to show 0% in the progress bar - there is nothing to show that it has failed and nothing saying that it's succeeded - it just looks like it's waiting. On the client device it says 'library synchronisation completed succesfully' but if it says that and the server still says 0% then when I check the client device it hasn't synced. It would be good if the client device showed that the sync hasn't happened in that situation rather than reporting that it has. Definitely a low priority compared to the iOS release and versioning update though as you say. Unlikely to be an issue for me as I'm going back to syncing to a cloud folder over wifi but might be worth looking at when you have the time.

With the half-page/whole-page thing I just want to make it clear that I was talking about the amount that the page advances rather than how much of the page is shown. I wasn't sure whether you maybe thought I was talking about the latter. I usually leave the tablets in vertical scrolling mode (with the scale mode on fit screen) so that if I need to have the bottom of one page and the top of the next in view then I can drag it with my finger but for the rest of the time it just operates more or less as if it were in single page mode - if I touch the right side of the screen or hit the forward pedal then it moves the top of the next page to the top of the screen which is great. What I was commenting on was that while touching the right side of the screen reliably brings the next page to the top of the screen if the overlay is off, it doesn't always behave that way if the overlay is on - most of the time touching the right side of the screen will still bring the top of the next page to the top of the screen but if there's a piece that's 3 pages or more it will only advance the page by half a page rather than bringing the top of the next page to the top of the screen, and if there's a single-page piece that's too short to reach the top and bottom of the screen then touching the right side of the screen (still with the overlay on) will just move that page so that the top of the page is at the top of the screen rather than advancing to the next page. This isn't creating any issues for me because I only use the overlay for editing or changing settings and it really is a very minor thing but it seems like a glitch so I thought I'd mention it. Let me know if you need any info about settings. [Edit: I was just mucking around with it and found that if I load a setlist of single-page pieces and then bring up the overlay then touching the right side of the page makes the pages advance random amounts. At one point this carried over to when I got rid of the overlay but after flicking through a few pieces it righted itself and I have no idea how to make it happen again.]

If it's easy for you to add in then a label on the sync screen showing the active library would be great.

[Zubersoft]

I've written those up in my bug tracking system. As far as the pages not turning the full amount with the overlay up in the vertical scrolling display mode, I'm guessing that with your files, if you bring up the overlay, you can't see 100% of the page right? Is the overlay covering part of the current page, meaning the page extends either all the way to the bottom of the screen or beyond it? That's what is causing MobileSheets to switch from a full page turn to a partial page turn. It errs on the side of not turning too much as you could potentially miss part of a page if it was under the overlay and you turned the page. This logic is generic in nature - it handles the same way whether a small amount of the page is below the bottom of the screen, or a great deal of the page is below the screen (like when using the vertical scrolling display mode in landscape with page scaling set to "Fit Width"). So it's not a bug - just a result of the way that logic works. Whether it is ideal in this scenario is a different matter. I could argue it either way. On my tablet, the page doesn't fill the screen, so even with the overlay up, if I tap to turn the page, it will still turn a full page. It's only when part of the page will be obscured that it switches the behavior. I can always consider adding a setting for this to say something like, "Always turn a full page" or something along those lines if this is important to you.

Thanks,
Mike

[Oz Cello]

Thanks for explaining the page turn algorithm. You're right that the partial page turns happen when the overlay hides part of the page - totally makes sense as a way of ensuring that you don't miss some of the music. I don't think I would use an 'always turn a full page' setting - I use 'fit screen' as the default scaling mode which means that as long as the overlay is hidden a full page is always shown.

That does make me wonder why the overlay works the way it does though. It takes up space at the top and bottom of the screen. The page scaling takes account of the space at the top - the top of the page starts at the bottom of the upper overlay rather than being hidden by it. It doesn't take account of the lower part of the overlay though which does end up hiding some of the page. Might it make more sense if when the overlay is shown the display area of the screen becomes the space in between the overlays rather than the space between the bottom of the upper overlay and the bottom of the screen or is that not possible? It would be nice if 'fit screen' scaling could work with the overlay shown as well as when it's hidden.

Also, if the goal is to avoid a situation where music doesn't get shown then it doesn't totally work. With a single page piece that fills to the top and bottom of the screen in 'fit screen' scaling mode with the overlay hidden, when I turn on the overlay it hides some of the bottom of the page and then when I touch the right side of the screen it advances the page a little but not enough to see music right at the bottom of the page, then when I touch the right side of the screen again it moves to the next page - the bit of music at the bottom of the page is never seen. If 'fit screen' scaling fit the page to the area between the two overlay areas then that problem would be avoided.

Thanks for adding the other issues to your bug tracking.

One other thing I wanted to mention was the 'pause setlist for piece' feature. I have one of the touch areas set up to return to library. If I pause the setlist for a piece and then touch the area to return to the library it goes back to the point in the setlist that I left off from (rather than going back to the library). I'm not sure if it's meant to work that way and I don't think it's mentioned in the manual but it's very useful for me because it means I can return to the setlist from the screen without having to bring up the overlay. If that is a bug then please keep it. Ideally I'd like to be able to return to the setlist using a pedal action - is there a way of doing that? It doesn't seem to work with the pedal actions I have set up at the moment. Also, is there any way of changing the filters that are available in the pause setlist dialogue? At the moment I can filter by collection, source, and key (as well as search field and alphabet list) but I don't use the source or key fields at all so it would be more useful to me to have other options there such as album, artist, or composer to filter from.

I'm looking forward to the active library label on the sync screen - it'll save me from accidentally overwriting the parts for one instrument with the parts for another.

Thanks, Guy

[Zubersoft]

The reason the overlay works that way with the vertical scrolling display mode is so that the pages aren't scaled down while the overlay is up. The way it stands now, the page is just shifted down, but it doesn't shrink down as a result of the available area decreasing. I thought this acted and behaved better. If you switch to the single page display mode, you can see how it looks if you bring up the song overlay where the page is scaled down to fit. If you think you would still prefer this for the scrolling display mode, let me know, but I think it's nice when the page size doesn't change as a result of bringing up the overlay in the vertical scrolling display mode. You can also just scroll the page up or down in that mode, whereas you can't really do that with the single page display mode in portriat orientation. In general, I don't recommend users leave the song overlay up while trying to advance through the sheet music. Usually the song overlay is just left up temporarily and then closed when no longer needed. If you need access to the title bar at the top or the page slider when the overlay is hidden, you can change that in the settings. Set the page slider visibility to always and enable the setting to always show the title bar.

Yes, the pause setlist for piece feature is meant to work that way. It temporarily loads another piece, and when you hit the back button (or trigger the return to library action), it returns to viewing the setlist where you left off. There is a return to library pedal action, so you could trigger that to return to the setlist. I can look into adding more filters in the future. When I rework the filters UI on the main library screen, I can consider modifying the dialogs to provide more customization for the filter fields. Perhaps I can create a unified/shared UI so that any dialog that supports filtering would have the same layout/customizations for the filters. 

Mike

[Oz Cello]

Hey, thanks again for taking the time to explain that. It hadn't occurred to me that the overlay behaviour would be different in different display modes. You're right, it works well as it is, and is only relevant when the overlay is up which should be rare. (I have vertical scrolling as default but only so that I can drag the very small number of pieces where that's useful - for the vast majority I just turn whole pages. I really should go back to single page as default and just set vertical scrolling for the pieces where it's useful.)

The pedal I have only has two switches which I have set to previous page and next page and it wouldn't be worth losing one of those just to be able to return from a 'pause setlist' piece with the pedal. If it were possible to return to the setlist by triggering the previous page action from the first page of the 'pause setlist' piece or the next page action from the last page of the 'pause setlist' piece then that would be useful but I don't imagine that's an easy change to make and I'm very happy to be able to get back to the departure point in the setlist just by triggering the return to library from the screen.

Customisation of the filter fields would be great. Not sure how you'd combine the UI for customising the main library filters and the 'pause setlist' filters given that you can fit more filters on the main library but I do think it would be useful to be able to control both. It sounds like you're considering an overhaul of the filters UI so I imagine that could take customisability into account.

[Oz Cello]

It seems like filtering doesn't really work in combination with sharing setlists over follower/leader. If I load a setlist on the leader tablet and apply a filter to it then when I go from one piece to another piece from the filtered list on the leader, the follower tablet will sometimes load a different piece instead, one that has been filtered out. I'm guessing that what's happening is that the leader tablet is skipping over the filtered-out pieces when I load the next piece but the follower tablet isn't skipping it because it doesn't have the filter applied. I imagine it would work fine if the same filter was applied on both tablets but it would be great if the pieces could load correctly on the follower tablet without the filter being applied on that device.

Would it be possible for you to add a field to the device sync activity dialogue to show which library is current? I have a feeling I asked about that before and you said that it would be an easy change to make. If that's the case then I would love to see it. Until the versioning update arrives I'm regularly updating 4 or 5 different libraries on each of 4 tablets. I do them all in a row and the chances of syncing the wrong cloud folder to the library are quite high. The dialogue shows which cloud folder is being synced to. If it also said which library was current then I'd be able to verify that I wasn't about to overwrite the whole library with the wrong parts. If it's not an easy change then don't worry about it - the versioning update should make all that redundant.

Guy

[Zubersoft]

Did you try enabling the option to "Create temporary setlist on follower devices"? That should create an identical setlist on every device based on what is loaded on the leader device. I believe if you do that, it should account for the filters.

As far as showing which library is active, I'll certainly add that the next time I have to make any changes to the sync screen. I'm currently trying to finish up the iOS version before making any non-critical changes (meaning anything that isn't a bug fix). I'm in the final stretch on the iOS development, so I should be able to get back to making enhancements like this soon.

Mike

[Oz Cello]

I have 'create temporary setlist on follower devices' enabled. I tried again without that setting enabled and it didn't seem to make any difference.

If I load a setlist on a tablet that's not connected to another tablet and then filter the setlist (for example I apply a filter that removes piece #2 but leaves pieces 1 and 3) and open the first piece from the setlist (piece #1) then when I get to the end of that piece and go forward a page to go to the next piece the piece that opens is piece #2 from the setlist, even though it doesn't appear in the filtered list. Is it meant to skip the filtered-out piece and go to the next piece in the list that hasn't been filtered out? That's what I would've expected.

Now if I connect the tablet to a follower tablet ('create temporary list' enabled) and go through the same process - load a setlist on the leader, filter out piece #2, load piece #1, get to the end of the piece and go forward a page to the next piece - both tablets will go to piece #2 even though it doesn't appear in the filtered setlist. If I then go back to the setlist library and select piece #3 from the filtered list then the leader tablet will go to piece #3 but the follower will go to piece #2. In that situation I would expect the follower tablet to also show piece #3. If I then go on to piece #4 on the leader then the follower tablet will also show piece #4.

As long as I have the same setlist on the follower tablet then the same thing thing happens if I create the group without 'create temporary setlist' enabled. If I filter out piece #2 on the leader tablet and then open piece #3 from the setlist library then the follower tablet will open piece #2 instead.

No worries about the sync screen active library flag - it can certainly wait. All the best with the iOS version. Can't wait till that's all sorted and you can get the versioning feature up.

[Zubersoft]

That sounds like a bug then - I'll look into this to see if something needs to be adjusted. 

Thanks,
Mike

[Oz Cello]

Hey, just following up this post because the same behaviour still seems to be there. If I filter a setlist then the library shows what I'd expect (pieces that are in the setlist AND match the filter) but when I try and load from one piece to the next it loads pieces that don't match the filter. Not a big deal because I just avoid doing that but I came across it again today so thought I'd mention it. It doesn't seem to be a problem with other group types. When I filter an album group or collection group the pieces load as I'd expect them to - only pieces that are in the album/collection that also match the filter will be loaded. The other behaviour I mentioned in the previous post is also still there - the follower tablet will sometimes load a different piece from the setlist when the setlist has been filtered on the leader tablet.

Also, just trying to get my head around a couple of the features so had a couple of questions. The difference between setlists and other groups is that when you load a piece from a setlist you have the option of loading all the pieces in the setlist for the purpose of speeding up loading when you're moving through the setlist. Is that right? I guess that might be why the first behaviour above happens - when I choose a piece from a setlist it automatically loads all the pieces in the setlist (because I have that setting enabled) rather than only loading the filtered ones.

It seems like setlists are handled a bit differently in the leader/follower function too but I'm not sure how that works. When I load a piece from a group on the leader tablet and then move through the pieces in the group it all seems to work as I'd expect - it moves through the pieces in whatever order they're in in the group, and the same piece loads in the follower tablets. I've tried that in a few different types of groups and it seems to work in all of them. The only difference I've come across is that if the group type is a setlist then it only works if 'create temporary setlist' is enabled in the connection settings. If that isn't enabled then when I load a piece on the leader tablet from a setlist nothing loads on the follower tablet. A message comes up on the follower tablet saying that the setlist doesn't exist even though the setlist does exist on the follower. I guess the benefit of creating a temporary setlist on the follower is that all the pieces in the setlist are then loaded on the follower at once (assuming that setting is enabled on the follower) - is that right? But then shouldn't setlists work the way other groups do in the leader/follower connection even without creating a temporary setlist on the follower? The setlist on the follower tablets have the same pieces as the setlist on the leader but they have a different custom attribute (the instrument being played) and they use the same pdf files but use different pages - would that be why the follower says that the setlist isn't found?

What other differences are there? I guess setlists can show up on the recent tab whereas other group types don't. As I mentioned in another post I was expecting that if I went to a setlist from the recent tab I would then be able to back out of the piece to the library view of that setlist (so that I could choose a different piece from the setlist or shuffle them etc) but it goes back to the recent tab. Is that intended? I'd expect to be able to do that on a follower tablet with a temporary setlist loaded too - i.e. exit to the library page for the setlist. It would be nice if that were possible.

Also some groups are available as tabs but not all and some are shown with the library filters but others are in the filters menu. Are there other differences that are worth knowing about?

The reason I ask is that I'm thinking I ought to rework the way I use the groups and I just wanted to get a better understanding of the difference between the types of groups.

One of the options in the new leader dialogue is to enable the loading of pieces and setlists in the follower. Disabling that seems to result in nothing loading on the follower. Is there a situation where you'd want that disabled?

[Zubersoft]

Filtering a setlist does not change which songs are loaded. With other group types like collections, when you load it, it's generating a temporary setlist based on the list of songs on the library screen. With a setlist, the setlist itself is being loaded, not the filtered list of songs shown. It will break too many things in the architecture to only load a subset of the songs in the setlist but then allow other features like editing the setlist (which you can do from the setlist window in the song overlay). I could not load the setlist when the list is filtered and create a temporary setlist that you can't edit and have it act like the other tabs, but I think that would be confusing to the user in many regards. I would need to hear feedback on this before making a decision on the correct behavior.

I think if you want to work with filtered lists, the setlist tab may not the right way to go about that. Setlists are meant for organized lists that are played in sequence, and you would edit that list if there are pieces you don't want to have included. That's just my opinion at least, and unless I can hear a large amount of feedback from a variety of users, I'm going to avoid changing this behavior. Alternatively, just go to Settings->Library Settings and turn off "Always Load Whole Setlist". Now individual songs will be loaded, and if you enable "Automatically Load Next Song", then it will behave exactly as you are desiring - it will load one song at a time, and if you turn to the next song, it will show the next song from the library screen, which respects the filtered list.

As far as the issue you saw - MobileSheets will match setlists based on name. If MobileSheets says it can't find a matching setlist on the follower device, I'm assuming that's because the names must be different in some way. I just tested loading a setlist on one tablet called "Test" and the same setlist was loaded on the other tablet. Both setlists used completely different songs in this test, so that is allowed. MobileSheets really matches on just the name.

If you go from the library screen to the song display and then back, it's always going to return to whichever tab was last visible. If you select something on the recent tab, it's going to go back to the recent tab. I think it would be unexpected behavior to have it switch to the setlist tab if a setlist was loaded. If users wanted that behavior, it could be optional, but that's not going to be the default behavior. 

You can enable any tabs you want under Settings->Library Settings->Tab Selection and Order. All group types are the same except for Setlists. Setlists are managed in the database differently and can't be used for filtering. They can be shared, whereas other group types can't currently be shared as .msf. You can add setlist notes when loading a setlist whereas you can't do that with other group types. Setlists default to manual sorting whereas other group types default to alphabetic sorting. There are library options to create setlists from selections or add songs to an existing setlist. There are the same options for collections but not for other group types. I plan to address this at some point so the options are consistent between all group types. 

As far as your last question - if page turns need to be synchronized, but each musician has to load a different version of a file and they are not utilizing other means to sync up songs across devices, then that would be the only case I can think of where you'd want to disable that setting.

Mike