[mike146]

I'm new to MobileSheets and I want to have automatic page scrolling but I do not want to use a foot pedal.  I'm trying to set up each song to scroll in slow motion with the scroll speed set by the metronome to keep the current stave ideally in the centre of the screen.  I am using a tablet in the landscape position and have copied landscape pdf's into MobileSheets to match.  Using the landscape orientation should double the font size and hence be more readable but it will provide half the number of staves on a page and hence the margin for error has been reduced.  Therefore I have tried to link the scroll speed to the metronome on a page by page basis.  
The documentation seems to suggest it should be possible but I have not been successful.  I can get it to jump to the next page using the metronome on a page by page basis but this is not what I want to achieve. This jumps to the next page when you get to the end of a page but if the timing is set by someone else who is not driven by the metronome, eg the drummer, then it will lead to the page being turned at the wrong time. 
Please can anyone advise if there is a simple solution to this.  It's most likely to be finger trouble on my behalf or it may need programme changes.  

The relevant bits of my setup are as follows: 

Automatic Scrolling Settings:  Scroll Behaviour = Continuously to end;  Speed = Use metronome
Metronome Playback Settings:  Autostart = on; Auto Turn Pages = on; # of beats on current page = set up to match the song page
Metronome:  Tempo = set up to match the song; Playback mode = Visual only
Select Display Mode:  Tablet Orientation = Landscape;  Display Mode = Vertical scrolling
Display Settings:  Disable Display Turn Animation = off; Display Half Turn in Landscape = off;  Half Page Turns in Landscape Mode = off

[Zubersoft]

I would highly suggest you use the vertical scrolling display mode and set the page scaling mode to fit width. This should get you what you need as far as enlarging the page but having a smooth scroll without horizontal page turns. You cannot link the scroll speed to the metronome on a page-by-page basis unfortunately. The scroll speed is set up when the scroll initiately occurs, and it will not be recalculated for each page. 

To switch to the vertical scrolling display mode, load your song, tap the center of the screen, tap the display mode icon at the bottom to the left of the page scaling icon with blue arrows and then change the default display mode to vertical scrolling. Then tap the page scaling icon and change the default page scaling to fit width. You will want to do this in whichever orientation you are going to be viewing the songs, as you can actually set different display mode and page scaling settings per orientation. Give this a try and let me know if it fixes the issues you are currently having. I know you listed that you are using vertical scrolling, but it sounds to me like you are using the single page display mode in landscape orientation, and just happen to be scrolling vertically because the page is larger than the screen. Let me know if that is not the case.

Mike

[mike146]

I am very impressed by the level and speed of response you provide, well done and thank you.
Unfortunately I am still having problems and seem to have gone backwards in what I'm achieving.  It would help me get back onto the right course if you could give me a few case examples.  This might be helpful for other people who are also struggling and maybe in the longer term typical examples of scrolling could be shown on youtube. 

If it is not too much trouble please could you outline the key setup parameters and their typical settings for the following scenarios.  For simplicity please assume the pages are whole pages in portrait mode.

Case 1:  Automatic scrolling which turns to the next page after the delay period which is derived from the metronome field "# of beats on current page"  
Case 2:  Manual scrolling which turns the page forwards or backwards when instructed by a foot pedal
Case 3:  Automatic slow scrolling which aims to keep the current line in the centre of the score.  In this case please advise how most people resolve the problem of getting out of sync with the actual music timing.

I am assuming the key setup parameters are contained within the following screens which I know how to navigate too - Automatic scrolling settings, Metronome Playback Settings, Metronome, Select Display Mode, Display Settings and Touch & Pedal Settings.

[Zubersoft]

The scrolling feature doesn't currently handle multiple different tempos in a single song very well. While you could achieve this using the metronome tempo, you'd have to start scrolling, stop scrolling, change to the next metronome tempo by triggering a touch action, then start the automatic scrolling again. You'd have to set the time before scrolling starts to 0 to achieve this without interruption. I can't imagine that would work well in a performance though. Some users have asked for the ability to dynamically adjust scroll speed on the fly, so that's something I will have to see if I can support in the future. Unfortunately, due to the fact that you can't really assign metronome tempo changes to different pages, I don't think this is the best way to handle this problem. Other users have asked for the ability to have more configurable scroll actions, so that you could indicate how long to scroll to a particular position, then how to wait, how long it should take to scroll to the next position, etc. In theory, you could then use this to indicate that you want to scroll to a certain point using a certain amount of time or scroll speed, then have it scroll again using a different amount of time or speed. I'm open to ideas for the future, but it's going to take a while before I can work on these kinds of changes.

I don't think you are really going to be able to keep the current line in the center of the score if you want to utilize automatic scrolling with variable scroll speeds/tempos. Instead, I would reccomend pursing scrolling a percentage of the page, and you can trigger that scroll with a pedal. So you could scroll 40% of the page, for example, then play until you are ready to scroll again, press the pedal for it to quickly scroll the page up 40%, then you play another section. If you use a smaller amount like 20-25%, you could focus on the center of the page, read about 20-25% of the page, then press the pedal to scroll again, and your eyes would just move back to the center of the page for the next part.

Mike

[Geoff Bacon]

Most of my songs are single page pdfs but some continue onto a second page.
I don't have a pedal to turn pages.

This is how I scroll:-

1. On the Select Display Mode (4th bottom left icon), I have Portrait, Single Page, unchecked, Vertical Scrolling, Unchecked, Unchecked, None, Top
   
2. On the Scroll Settings (bottom leftmost icon, I have "Scroll Continuously To End", 8, Slowest (or Medium), Greyed, Greyed, 80 to 120, Unchecked, Unchecked (I don't use the "Set as Default" button)
   
3. I typically crop the first page short so that a black line is visible between the two pages (this helps to remind me to scroll).
   
4. In Settings| Touch and Pedal Settings| Touch Actions, I assign "Start or Stop Scrolling" to one of the areas (I now use Top Center but ISTR that the default is Bottom Center)
   

Just before starting the song (or shortly after), tap the touch area to trigger the scrolling.

After many seconds (usually between 80 and 120), the page scrolls smoothly to the end of the file.

Issues

1. When the touch area is pressed, an "Automatic Scrolling" message appears but quickly fades away. As there is a long delay before any scrolling occurs, it is hard to remember whether or not you did in fact start it.
   Ideally, MSP would keep a little icon displayed to show it was active.
   If one has forgotten to start the scrolling, one can tap or swipe the song to get to the next page.
   
2. Time consuming to set up each song: it is trial and error to determine how long to delay before scrolling - say about 10 mins (4+ tests, each about 2 minutes)
   It would be nice if MSP allowed one to "capture the moment" by pressing a button or similar.
   

This works for my songs as they are simply pdfs with chords and lyrics and have a maximum of 2 pages.

If you want more control then I suspect you need one or more pedals which can control moving through the file e.g. page left/right, start/stop scrolling, jump to link point etc

I hope this helps

Geoff

[mike146]

Thanks to both of you for your responses and ideas, they have been very helpful.  I think Geoff's approach to scrolling most closely resembles what I have been trying to do.  However my circumstances are slightly different in that my music tends to use a 3 stave system (vocals plus keyboard treble & bass) and in consequence it is typical for a score to be anywhere from 3 to 10 pages long which is a lot of page turns.  

I generally use Musescore to create the score and that allows me to rearrange repeats and jumps in favour of a simple linear score.  It can compress the score into a reduced number of pages, albeit with smaller font.  It allows me to export the score as a pdf in portrait or landscape format.  
My feet are already very busy with an octave worth of bass pedals, a sustain pedal and an effects pedal - so I don't want any more pedals to turn pages if I can help it.  

Geoff's setup is very close to giving me what I need - except for the timing.  It seems the gap between what MSP provides and what I think is needed is very small.  Basically the initial delay needed before scrolling starts is already provided in MSP but in addition MSP would require a calculation of the required scroll speed for each page in the song "the current page".  This can be derived from information already available in the MSP metronome (# of beats on current page, Tempo and Beat Subdivision).

I don't know how difficult it would be to change MSP to include this capability but I know there would be the following considerations for the user.  The score would need to be linearised to remove repeats and jumps - but many users have already encountered and resolved this.  Tempo changes or Time signature changes could not be accommodated in the middle of a song - but this only affects a small percentage of songs.  

Do you think this would be a useful and feasible addition to MSP and how could it be moved forwards.

Thanks for your interest and help

Mike

[Zubersoft]

Wouldn't I need to support specifying the metronome tempo for each individual page in order for that to work well? What about situations where the tempo changes half-way through a page? Considering how much work would be involved in making this work, it would need to be a solution that covers everything otherwise I'm just going to get additional requests for changes later. I did discuss that the level of effort is not small in your original post here: https://zubersoft.com/mobilesheets/forum...p?tid=7811

I do think what you are asking for would be a great change, but I also want to make sure it's flexible enough to account for all the potential scenarios. Right now, the only way to handle a tempo change partway through a page if the scrolling is tied to the tempo would be to duplicate the page using the page order feature and only specify the number of beats on each page for the part that starts at the different tempo.

Mike

[Geoff Bacon]

@mike146.

As you are playing linearly through the song, you could possibly just set an initial, shorter, delay and set the slowest scroll speed that you can find.
I seem to remember that when I tried this many months ago, I couldn't set one slow enough to handle chords and lyrics but you might have better luck if you are using sheet music (more page space used cf lyrics)

I guess you need to experiment as a full solution seems a long while away.

Geoff
Ps you might be able to get a hand page turner (presumably in the past, you would have turned paper pages)

[mike146]

Again thanks for your comments.  
I think there is a simple solution to the problem of changes in the tempo or beat subdivision fields that could occur anywhere in a page.  The solution is to avoid the problem by mandating that it is the score that is modified rather than MSP and that tempo or beat subdivision changes are preceded by a page break and hence apply to the whole of that page.  If the user has got the tools necessary to create simple linear scores, eg Musescore, then the same tools will readily create new page breaks. 

Yes I agree that MSP would need to be able to accommodate tempo and beat subdivision fields on a page by page basis in addition to the existing field "# of beats per page" and this is an extra modification.
Another very useful change that could be made would be to automatically calculate the field "Time before scrolling starts" as 50% of page 1 scroll time.  This would ensure that in a performance you would get to the middle of page 1 before scrolling started and the current line would remain in the centre of the screen throughout the remainder of the score.  It would make it very easy for the user to setup and in most situations all they would need to do would be to count the number of bars on each page (an easy task because bar numbers are usually shown on the scores) and multiply by the beat subdivision (usually set to 4).

I am very encouraged that you think it would be a great change.  I believe this functionality would be very popular and would reinforce MSP's reputation as a product leader.  It would certainly give me what I'm looking for.

[itsme]

I doubt that many MSP users will need such a mechanism. IMHO it needs too much effort for every song to set it up to get satisfying results.

[BRX]

Yeah, it's a lot of manual work.

But as a quick thought I had for a while. How about a "recording system" for the scroll speed and/or turning pages.

You need an audio or some reference for it. But it would/could be user friendly if you listen to your piece/song with the start of time/metronome and just record/tap when you are at the point MSP should turn the page, record that and MSP can adjust the turning or scrolling from that automatically?

[mike146]

Yes, I think that would work nicely.  I like the idea.  Fingers crossed that it would be simpler to implement but it would certainly be easier for the user to set up.  I'm just trying to think if it would accommodate changes in the score of tempo or beat subdivision and I guess the answer is yes as everything is time referenced.  You would just leave the MSP metronome tempo unchanged.