[Fallman]

Good evening everyone.

I am a recent convert to MSheets from MusicReader.

In MusicReader, there was one folder (the library) into which I saved all the pdf's and new ones as I scanned additional pieces.  Anytime I opened MusicReader it recognised that there were new files in the folder and added them to the library.  Only one file for each piece of music existed in that folder.

When I add pdf's to the folder with Mobile Sheets, they don't seem to be automatically recognised.

Am I missing a step in adding pdf's to Mobile Sheets?

Sorry for the basic nature of the newbie question.

[Geoff Bacon]

From your post, I'm assuming that you have chosen the option to not "Let MSP Manage My Files" i.e. you are using your own folder structure

MSP doesn't automatically pick up any new files in the folder - you have to import them. This allows you to set up metadata for each file e.g. collection(s), setlists, tempo etc.

I suspect that most users let MSP manage the storage area. In this case, they would load a file (or files) into a folder and import from there. MSP will copy the files into it's storage area and, if the option is selected, remove them from the source folder (especially useful if importing from the downloads folder).
Using a dedicated folder to import from makes life easier in that one can specify the files as *.* (rather than having to pick them out of other files). Using the "Delete Original After Copy" option means that this "dedicated" folder is emptied ready for a subsequent import operation.
You also have choice whether MSP uses a single folder per song or just bungs them in a single folder (I started with one per folder but I changed over and most of my songs are now in a single folder).
I personally tend to use the Companion program on my Windows desktop to import files onto my Android tablet.

Other things you might like to consider is setting the Import to "Use Filename As Title" (rather than "Guess Filename From Title") and to "Automatically Crop Pages".
If you play in more than one group, I would advise you always put songs into a collection; you can subsequently change collections but it is much easier if the songs are in the correct collection at the start.

There are advantages in storing in your own folders e.g. you can just replace a file outside MSP but, although I read the manual, I couldn't understand how it worked!

You can import from a variety of sources e.g. local folders and/or different cloud based folder.
You might also get some mileage in synching the database to a cloud folder (although synching is really for maintaining libraries between 2 devices and I suspect that one would still need to do an import somewhere)

I don't have any experience in managing files outside the MSP storage area and synching so will leave it to others to advise you.

Geoff

[Zubersoft]

Fallman, 

MobileSheets doesn't currently automatically scan and import new files that are detected in the storage location because there is not a one-to-one correlation between files and songs in MobileSheets. A single song can have multiple PDFs in it, or you could have a song with 8 image files, for example. So if MobileSheets just scanned for files that aren't currently in the library and created new songs from them, that could potentially lead to scenarios where that is not desired, especially if users are managing their own files and folders and may have files they don't want in their library. Having said that, I may support an option like this in the future for users that change the storage location and want a one-to-one relationship between files and songs.

If you uncheck the option to let MobileSheets manage your files, then you can just perform a batch import of the same folder every time you add new files and if the "Avoid duplicate songs" option is checked, MobileSheets should ignore files that have already been imported. If you prefer to do this over importing individual files, then it may work for your needs. Alternatively, just tap Import->Local File and then select the new PDFs to import into the library.

Mike