10-31-2022, 12:58 PM (This post was last modified: 10-31-2022, 01:22 PM by Wendy Cutler.)
I have some old versions of songs around, which I would get rid of if it were easier to do right then when I notice them, but that's a different topic, see the corollary request.
When in setlist edit, if I'm looking at three songs with the same name on the list of all songs on the right, it would be a big help to at that point, stay in the edit dialog but be able to look at each of those songs to select the one I really want. My work around is to add all three to my setlist, then figure out later which is the one I want.
Corollary to this request
Very often, when I'm in the setlist that now has the three songs with the same or similar name, and I determine which is the one I want, often the others are old versions that I no longer want, so I remove them from the setlist, but they're still in the list of songs, to create this situation again. I have written this up separately, Option to delete songs when removing them from a setlist (zubersoft.com), so that comments here might only be about View songs while adding to a setlist.
You could create a collection called "Not Wanted" or "Discards"; put your old song versions in this collection
When creating set lists, set the filter to ignore this collection.
Alternatively, you could add all your songs to a "Current" collection (very quick to do) and move old duplicates to a discard collection. You then include the "Current" collection in a filter. When a song is superseded (but not overwritten), you move the old version from "Current" to "Discards". One disadvantage of this method is that you need to remember to specify "Current" each time you import a new song.
This means that your old setlists will remain valid ii.e. they show the order of songs and still work. However, should you resurrect the setlist, you need to remember to replace any songs with their updated versions.
You still need to work through the Songs tab looking for very similar sounded names to decide what goes in your Discards collection.
However, after you have done this big exercise once, you should only need to move superseded songs into the Discard collection when you import a new version
10-31-2022, 06:49 PM (This post was last modified: 10-31-2022, 06:52 PM by itsme.)
Maybe more convenient: set "discard" as a Source Type (instead of a Collection as proposed)
You can display the Source Type either in the song title or in the caption.
Library Settings > Song Title Formatting
To filter by Source Type use "Source" on the filter bar
Thank you @Goeff Bacon and @itsme for your replies.
"You could create a collection called "Not Wanted" or "Discards"; put your old song versions in this collection". I have around 3000 songs, which are each all already in a collection, and it's very helpful to be able to filter by the primary collection they're in when populating a setlist.
"You still need to work through the Songs tab ..." That is the bit that creates the problem. If I were to go to the Songs tab every time I uploaded a replacement version, I could just rename the previous version of the song with "old version". But I'm not there at the time, I'm in the setlist, maybe at a rehearsal, and it's not convenient to do that update right then, so I do it never. But if I could inspect songs right when adding them to a setlist, and edit the names, I could deal with the issue at the point that I discover it. After it's in the setlist, I suppose I could open the duplicates and remember to rename the old ones before removing them from the list. I think this is probably my workaround, to make sure that I rename one of the tunes that has a duplicate name with something that describes what is different about it.
"Maybe more convenient: set "discard" as a Source Type (instead of a Collection as proposed)" I'm not sure I understand this. I would have to set up a new Source Type (where would I do that?) and then remember to always exclude that source type when I'm populating my setlists. I would still like to be able to ID them as discards when I come upon the duplicates (during the setlist creation) rather than go through my 3000 songs looking for the duplicates.
What itsme is saying is that one includes "Sources" in the library entry display
Choose Settings| Library Settings| Song Title Formatting (about 6 items down)
Position to the end of "Title Format or Caption (your choice) , type in any separator characters (if you want) and tap the Sources button (2nd down far right)
After creating your set list, look at any duplicates to see which ones are "old versions"
Edit one of these songs and type "Old Version" into it's Sources field.
Exit and look at the library display
For any other songs, just hit the down arrow on the sources field and select the required value.
You could extend this by including other info e.g. trombone
When creating further setlists, you can now choose the correct version based on what is displayed.
This also means that you don't have to work through 3000 songs to decide what is required - you can just consider any duplicates as you create new set lists (which you would need to do anyway).
Note: Choose your Source Types carefully; I had to do a forum search to work out how to remove an unwanted source type.
