MobileSheets is one of the first android based sheet music reader applications available on the market. It allows you to carry all of your scores with you wherever you go. It also enhances the experience by providing features that all musicians can appreciate – annotations, a built-in metronome, association and playback of multiple audio tracks per song, the ability to jump between pages with a single tap or swipe, bookmarks, link points to deal with repeats, and hands free playback with Bluetooth pedals. The best part is being able to quickly find the songs you want in seconds, without having to sort through sheet music books or binders. With all these features and choices though, comes a small amount of complexity. This guide will help you understand all of the various features and explain how to take full advantage of everything MobileSheets has to offer.

Getting Started

If this is your first time loading up MobileSheets, your library will be empty and a help window will be displayed describing the actions you can take from the library screen. Once that window is closed, a prompt will be displayed asking if you want to set your external SD card path. If your tablet has a slot for an extra micro SD card (and you’ve put a card in it that you want to use for MobileSheets), now is the time to indicate to MobileSheets where that card is located. Every tablet treats external SD cards differently, so you need to point to the exact path of the micro SD card. For more information on this, see the section on storage.

The next step is to create a song on your tablet. MobileSheets is designed around songs, where each song has metadata (artist, album, title, etc.), optional audio tracks, and either image files or a PDF. The easiest way to load songs onto your tablet is by using the MobileSheets Companion application, which runs on your PC (a Mac/Linux version is not available at this time, but planned for in the future). This allows you to take files from your PC, such as scanned images or PDFs, create songs with them (entering as much detail as you desire for the various metadata fields), and then transfer those songs to your tablet. The process is very quick and painless. If you don’t have access to your PC, or want to build your library just on the tablet, then have no fear – all of the same functionality (plus use of the camera) is available on the tablet. To help get you started, a walkthrough of both approaches to song creation will be discussed. Transferring songs using the companion application will be demonstrated first, followed by an example of creating a song on the tablet.

Mobilesheets Companion Example

In order to connect your tablet to the PC Companion, both your tablet and PC must be hooked up to the same network (i.e. the same router). If both are connected, first load up the companion application, then load up MobileSheets on the tablet, and on the main library screen, click the connect button to start connecting with the tablet. This will send out an identification message to your PC. The Companion App should then pop up a window that looks like the following:

1 - The Companion App Connection Screen

Double-click on the entry to start connecting to the tablet. The companion application will show that it is connected by no longer being disabled and by stating, “Ready”. If you experience a problem connecting (the companion app is stuck waiting for a connection), you may have to turn off the Wi-Fi on the tablet, and then turn it back on. If this does not work, see the troubleshooting section for more information. Once a connection has been made, you can now drag files from your hard drive to the application to start creating songs. When files are dragged into the companion app, the song creation screen will appear as follows:

2 - The Song Creation Screen

While it is possible to drag a large number of PDF files into MobileSheets, a dialog will be spawned for every PDF dragged into the application, so this is NOT a good idea if you are dragging in more than 10-12 files. Please refer to the Batch Import section for details on how to add a large number of files at once.

The companion app tries to provide a song title based off the name of the file that has been added, but leaves it up to you to enter other metadata. It is recommended to provide at least an artist and album so that your music can be filtered and searched with better results. You can also add any text you want in the custom field, providing a unique way to search through songs to meet your needs. If the metadata defaults are not desirable (or you know you want the same defaults for a large number of songs), refer to the Default Metadata section for information on how to change the defaults. The more information you provide, the more useful you will find the filtering/searching features in MobileSheets. Once you are done, click the OK button to create the song, which is automatically transferred to the tablet. Congratulations! That’s all it takes to create a song using the companion app. For more information on all the various options, please see the MobileSheets Companion section.

Tablet Song Creation Example

To get started creating songs on the tablet, click the button on the main library screen. This will take you to the song editor. On the song editor screen, you have several options. Clicking the button will allow you to add an image from the tablet gallery. Clicking will allow you to add any file from your tablet (the only way to add a PDF). Clicking the button will allow you to take a picture with your tablet’s camera, and it will be automatically added to the song you are creating. One important thing to note is that you can choose whether MobileSheets will make a copy of files that have been added or use the files in their original location. Click the button to view/change these options. Refer to the section on Creating and Editing Songs for more information. Once a PDF or image is added, you can preview what the song will look like once it is loaded. After entering as much metadata as you want, click OK to finish creating the song. You will be taken back to the library screen, and your song should now be visible in the list. Congratulations! You can see that it’s not too hard to set up songs with MobileSheets, and after putting in the initial leg work, you will have immediate access to any song in your entire library.

You now have enough understanding to use MobileSheets for the basics – adding songs to your library and viewing them. Once a song is loaded, swipe, touch the edges of the screen, or use the page slider to turn pages. There is a lot more this app has to offer though, so if you would like to learn about all of the available features, continue reading to become an expert in no time!

Library Management

MobileSheets provides an assortment of different ways to sort and filter through your library to find the songs you want. It also allows you to group your songs into setlists so that you can load multiple songs at once or just create custom groupings of songs for faster lookup. You can also create collections that allow you to split up your library into smaller groups for faster searching or organization (one collection per band you play in, for example). In order to really use the library features effectively, however, you need to provide extra information about each song called metadata. The following sections will discuss the various options for creating and editing songs, setlists, collections, and the methods for quickly finding desired songs.

Song Metadata

Before discussing how to filter through songs, it’s important to understand the data that is available for each song. The following fields can be set for each song:

· Source Type: This field indicates what this song contains. Possible values are Sheet Music, Guitar Tab, Lyrics, Chords, Lead Sheet, Charts or Other. The default is Sheet Music, but can be changed in the options.

· Title: The title of the song – this is how it will show up in your library.

· Artist: The artist(s) who created the song. Defaults to “Unknown”, unless the default is changed in the options.

· Album/Book: Defines where the music came from. Defaults to “Unknown”, unless the default is changed in the options.

· Genre: The genre of music for the song. Defaults to “Instrumental”, unless the default is changed in the options. Custom genres can also be created if desired.

· Custom: A text field that can contain whatever information you enter. It defaults to an empty string.

· Difficulty: Field indicating a difficulty rating for the song. Defaults to “Not Specified”, unless the default is changed in the options.

· Key: Field indicating the key that the song is in. Defaults to “Not Specified”, unless the default is changed in the options.

While it’s good practice to enter at least Title, Artist, and Album/Book, you can get more out of the library filtering if you provide more details.

Song Selection and Filtering

On the main library screen, you will see several dropdown boxes at the top, two search textboxes, a series of buttons at the top right, and several buttons at the bottom of the screen. It’s important to first explain the different views which are activated by clicking the buttons at the bottom of the screen. There are six different options for changing what is being actively displayed: Recent, Songs, Artists, Albums, Genres, and Setlists.

· Recent: Displays up to 50 songs recently viewed. This is the first screen showed when the application loads up, allowing you to quickly view sheet music that you tend to load often. The list is in order of song most recently loaded. Setlists are not shown in this list.

· Songs: Displays all of the songs sorted alphabetically. Each song entry also shows the artist and album underneath the title.

· Artists: Displays an alphabetically sorted list of all of the artists who have songs in your library. Clicking on an artist will show all of the Albums/Books for that artist. Clicking on an Album/Book will then show all of the songs in that Album/Book by the selected Artist.

· Albums: Displays an alphabetically sorted list of all of the Albums/Books in your library. Clicking on an Album/Book will show all of the songs in that Album/Book.

· Genres: Displays an alphabetically sorted list of all of the different genres of music that have songs associated with them in your library. Clicking on a Genre will then show all of the songs associated with that particular genre.

· Setlists: Displays an alphabetically sorted list of all of the setlists in your library. The setlists will not respond to any of the dropdown filters, but can be searched by name using the text box. When a setlist is selected, you can either load all of the songs from that setlist, or any individual song from the setlist. This means you can use setlists just to categorize your music if you want!

At the top of the library there are dropdowns that can be used to filter what is being displayed. As mentioned before, setlists cannot be filtered using these. Each of the dropdowns will be discussed below:

	This dropdown allows you to filter on the source type. All songs with a matching source type will be displayed.
	This dropdown allows you to filter on the current collection. This will only shows songs/albums/artists/genres from the collection. See the section on collections for more information.
	This dropdown allows you to filter on the selected key. All songs with a matching key will be displayed.
	This dropdown allows you to filter based on difficulty level. All songs with a matching difficulty will be displayed.

To the right of the dropdowns is a search textbox, as well as a custom textbox. Typing in the search textbox will filter what is being displayed to entries that contain whatever you type. This works for setlists as well. Typing in the custom textbox will filter on songs whose custom field contains the value entered. To the right of the textbox controls are several buttons. These are as follows:

	Clicking this button will activate the search-by-voice feature of MobileSheets. Just say the name of a song, artist, album/book, genre, or setlist, and a list of possible matches will be displayed.
	Clicking this button will display the online help which you are viewing right now.
	Clicking this button will bring up the Setlist editor, allowing you to create new setlists, or edit existing ones.
	Clicking this button will bring up the Collection editor, allowing you to place songs into collections.
	Clicking this button will bring up the song editor, allowing you to create a new song. MobileSheetsFree users can only create up to 8 songs in their library.
	Clicking this button will start a connection attempt to the MobileSheets Companion running on your PC.

In addition to everything mentioned previously, there are a few other options that should be discussed. First, there is an alphabetic list on the right side of the screen. Pressing a letter in this list will jump to the section with the matching letter in the main library list. Using all of the features previously discussed, you can quickly find the song you want. Once found, just tap the song to load it.

Next, there is a filters button that can be seen at the bottom of the library screen (you may have to scroll to the right to see it on smaller tablets). If the filters button is tapped, it will toggle whether or not the filters are shown at the top of the screen. On small tablets, this gives you the ability see more songs on the screen at the cost of not being able to quickly change filter settings. If the filters are hidden, the buttons that are normally shown at the top right will be put into a popup menu that can be accessed by tapping the overflow button at the top right. There is also an option in the settings that will hide the “artist – album” text below the song title, which shrinks the height of each entry, significantly increasing the number of songs that can be displayed at once. There is another option to always display the “custom” field for each song next to the title, which can be useful if the custom field is used for categorization.

The last thing that should be mentioned is the ability to sort songs being displayed for a setlist. If you tap the setlist at the bottom, and then tap on one of the setlists, all of the songs in that setlist will be displayed. If you tap the sort button at the top right of the screen, all of the songs will be sorted so you can find them easier. This is only a temporary sort – you can return back to the original order by tapping the sort button, and if you load the setlist, the songs will not be sorted. To permanently sort a setlist, see the setlist editor section.

Adding and Editing Songs

There are various ways create new songs, and edit existing songs in MobileSheets. Songs can be created individually in the song editor by tapping the add song button , batch imported, or created using the Companion application. Songs can be editing by performing a long tap on a song on the library screen, and then tapping “Edit Song”, or by double-clicking a song in the companion app. We will start by exploring the various options to create songs on the tablet, starting with the song editor, which is shown below.

3 - The MobileSheets Song Editor

Tap the appropriate field to enter (or edit) the song’s title, source, key, difficulty, artist, album, and genre. The custom field can be used for any other information you would like to filter on (such as instrument or composer.) These categories can be used to quickly find specific songs in your library, so the more information you provide, the more options you will have for filtering

Loading an image or PDF

MobileSheets supports a variety of image file types (.jpg, .gif, .png, and .bmp) as well as PDFs. Support will be added soon for .txt and chordpro files. You currently can add only one PDF or text file per song, but any number of image files is supported. You cannot mix and match different types (images/PDFs/text files).

To add an existing image from the tablet gallery, tap the gallery button to load up the gallery and select an image. The file will be inserted into the file list with a path that points to your selection.

For PDFs, image files, or .txt files on your external SD card or elsewhere (Downloads folder etc.) tap the folder button to find and select a file. The current file browser only allows a single selection, but one will be added soon that supports multi-select. If you want to import images from your scanner without using the companion app, this is the method to use. You can scan to your computer, crop the image, then transfer it to your tablet’s SD card and select it using the process described above.

The built-in camera on most tablets can be used to produce an image that will be imported straight into MobileSheets. This is useful for instance, where someone has a hand-written chart or lyrics and you need to add quickly into MobileSheets—it may not be great quality but it may work until you obtain a better version. To take a picture, tap the camera button, take the picture and it will automatically be added to the song editor. You might want to use an image editor to crop and straighten before importing. If the image shows up rotated incorrectly, you can double-tap the preview image to have the file rotated on disk. Each double-tap will rotate the image 90 degrees clockwise.

If a number of image files are loaded (meaning all the pages of the song) you can change the ordering of pages if needed. To change the ordering of an image in the list, move the little drag handle up or down. If you want hands free playback with a Bluetooth pedal, you can use the same image multiple times in the list to handle repeats, D.C., D.S., Coda etc. For now, you will need to import that same page each time you want to use it in the sequence, but very soon, arbitrary page ordering will be supported. As an example of this, if page three jumps back to page one for a D.C., you could arrange the images as one two three one, where you have imported page one twice.

To remove an image from the list, move the drag handle to the right or long press and choose “Remove Image” from the menu.

PDFs and Page Ranges

Once a PDF is added to a song, no other images or PDFs can be added to that song. For PDFs containing multiple scores, the start page and end page sliders can be used to create separate songs in your MobileSheets library that reference different pages of the PDF. For example, if your PDF contains 50 pages, but you only way to create a song out of pages 45, 46 and 47, you would set the start page to 45, and the end page to 47. Currently, pages cannot be reordered for PDFs, but this will be added soon.

Storage and Copy Options

One of the more potentially complex topics in MobileSheets is the discussion of file storage, and where MobileSheets will place files you import. To begin, we need to differentiate between the three different kinds of storage locations MobileSheets supports: Internal Storage, SD Card (also known as External Storage), and Removable Storage.

Internal Storage: Internal storage on an Android device is usually limited, and provides application private data storage. This means that nothing will be able to access the files, including a file browser. On most tablets, internal storage and SD card actually point to the same physical SD card on the device, but very different folders on that SD card. Any files put in internal storage are automatically removed when you uninstall MobileSheets. For most users, this storage location should not be used.

SD Card: The SD card option will place all files under a specific folder created for MobileSheets. This path is different for every device, but on most devices will resemble something like: /sdcard/android/data/com.zubersoft.mobilesheets/files. File browsers will be able to access this folder if needed. Like internal storage, any files in this directory are automatically removed when MobileSheets is uninstalled. This storage location is the default for MobileSheets.

Removable Storage: This path is something you must first set up in the options, and it can point to an external SD card (if your device supports one), or any folder you want to designate as a custom storage location. If you want all of your files to be managed under /sdcard/MobileSheets for example, you can use the removable storage location for this.

So why is all of that important? MobileSheets supports multiple options for dealing with files you import. You can either use files from the location that you add them, or you can have MobileSheets make a copy of your files (they will be stored in the locations mentioned above), and then optionally delete the originals. To access these options, tap the hammer & wrench button on the song editor screen. You will see the Copy Options dialog shown below.

4 - The Song Editor Copy Options Dialog

If you select “Copy PDF/Image Files”, you must then specify one of the storage locations mentioned above. If you deselect this option, the file you import will be linked to directly. When might you want to use this option? If you have a large PDF, such as a real book, you probably don’t want multiple copies being made of the PDF if you want to use it for multiple songs. For now, the easiest way to do this is to turn off the copy option, and then point the same PDF for all of the songs.

The “Delete Original Files” option will do just as it says. Any files you add to the song will be deleted once the song is successfully created and has made a copy of the files. The “Create Subdirectory Per Song” option is useful for file organization. Depending upon the storage location you’ve chosen, you probably don’t want every file copied to the same folder, as the list can get quite large and difficult to manage. If you select this option, the files for each song will be placed in separate folders that use the title of the song for the path.

Note: Any changes you make to the copy options dialog are saved and will be applied to all songs you create/edit.

If you are a little lost on all of this, don’t worry, there is a good chance that the default options will work just fine for you. By default, MobileSheets will copy all of your files onto the SD Card, allowing you to keep your original files wherever you would like.

Dropbox and Other Cloud Storage Hosts

If you are trying to add a song from Dropbox, you will find you are unable to using the options described previously. Dropbox support is going to be added soon, but in the meantime, for Dropbox and other cloud storage hosts, you need to do the following:

- Load up a browser than can view the file on the cloud storage

- Tap the file, and select the option to Import into MobileSheets

- The file should be added, and the preview dialog should show the first page

If you experience problems with this, feel free to contact support@zubersoft.com. Rest assured that Dropbox support will be added as soon as possible.

Zooming

Images may contain a lot of unnecessary white space in the margins. To get the best viewing experience possible, it’s usually best to zoom in a little to reduce the margins. MobileSheets supports two different ways of zooming: a global zoom as well as a per-page zoom. In the song editor, you can change the per-page zoom, allowing you to eliminate margins by a different amount for each page. This is useful if all of the pages aren’t the same dimensions. Drag the zoom slider in the bottom right and watch the little zoom outline on top of the sheet music. This will allow you to gauge how much zoom to apply. This zoom is saved per page, so you can optimize the pages depending on the content. This can be more effective than relying on the global zoom if each page in your song has different dimensions. The global zoom will be discussed later.

Custom Genres

Selecting a genre is as easy as tapping the genre dropdown, and selecting one of the available pre-defined genres. What if a genre isn’t available that you want? This is where custom genres come in.

If you want to add a Custom genre, tap the genre edit button next to the genre dropdown. This will bring up a separate screen that is used for managing custom genres. On this screen, you will see a list of all custom genres, as well as a “add” button at the top right (a plus icon). To add a new genre, tap the “add” button, enter the name, and select OK. Your new genre will show up in the list. You can now either tap the genre to have it selected on the song editor screen, or tap the “Done” button to exit without changing the currently selected genre for the song. To rename or delete a custom genre, tap and hold on the entry in the list, and then select “Rename Genre” or “Delete Genre”. You cannot delete a custom genre that is used by multiple songs.

Audio Tracks

MobileSheets comes with a built-in audio player and support for linking audio tracks to songs. Audio tracks are useful for linking a backing track to the song, referencing the actual song when learning a new piece, or live backing use, to name a few. More than one audio track can be associated with a song.

To add audio tracks, tap the “Manage Audio Files” button, which will bring you to a new screen. On this screen, you will see a list of all of the audio files currently associated with the song. Tap the add button (the plus icon at the top right) to select your track. Each tablet can handle audio selection differently, so you may be taken to a file browser or a dedicated audio track manager. Currently, due to the various configurations possible, you can only add one audio track at a time. Another option will be added soon to use a file browser that can select multiple files at once. When you are finished, tap “Done” to return to the Song editor. Your audio tracks will now be loaded with the song and be available for playback. For more information on audio playback, and how to access the media player while viewing your song, see the section on audio playback. Once audio has been associated with a song, a music symbol will be displayed next to the song title on the library screen.

Copying Songs

If you need to copy an existing song, but want to provide a different file or metadata, long press on the song on the library screen, and select “Copy Song”. You will be brought into the song editor, and all of the fields will be filled for you. Depending upon the copy options you’ve selected, either a copy of the file(s) will be made, or the original file will be shared by both songs.

Batch Importing On The Tablet

If you need to import a large number of songs at once, then batch importing is definitely the way to go. The only downside to batch importing is that it can be more difficult to provide metadata for all of the songs. To access the batch importing feature, first go into the settings screen, which can be accessed by tapping the “Options” button at the bottom right of the library screen (you may need to scroll the buttons over on a 7” screen). On the settings screen, go to the “Backup, Restore, Import” section by tapping this in the list at the top-left (only applies to honeycomb or later devices). Next, tap the “Batch Import” option to load up the dialog shown below:

5 - Batch Import Dialog

The first thing you need to do is select a folder to import your songs from. Tap the folder button at the top right, and navigate to your desired folder. Once you have done that, you can technically begin the batch import by tapping the “OK” button. There are a lot of options to give you control over the batch import, but the defaults are probably acceptable for most users. Having said that, read about each option below for a complete understanding:

Scan all subdirectories for files – If this option is selected, the batch import will search all sub-directories under the one you selected. That means if you select a folder called “Sheet Music” for your batch import, and it contains a number of folders under it, this option would make sure that all of those folders are also included. Conversely, if you deselect this option, only PDFs & image files under the selected directory will be added.

Use subdirectories for metadata (Artist/Album/Genre) – If you want the batch import to fill in the artist, album, and/or genre field for you, an easy way to do this is to create several levels of folders for your files. For example, let’s say you have both “Fur Elise” and “Moonlight Sonata”, you want the artist field to be “Beethoven” and the album/book field to be “My Classical Book”, and the genre to be “Classical”. If you were batch importing from the “Sheet Music” directory, you could create Sheet Music/Beethoven/My Classical Book/Classical, and place both “Fur Elise” and “Moonlight Sonata” under this directory. The batch import would automatically assign all of the folder names into the fields. If you only wanted to fill in Artist, you could just use Sheet Music/Beethoven, and the other fields would use the metadata defaults shown at the bottom of the dialog.

Avoid Duplicate Songs – This option will prevent songs from being created in the library if a song already exists with the same name and files. If you are going to batch import from the same directory multiple times, this option will help reduce or eliminate duplicate songs.

Copy PDF/Image Files – This option is related to tablet storage. If you want MobileSheets to make copies of all of the files that you are batch importing, check this option, and select the destination storage location. If you do not check this option, the songs that are created will reference the directory you are importing from, so do not move the files around, or your songs will no longer load correctly.

Delete Original Files – This option is only enabled if you checked the “Copy PDF/Image Files” option described above. This option will ensure that the original files that are copied are deleted after the songs are successfully created.

Create Subdirectory Per Song – If you want every imported song’s files to be kept in separate directories, check this option. This can help with file organization significantly.

The bottom section of the dialog contains default metadata values to use for the songs that are created with the batch import. If you know beforehand that you are importing songs related to just one artist, album/book, or genre, fill in these fields, and the same values will be applied to all of the songs that are created.

Once you are satisfied, click the “OK” button, and the batch import will commence. You will see a number value increasing as each new song is created. Once the batch import is done, you will be notified of success, or if errors occurred.

Setlists and Collections

MobileSheets supports several ways to group songs for either organizational purposes or the ability to play multiple songs at once. The first method is through the use of a setlist. A setlist provides the ability to group songs in a specific order for a performance. Once a setlist is loaded, you have the ability to quickly jump between any of the loaded songs, or just turn through the pages in order. You can also load just an individual song from a setlist.

The second method for grouping songs is a collection. A collection is used to create a subset of your library so that only a limited number of songs/artists/albums/genres are shown. For example, you can use a collection for each of the bands you are in, solo work, your favorites, or fakebooks. The library screen will behave in exactly the same manner, except that only songs belonging to your collection are shown.

Setlists

There are several ways to create and manage existing setlists. The first method we will discuss is the setlist editor on the tablet. You can also edit a loaded setlist to add songs on the spot through the overlay, or manage your setlists through the companion app. Lastly, you can long press a song to see options for adding that song to a setlist, or removing it from a setlist it currently is a part of.

Setlist Editor

To bring up the setlist editor, tap the wrench button on the main library screen. A new screen will be displayed containing all existing setlists, and a list of all of the songs in your library. This can be seen in the screenshot below.

6 - The Setlist Editor

To create a new setlist, tap the add button and provide a name for the new setlist. It will become the active setlist, meaning that any song title you touch in the list on the right will be added to it, and any songs currently in the setlist will be shown at the bottom left. You can switch the active setlist at any time by tapping the name of the setlist you want to edit in the top left list. The active setlist’s name will be displayed next to the “Active Setlist” label. You can edit this name at any time, and the change will take immediate effect.

In order to quickly find songs to add to your setlist, you have multiple choices. You can use the letters at the far right to jump to songs starting with that letter, you can search for songs by title using the search box at the top right, you can perform a voice-based search by tapping on the microphone icon, or you can use the advanced search by tapping on the magnifying glass icon. The advanced search loads a new screen that is similar to the library, and allows additional filtering. A song can be added to any number of setlists.

Once songs have been added to the active setlist, you may need to change the ordering. You can arrange the songs by dragging their handle up or down. You can also delete a song by dragging this handle to the right, or by long pressing on the song, and choosing delete from the menu. You can temporarily sort this song list by tapping the a-z button at the top, and revert to unsorted by tapping again. If you long press the a-z button, you can permanently apply the sorting.

To remove all songs from a Setlist, tap the trash icon in the middle of the page. A prompt will be displayed making sure that you actually want to delete them all. To delete a setlist, tap the trash icon beside the “Active Setlist” title.

Collection Editor

As mentioned previously, a collection is a group of songs that represent a subset of your library. You can filter the currently displayed collection the same way you filter your entire library through the use of the artists/albums/genres buttons at the bottom the library, and the filters at the top of the library screen. You cannot load a collection the same way you load a setlist to view songs – it just provides an additional layer of filtering.

To create or manage existing collections, tap the collection editor icon. You will be brought to a new screen that is shown below. This screen should feel very similar to the setlist editor, as the layouts are basically identical, but the only difference is that the songs in a collection cannot be reordered (ordering doesn’t matter in a collection).

7 - The Collection Editor

To create a new Collection, tap the add button and provide a name for the new collection. It will become the active collection, meaning that any song title you touch in the list on the right will be added to it, and any songs currently in the collection will be shown at the bottom left. You can switch the active collection at any time by tapping the name of the collection you want to edit in the top left list. The active collection’s name will be displayed next to the “Active Collection” label. You can edit this name at any time, and the change will take immediate effect.

In order to quickly find songs to add to your collection, you have multiple choices. You can use the letters at the far right to jump to songs starting with that letter, you can search for songs by title using the search box at the top right, you can perform a voice-based search by tapping on the microphone icon, or you can use the advanced search by tapping on the magnifying glass icon. The advanced search loads a new screen that is similar to the library, and allows additional filtering. A song can be added to any number of collections.

To remove all songs from a collection, tap the trash icon in the middle of the page. A prompt will be displayed making sure that you actually want to delete them all. To delete a collection, tap the trash icon beside the “Active Collection” title.

Using Collections

To switch to viewing a collection, go to the main library screen, and find the dropdown at the top left next to the “Col” label. Tap this dropdown, and select your collection from the list that is displayed. The selected value will change colors indicating that a filter is in effect, and your library should now only show songs that are a part of the selected collection. To return to viewing your entire library, select “None” from the collection dropdown.

Load Options

If you press and hold your finger on a song on the library screen, several options are displayed before you. These are as follows:

· Load Start of Song – This will load the first page of the selected song. This is the usually the default action, but you can configure MobileSheets through the Settings dialog to default to loading the last viewed page. If you do so, this is the only way to load a song from the beginning.

· Load Last Viewed Page – This will load the song and skip to the last page that was viewed. If the song has not been viewed, it will load the song from the start.

· Load Last Bookmark Passed – This will load the song and skip to the last bookmark that was reached while viewing the song. If the song has no bookmarks, this will load the song from the start.

· Edit Song – Loads the Song Editor for this song.

· Add to Setlist – Allows you to quickly add the song to any of the setlists in your library.

· Delete Song – Removes the song from your library entirely. You can also select the checkbox to remove the image files completely off your tablet. Do not do this if multiple songs reference the same files, as one of the songs will fail to load properly if you do. This will be addressed in an update soon.

If you press and hold your finger on a setlist on the library screen, the following options are displayed:

· Load Start of Setlist – Loads the first song in the setlist at the first page.

· Load Last Viewed Page – Loads the last song viewed, and the skips to the last viewed page in that song.

· Load Last Bookmark Passed – Loads the last song viewed containing the bookmark most recently passed at the page of that bookmark. If no song had a bookmark that was passed, the setlist will be loaded from the start.

· Edit Setlist – Loads the setlist editor and selects this setlist as the active.

· Delete Setlist – Deletes this setlist from your library.

MobileSheets Companion

The MobileSheets Companion is an application that allows you to manage your library from the comfort of your PC. You can add, edit, and remove songs, create and edit setlists and collections, and even do things like select tracks from your tablet’s music library or transfer music tracks from your pc to the tablet. To start, the first thing you need to do is connect your tablet to the MobileSheets Companion.

Connecting to your tablet

8 - The Companion App Connection Screen

Double-click on the entry to start connecting to the tablet. The companion application will show that it is connected by no longer being disabled and by stating, “Ready”. If you perform these steps, and the connection screen is not displayed, you may need to toggle the Wi-Fi off and then on again with your tablet. This resets locked resources. If you do see the connection screen, but can’t get a successful connection, you may have a firewall that is blocking necessary ports. Make sure you allow ports 16568 and 16569.

Creating and Editing Songs

At this point, you can now drag files from your hard drive to the application to start creating a song or edit an existing song by right-clicking on it and choosing the edit option. This can be seen in the following image:

9- The main MobileSheets Companion screen

Clicking on “Add Song” will bring up the song editor to start creating a new song. You can also just drag files from your computer into the window to get the same effect. If you click on “Edit Song”, the song editor will also be displayed with all of the fields filled in by the song’s data. The song editor is shown below:

10 - The Companion Song Editor

On this screen (which is almost identical to the tablet song editor), you can manage all of the song metadata, add/remove files, select one or more audio files, create bookmarks, and create custom genres. One important distinction is that you must set the destination storage location. Depending on the capabilities of the tablet (and whether or not a removable storage location is selected), you can select the tablet internal storage, SD Card, or removable storage as the destination. For more information, see the section on tablet storage.

To create a custom genre, click the pencil icon next to the Genre dropdown, then click the add button on the popup window that is displayed. Once you are done, click the close button to continue.

To limit the number of pages used a PDF, set the start and end pages using the sliders below the image preview. To change the zoom for each page individually, use the zoom slider below the image preview.

Metadata Defaults

If you are going to be editing a lot of songs that share metadata field values, or you happen to create all of your songs in a similar fashion, it may be useful for you to set the default metdata for the song editor. To access this, click the Settings menu and select “Change Metadata Defaults”. The following dialog will be displayed:

Figure 11 - The Default Metadata Settings

Any values you change here will be automatically used as defaults when the song editor window is displayed for new songs.

Selecting and Transferring Audio Tracks

If you click the audio file button on the song editor screen, the following window will be shown:

12- The track selection dialog

The first tab, as shown here, displays every track that was found in your tablet’s music library. Double-click on a track in the top list to add it to the song’s audio track list on the bottom. Double-click a track on the bottom list to remove it. If the track you want isn’t currently on your tablet, and is on your PC, click the second tab to view the screen shown below:

13 - Selecting a track from your PC

The first thing you will notice is that the fields are not filled in. You must first browse to a file by clicking the “Add” button at the bottom of the top section. Once you add a file, the various fields will be populated with information, and the file will be added to the song’s list of audio tracks. By default, the song will be transferred and added to the tablet’s global music directory. The benefit of putting songs in this directory is that the tablet will automatically detect that a new track has been added, and you will see the track in any other application/browser that looks at the music directory (for example, music players). Another added benefit is that the audio track won’t be deleted if you uninstall MobileSheets. If you want to keep the audio file in the same location as the PDF/image files for the song, change the storage location at the top to match the location where the PDF/images will be stored (if internal storage or SD card is selected, the audio file will be automatically removed upon uninstall).

Converting PDFs to images

There are currently two ways to convert PDFs to images in the MobileSheets Companion. The first is by going to the File menu, and selecting “Convert PDF to images”. The second is to click the “Convert PDF to Images” button at the bottom left of the song editor window. If you convert in the song editor, the “Add After Convert” checkbox gives you the option to have all converted images automatically added to the song. If you are wondering why you would use image files, they tend to load faster than PDFs, so if you have large setlists, you may notice an improvement in load times if you switch to images (at the cost of more disk space on the tablet). Converting to images also opens up the ability to reorder pages if needed, or have duplicates of the same page. If you click the “Convert PDF to Images” button, the following dialog is displayed:

14 - The PDF Conversion Dialog

On this dialog, you can set the desired width and height, and the converter will do it’s best to match the ratio you specify. You can also set the desired format (JPG, PNG, GIF, etc). Once you click convert, status messages will be displayed indicating which pages have been converted. It should complete fairly quickly, and you can then click Close to continue. If you check the “Add After Convert” checkbox, it will take all of the converted images, and add them to the song for you. It is recommended to use the PNG file format, as it provides the best image quality for the file size, but if you require the smallest file sizes possible, stick with JPG.

Bookmark editing

The last feature that should be discussed on the song editor dialog is bookmark editing. If you click the button, you will be taken to the Bookmark Editor dialog, which looks like the following:

15 - The Bookmark Dialog

On this dialog, you can add new bookmarks to pages that don’t already have a bookmark, edit the names and pages of existing bookmarks, or delete bookmarks. Bookmarks are a great way to manage large songs, or even to mark songs within PDFs containing more than one.

Batch Importing In The Companion App

Batch importing on the companion app is almost identical to the tablet. The only difference is that every file will be first processed on the PC, and then once the processing is complete, all of the files will be transferred to the tablet. For more information on the various options, see the tablet section on batch importing.

Creating and Editing Setlists

The MobileSheets Companion gives you the ability to create, edit, and delete setlists. To access the setlist page, click the setlist tab at the top of the main dialog screen. The setlist sections looks like the following:

16 - Editing Setlists in the Companion App

On the left side, you can see a list of all the setlists that currently exist on your tablet. On the top right, you can see the list of songs for the currently selected setlist. On the bottom right, you can see the list of all songs in your library. To create a new setlist, or to edit the name of an existing setlist, right-click in the list on the left side of the screen to access the context menu, and then select “New” or “Rename” accordingly. After entering the name, you can start adding songs to the setlist. There are several ways to do this. The easiest way is to select one or more songs in the bottom right window, and to drag them up to the top right window and release. This will add all selected songs to the list. You can also select songs on the main song selection screen (the first tab), right-click and select Add Song to Setlist. This will bring up a list of all setlists, and you can just click whichever setlist you want to add to. If you have a lot of songs in your library, it can helpful to type in the search textbox to filter the display. You can also select the column to search on; otherwise the default is to search in all columns. To remove songs from the active setlist or setlists themselves, you can either right-click and access the menu option for delete, or just hit the delete key on your keyboard. To rearrange songs in the active setlist, just drag and drop each song to its correct location.

Creating and Editing Collections

The MobileSheets Companion also provides the ability to create, edit, and delete your collections. The directions for managing a collection in the companion app are identical to that of a setlist, so just follow the directions of the previous section. The only difference is that you cannot reorder songs in a collection, as song order doesn’t matter in a collection. The collection screen is shown below:

17 -The Collection Editor Screen

Library Backup

At some point, you may want to back up your entire library in case you need to uninstall, or you may just want the peace of mind of knowing your work will not be lost. The companion app allows you to invoke the backup feature on your tablet, and automatically transfer the backup file to your PC for storage. To access this feature, select File->Backup Library, which will display the dialog shown below:

18 - The Library Backup Dialog

First, select the destination for the backup file, and ensure that the hard drive has plenty of space available. The two checkboxes give you the ability to choose whether you want to backup song PDF/image files/audio files currently stored on either the SD Card or Removable Storage. If you only want to back up the song metadata (the database file), you can uncheck these options, but this is usually not recommended. Once you are ready, click the “Start” button to begin. You will see the progress bar start to slowly fill as songs are transferred from your tablet over Wi-Fi. This process can take a considerable amount of time if you have a large library, so go grab a coffee while you wait. Once the transfer completes, you will see a popup message indicating success. You can also perform a backup from the tablet.

Backup Verification or Extraction

After a backup file is transferred to your PC, you may want to verify the contents of the backup, or possibly pull some of the files out of the backup. This can be accomplished by going to File->View/Extract Backup. This will load up the dialog you see below:

19 - Song Extraction Dialog

This dialog can be brought up even when the tablet is not connected. Select the backup file to load, and after the loading finishes, all of the songs in your library and their respective metadata should be displayed. Take note of the output directory shown in the bottom left. This is the same directory as the backup file by default, but can be changed if desired. Double-clicking on an individual song will automatically extract that song to the selected output directory. You can also select Extract All to extract every file in the entire library. You can also select multiple entries, and extract them by clicking the Extract button.

Viewing Songs

MobileSheets provides a number of useful features that makes it more than just a simple viewer. You can access quick setlist features (including adding songs on the go), bookmarks, link points (to deal with repeats of sections), annotations, and a full-featured metronome. Continue on to learn about the graphics overlay and all of the mentioned features.

The Image Overlay

While viewing your song in MobileSheets, if you tap on the center of the screen, an overlay will be displayed on top of your score. This overlay provides you with a title bar with information and several buttons, a page slider for skipping pages, a global zoom adjustment, audio playback, setlist controls, and more. At any time, you can tap the center of the screen to hide the overlay. You can also tap the numbers displayed for pages and the zoom level to bring up a dialog that allows for precise entry. There is also a sliding window in the overlay that automatically pops out if you tap any of the buttons at the bottom right. You can also hide or show this sliding window by tapping the handle on the right side of the screen. This sliding window contains most of the overlay content such as setlist management, bookmarks, link points, the audio player and the metronome. To switch between the content that is shown, you need to tap the buttons shown in the bottom right. While the overlay hides everything by default, you can configure the Settings such that certain pieces of the overlay are always shown if desired. You can see the overlay below:

20 - The Image Overlay

At the top left of the overlay, make note of the icons that are displayed. To see notes associated with the currently loaded song, tap the notes button . To toggle annotations on or off, tap the show annotations button . To switch annotation groups, select a number from the dropdown, or tap the top left or right corners of the screen. Annotations and annotation groups will be explained in more detail later.

Quick Setlist Editing

After a song or setlist has been loaded, you will be able to see all of the songs in the current setlist as shown above. If you load an individual song, it is not technically a part of any setlist, so “Setlist – Unnamed” will be shown. At any time, you can add additional songs to what is currently being viewed by clicking the add song button and selecting a song from the list that is presented. If you add songs to an unnamed setlist, and then want to save what you have done, you can click the save button to create a new setlist. A dialog will pop up requesting the name for the new setlist. Once saved, you can access this setlist from your library like any other. If you make changes to an existing setlist, these are considered temporary changes and will not be saved unless you click the save button. You can also delete songs from the current setlist by pressing and holding on one of the songs, and selecting the delete option from the menu. You also have the ability to reorder the songs using the drag handles. The edit setlist button will load up the current setlist in the Setlist Editor dialog. You cannot load unnamed setlists in the editor dialog, so the edit button is disabled unless a setlist was initially loaded, or the current setlist is saved. Note that if you have unsaved changes, and you try to the edit the current setlist, it will warn you about discarding those changes unless you save first.

You have probably noticed several buttons at the bottom of the setlist editor window. These will be discussed below:

- This locks the orientation of the tablet.

- This button activates the auto-start metronome feature that makes it so the metronome will automatically switch settings and start playing when a new song is switched to.

- This button starts automatic scrolling . This feature only works if the tablet is in landscape orientation. Currently, it scrolls a fixed length (1/3 of the page) at an interval determined by either the metronome or user selection.

- This determines what drives the automatic scrolling – the metronome or a fixed selection . The automatic scrolling works by delaying for a period of time, scrolling a fraction of the page, and delaying again. Increasing the tempo of the metronome or the signature can have a big impact on the scrolling. All of the metronome settings can be saved per song, and the auto-scrolling selection is saved, so once you dial in the perfect settings for a song, you don’t have to remember them again.

Bookmarks

Bookmarks are an extremely useful feature when dealing with large scores or PDFs containing multiple songs in them. Bookmarks can be placed on any page (only one per page) and given a unique name. The bookmarks can then be jumped to at any time by touching the bookmark name in the sliding window. The bookmark list is shown below:

To add a new bookmark, click the add button, and enter a name and page for the bookmark. The current page is used as the default, so in most cases, a name is all that is needed. Once the bookmark is added, tap it to return to the assigned page at any time. If a setlist is loaded, bookmarks are only shown for the song that is currently loaded. A future update will add the ability to view and jump to any bookmark in the setlist. If you are using the free version of MobileSheets, note that you will only be able to add two bookmarks per song.

Link Points

Link points are an extremely useful feature that is especially suited for sheet music. Link points allow you to instantly jump from one page to another, preventing the need for frantic page turns when you encounter a repeat (D.S./D.C.). MobileSheets automatically detects when a page is reached that has link points, and will render all of the destination pages in the background so that the transition between pages is seamless. For this reason, that maximum number of links is limited to 10 to preserve system resources (MobileSheetsFree users can only create 2 link points per song).

To create a link point, open the link section in the sliding window, and click the button. Most of the overlay will be hidden except for the page slider and the display at the top, which indicates what to do. Tap the location that you want to link from first, then swipe to turn pages (or use the page slider) to locate the page to link to. Once you tap again, the link is created, and will show up in the link section of the sliding window. All links are color coded to make it easier to identify where a given link point will go, so the descriptions of the links contain the colors. This whole sequence is shown in the images below. The first image shows that the link from point is in the middle of the page (look for the light blue dot in the middle of the page on the right side).

21 - First Link Spot Placed

The next image shows the completed link.

22 - The Link Has Been Created

After the link point is created, you may not be able to see the end point very well. This is intentional, as it would serve little purpose to block visibility of the sheet music. If you click the link start point, it will light up, change pages, and briefly light up the end point before it fades back to transparency. This is to help you identify where you are supposed to start playing. If you would like to change the size of the link points, see the Settings section for information on how to adjust the link point radius.

Link points cannot currently be rearranged in the window. If you need to remove a link point, press and hold on the particular item to be removed, and select the delete option from the menu. This will update the colors of the existing link points, as their position in the list changes.

Annotations

One of the key features of MobileSheets is the ability to mark up music in a variety of ways. The annotation editor provides support for freeform drawing, highlighting, drawing of some basic shapes (lines, rectangles, circles, and ovals), textboxes, and stamps. To enter the annotation editor, tap the pencil button at the bottom right of the image overlay. For detailed information on annotations, see the annotations editor section.

Audio Playback

MobileSheets provides the ability to play audio files for any song being displayed. If a song is loaded that has at least one associated audio track, the audio player can be accessed by tapping the middle of the bottom of the screen. You can also access the media player by clicking the play button in the bottom right of the overlay, and then tapping the area that says “Tap Here to Show The Media Player”. If there are audio tracks associated with the currently displayed song, the dropdown next to the “Track:” label will be populated with all of those tracks. You can switch the audio track that is currently loaded for playback by switching the selected item in the dropdown, or by tapping the previous track or next track buttons on the media player (these are only shown if the song has more than one audio track). The media playback is shown below.

23 - Media Playback

24 - Media Player With Previous & Next Buttons

The various options in the overlay will be discussed below:

Keep player visible – Attempts to keep the player visible at all times over the sheet music. Unfortunately, due to the nature of Google’s built-in media control, which I am using, this doesn’t work on all tablets. I will be adding my own custom player soon.

Display “Now Playing” Message while player is visible – If this option is set, a message will be repeatedly displayed indicating what track is currently loaded by the media player. The message will only be visible while the player is visible.

Repeat Mode – Determines if the music will repeat or not. If “All Tracks” is selected, the music will only repeat once it reaches the end of all tracks for all songs. If “Current Track Only” is selected, the currently selected track will repeat once finished.

Reset song to start when repeating – If selected, the current song will switch back to the first page when the track finishes playing.

Play continuously through all tracks – If selected, the media player will automatically start playing the next track once the current track finishes.

Media Player Position – Determines where the media player should be positioned – the top of the screen, the middle of the screen, or the bottom of the screen.

Rewind Track To Beginning – If this button is clicked, it will reset the audio track back to its starting position.

Once the media player starts playing a song, you can hide the overlay, and media playback will continue in the background. If you have not enabled “Keep Player Visible”, the player may auto-hide, and you will need to tap the bottom center of the screen to show it again. Volume can be adjusted with the tablet volume controls, and if you need to immediately stop the music, hitting the back button will return to the library and instantly stop playback.

Metronome

MobileSheets includes a fully functional metronome. The metronome allows you to adjust tempo, time signature, beat subdivisions, the sound effects, the first beat accent, and volume. You can also decide if you want both visual and audio feedback, or just one of the two. There is also a tap-to-set tempo button to help you dial in the tempo you require. The tempo slider allows you to make quick adjustments, while the plus and minus buttons on the side adjust the tempo by 1 bpm at a time. The sound pack that is selected determines what sound effect is used for the various beats. The following sound packs are included:

· Wooden Metronome

· Ping

· Digital Metronome

· Hi-Hat

· Kick and Hi-Hat

· Bongo

· Cowbell

· Metal Metronome

· Woodblock

If the Accent First Beat checkbox is selected, a different sound affect will be used on the first beat of every measure to make it easy to identify. If the save button is clicked, all of the current metronome settings will be saved to the current song. When this song is loaded, the saved metronome settings will be automatically applied. The metronome can be seen in the image shown below:

Figure 25 - The Metronome

Page Slider

At the bottom of the image overlay rests the page slider. When only one song is loaded, the page slider shows both the current page and total number of pages for the song. When a setlist is loaded, the page slider shows the current page out of the total page count for all songs on the right side, and the information about the position in the current song above the slider. One of the most useful features is that the slider comes with a preview window that will show you what page you are turning to before you release. The preview window loads almost instantly while using image files, but has a slight delay while using PDFs. This feature can be turned off in the settings if desired, as it can cause the page slider to slowdown while using PDFs.

Figure 26 - The Page Slider Preview

As can be seen in the image, while the slider is pressed and you move the position, it will actively show you what page you are turning to, what song that page is part of, and the total position of that page among all pages in the setlist. If you like having constant access to the page slider, you can make it always visible in the settings. Conversely, if you don’t like the page slider, you can select to disable it entirely in the settings.

Global Zoom

While the most efficient way to zoom is to provide specific settings for each page of a song, this is sometimes unnecessary if every page has the exact same margins. Also, let’s face it, not everyone is going to want to set specific zooms for every page of every song in their library. There is also the fact that you usually have to zoom more in landscape mode to take out the margins as there is suddenly more width than height visible. That’s where the global zoom slider comes into play. At the bottom left of the overlay, there is a zoom slider with a percentage value next to it. While the zoom slider is held down, a blue outline is shown to estimate the resulting margins after the zoom is complete. You can also pinch-zoom to see the outline along with text indicating what the zoom level currently is. The global zoom slider affects every page that is rendered (and adds zoom in addition to the zoom per page amount). The global zoom is automatically saved for each song independently, so once you view or load that song again, the global zoom will be changed automatically to the last value specified. View the image below to see the blue outline that is shown while changing the global zoom. One thing to note is that the current method for zooming is a center-zoom. It will take an equal amount off each side of your score when you zoom, which can cause issues if the sheet music has unequal margins. A true positional zoom (a standard pinch-zoom behavior) will be added soon, along with the ability to crop.

27 - The Global Zoom Outline

Annotations Editor

One of the key features of MobileSheets is the ability to mark up music in a variety of ways. The annotation editor provides support for freeform drawing, highlighting, drawing of some basic shapes (lines, rectangles, circles, and ovals), textboxes, and stamps. There is also undo/redo support to ensure that you can revert mistakes you’ve made, and recover changes that you accidentally “undid”. To enter the annotation editor, tap the pencil button at the bottom right of the image overlay. The default annotation editor screen is shown below.

Figure 28 - The Annotation Editor

Basic Navigation

The first thing to discuss is basic navigation. To zoom in on the sheet music, perform a pinch-zoom by moving your fingers diagonally away from each other, or towards each other. Once zoomed, you can move around the sheet music by doing a two-finger pan motion. Your fingers must be aligned vertically or horizontally, and then you can move them in unison to shift the sheet music around. To accept any changes that have been made and exit the editor, tap the “OK” button at the top right. To discard changes and exit the editor, tap the “Cancel” button. To advance to the next page or previous page, press the corresponding next page button or previous page button. If you’ve made any changes and are switching pages, you will be prompted to save your changes or discard them. If you do not like this prompt, you can enable automatic saving in the options screen. If you enable automatic saving, your changes will automatically be saved while changing pages.

Control Modes

At the top left corner of the screen, you will see a series of buttons. The buttons to the right of the redo button are the “Control Mode” buttons. These buttons change what action will occur when you touch the screen with your finger. Each control mode is briefly described below:

	This enables the selection mode, which allows you to select one or more annotations either by tapping individual annotations, or drawing a selection box around them. Once annotations are selected, you can also move or resize them while in this mode. This is also the only mode that allows you to press and release to bring up a popup menu.
	This selects the draw mode, which allows for multiple draw types including freeform, line, rectange, and circle. There are number of options specific to the draw mode that will be covered later.
	This selects the highlight mode, which allows you to draw a transparent color on top of your score. You can change the highlighter color if desired, as well as the transparency level.
	This selects the textbox mode, which allows you to type text on the screen in a fashion similar to products like Powerpoint. The textbox that is created can also be filled and given a border.
	This selects the stamp mode, allowing you to drop various music symbols on top of your score. At some point soon, custom user-provided stamps will be supported.
	This selects the eyedropper, which allows you to select a color from the bitmap or any of the annotations. The foreground color will be set to whatever you tap.
	This selects the eraser mode. This will either erase part of a drawing, or an entire annotation, depending on the size of the box you draw.

Before more detail is provided on each of the control modes, a basic overview of the various parts of the layout will be given.

Layout Overview

When the annotation editor is first loaded, the only visible controls are at the top of the screen (the title bar), and the bottom of the screen (the settings window). There are actually several other windows that can be displayed. First, there is a menu button at the top left that, when pressed, will show additional options. These options include the following:

Show Groups – This option shows or hides the group window at the top left of the screen. This window allows you to manage your groups of annotations per page and also provides a convenient way to delete multiple annotations at once.

Show Toolbox – This option shows or hides the toolbox window which displays directly underneath the group window by default. Once visible, you can move this window to your desired location. The toolbox provides convenient access to all of the control modes as well as arrow buttons that can move your annotations for precise placement.

Show Settings – This option shows or hides the options shown at the bottom of the screen for controlling things such as line width and text size.

Stylus Mode – Enables or disables stylus mode. Stylus mode ensures that only stylus touch motions are processed (except for pinch zoom and pan, which are still allowed). Note: This is only supported for tablets with a “smart” stylus, such as the Galaxy Note 10.1.

In addition to the windows described, there are also three popup windows that can be shown by tapping the buttons in the settings window at the bottom of the screen. These popup windows will be explained later in the section that describes the various settings for the control modes. Before that, the concept of groups must be explained.

Groups

In the annotations editor, each page can have one or more groups. Each group is a set of annotations that you have placed on the score. The main use for groups is to quickly switch between lyrics that are displayed on a score. You can play through the song once with the first group displayed, and then when the song repeats, you can switch to the next group which displays the lyrics for the second verse. If at any point you need the ability to toggle between the list of annotations that are displayed on a given page, groups will provide that for you.

At the top left of the annotations editor, the group window is displayed (if it is enabled). It can be seen below:

Figure 29 - Group Window and Toolbox

As can be seen in the screenshot above, each annotation that has been placed on the score is shown in the group list. The dropdown in the group window displays “1”, which indicates that the first group is active. To switch to a different group, tap this dropdown, and select a different number. To add a new group, tap the add group button . To delete the current group (and all annotations under it), tap the delete button at the top right of the group window.

To switch between what annotations are selected, you can tap the annotations in the list. As each one is tapped, its selection value will be toggled, as can be seen by it being checked or unchecked. To quickly select all annotations, tap the select all button . Conversely, to deselect all annotations, tap the deselect all button . To delete all selected annotations, tap the delete button at the bottom right of the group window.

Control Mode Settings

At the bottom of the screen you will find the settings window. This window allows you to change the properties of your annotations, such as the line width, color, or text size. As you change the values in the settings window, any selected annotation will be modified to reflect your change. If you tap the line width, text size, or stamp size text fields, a popup window will be shown allowing you to quickly change the value. This popup window also shows a preview of what the new size will look like. You can also change these size values by tapping the minus and plus buttons in the settings window. To change color values, you can tap the dropdown to select commonly used colors, or tap the colored rectangle next to the dropdown to select a custom color. To return to your last used custom color, select this option from the dropdown. You can also use the eyedropper to select a different color from the score or existing annotations.

Drawing Modes

When the control mode is set to draw , you will be able to draw on top of the page. What is drawn is determined by the active draw mode. The following draw modes are supported in the annotation editor:

	Freeform drawing mode. Whatever motion your finger makes will be drawn on the score.
	Rectangle drawing mode. A rectangle will be drawn based on the point you first press down on, and the point where you pick your finger up.
	Circle drawing mode. A circle will be drawn from the point you press down on with a radius determined by where you pick your finger up.
	Line drawing mode. A line will be drawn from the point you first press down on to the point where you pick your finger up.

For drawing, various settings will take effect depending on the draw mode. Line width affects all draw modes, and determines the thickness of lines that are drawn. Color also affects all draw modes, and determines what color the lines will be. Fill color only affects rectangles and circles, and determines what color will be inside the shape. Some of the settings are only shown if the popup window button is pressed. These settings can be seen below:

Figure 30 - Additional Draw Options

The pen type dropdown contains several options that affect the style of the lines that are drawn. The following pen types are supported:

	Default pen mode. Each stroke ends with the path and does not project beyond it.
	Round pen mode. Strokes end with a semi-circle.
	Square pen mode. Strokes end with a square shape.
	Dashed pen mode. Strokes are drawn as dashed segments.

The pen alpha determines the transparency of each drawing. Select a lower value to be more transparent, and a higher value to be less transparent. The “Connect Lines While Drawing” checkbox can be used in conjunction with the Line Drawing Mode to connect all of the lines that draw. While in this mode, switch control modes to end the line. The “Snap to Grid” option will ensure that all touch actions are snapped to the nearest grid point. When used with the Line Drawing Mode, this provides an easy way to draw perfectly straight lines. It also provides an easy way to line up annotations. To see the grid lines, check the “Show Grid” option. To change the size of each cell in the grid, change the value of the “Grid Cell Size” slider.

To edit an existing freeform drawing, press and hold on the freeform object to bring up a popup menu, and select the edit option.

Textboxes

When the control mode is set to text , you can add printed text to the score. To add a new textbox, draw a rectangle on the score where you want the text to be positioned. By default, the height of the box will be auto-sized to perfectly fit the text. If this is not desired, the auto-size feature can be disabled (will be discussed below). Once a textbox is drawn, a popup window will be shown that allows you to type text to be put in your textbox. You can also change properties of the textbox through this window. Text properties changed in the popup window only affect the currently selected textbox, whereas values changed in the settings window at the bottom of the screen affect all selected textboxes. The popup can be seen in the screenshot below:

Figure 31 - Adding a Textbox

As you change text in the popup window, you will see the change reflected on your score. You can also change the font, text size, text alignment, and whether the text is bold or italicized. If you tap the expand button , additional settings will be shown that can be seen below:

Figure 32 - Additional Text Settings

In the additional settings, you can change the text color, the fill color, whether a border is shown, the border size and border color.

In the settings window at the bottom, additional options can be shown. These are as follows:

Figure 33 - Additional Options for Text

They are almost identical to the extra settings described previously, with the exception of the opacity and the “Auto-size Textbox” option. The opacity determines the transparency of the textbox. A higher value indicates less transparency, while a lower value indicates more transparency. The “Auto-size Textbox” option determines if the height of the textbox is automatically determined based on the text. If you disable this option, text boxes will still be resized as needed in order to fit all of the text you enter, but you will be able to make the height as large as you want.

Stamps

When the control mode is set to stamp , you have the option to drop various images on top of the score. At the moment, the only supported stamps are the ones included with MobileSheets. A later update will add support for user-provided stamps. To change the selected stamp, tap the stamp dropdown at the far right of the settings window at the bottom of the screen. A large list of stamps will be displayed. Tap the stamp you wish to add and then tap on your score to place this stamp. To change the size of the stamp, change the stamp size value in the settings window. Currently, there is no way to change the type of a stamp on the score – you must delete it, and replace it with a different one.

Moving and Resizing Annotations

In order to move or resize an annotation, the selection mode must be active by pressing the at the top of the screen. To move an annotation, press your finger on an annotation and then slide it to the new position. To move multiple annotations at once, select multiple annotations first, then drag one of the annotations to a new position, and the other selected annotations will move by the same amount. To resize one or more annotations, selected the annotations to be resized, and then select one of the resize handles (the small circles), and move your finger to change the size.

Copying ANnotations

To copy an annotation, the selection modemust first be selected at the top of the screen. Then, press and hold on the target annotation to bring up a popup menu. Select the copy option. To paste this, press and hold on the score to bring up a popup menu, and select the paste option.

Toggling Groups and Annotations in the Image Overlay

While viewing your score, you can toggle off annotations by pressing the show annotations button at the top of the image overlay. You can switch between groups by tapping the top left and right corners of the screen.

Settings and Options

While the default settings for MobileSheets will be fine for most users, everyone likes to operate a little differently. That’s why MobileSheets provides the ability to change various settings that impact how the application operates. To access the settings screen, either tap the option button at the bottom of the main library screen, or the button at the bottom right of the image overlay. This will take you to the Options screen which you can see below.

34 - The MobileSheets Settings Screen

While most settings are self-explanatory, some may not be completely clear upon reading the description. For this reason, all of the settings will be described in detail below:

1. About

· Version – Displays the current version of MobileSheets

· Email Zubersoft Support – Displays a dialog that allows you to send an email to the Zubersoft support email address. This dialog will be pre-populated with information about your tablet.

2. Backup, Restore, Import

· Set Removable Storage Location

o Used to specify the location of your tablet’s removable storage. If you do not enter your removable storage location, it will not be possible to backup songs saved to removable storage, and the companion app will not be able to save songs to removable storage. Some devices may not have removable storage. Removable storage is explained in more detail in the section on tablet storage.

· Backup Library

o Launches a dialog that will allow you initiate a backup of your entire library. The backup will contain all of the song metadata (stored in a database file) along with all of your PDFs, images, and audio files. While viewing this dialog, tap the folder icon to set the destination for the backup file. If for some reason you don’t want the backup to include your PDFs and image files, you can uncheck the options to back up files on your SD card and removable storage. It should be noted that private audio files are saved into the backup file, while audio files attached from outside MobileSheets are currently not included. Once the backup is initiated, it may take a while to backup all of your PDF and image files. The larger your library is, the longer this process will take. You can also initiate a backup from the companion app.

· Restore Library from Backup

o Launches a dialog that allows you to load a library backup file. Library backup files typically contain a database with song metadata, PDF image/files and audio files. Your existing library will be overwritten, so only perform this operation if you are confident that you won’t lose anything important. Once a backup file has been chosen, you must decide where you want the files to be restored to. If you select “Original File Location”, the song file paths that were used with the backup will be left intact. If you are restoring a backup file to a different tablet than the one the backup came from, selecting this option is not advised. Some tablets use different storage locations for things, so this could cause many songs to fail to load. If you select one of the different storage locations, all of the files will be placed in that location. For more information on storage locations, see the section on tablet storage. Before starting the restore, decide if you want to clear files on your internal storage and SD card. This option is typically recommended, as there is usually no point in keeping around files that might no longer be used. Once you start the restore, it may take a while as files are extracted and created on disk.

· Batch Import

o Loads the batch import dialog, which can be used to add a large number of songs to your library at once. See the section on batch importing for more information.

· Use Large Letters For Alphabet Jump

o Sets a larger font size for the alphabet list on the right side of the library screen. All letters may not be visible if this option is selected, in which case you will need to scroll the list to access them.

· Display Only Song Titles

o Determines how songs are displayed on the library screen. If selected, only song titles will be shown when viewing the list of songs in your library. If this option is not selected, each song will display its title as well as “Album – Artist” below the title. This is useful for displaying more songs at once on smaller tablets.

· Show Custom field with song titles

o If selected, each song with an entry in its custom field will append the custom field value to its title on the library screen (“Title – Custom field”)

· Use Simple Buttons

o Hides the button icons at the bottom of the library screen, effectively shrinking the button size (text is still displayed). This allows more song titles to be displayed.

· Alternate Row Colors

o Provides alternating row colors for the library screen lists. Options include: none, light gray, gray or dark gray.

· Dim the Status Bar

o If running Honeycomb or later, the status bar will be dimmed (otherwise this has no effect.)

· Display Half Page in Landscape

o Displays half a page in landscape and allows scrolling the page up and down.

· Night Mode

o Inverts black and white to help in dark environments (decreases the amount of light coming from the device reflecting on your face.)

Half-Page Turns In Landscape Mode

o Advances half a page at a time while in Landscape Mode. Vertical scrolling is disabled while this mode is active.

· Overlay Toggle Mode

o Determines what action displays the image overlay. Choices include: single tap, long press or swipe up and down. (A single tap will always close it.)

· Performance Mode

o When checked, the overlay is completely disabled. This is useful for live performance. Additionally, tapping anywhere but the left side of the screen will turn to the next page.

· Background Image Color

o Determines what color is used to fill the margins surrounding scores displayed in MobileSheets. Choices include black and white (black is the default). This also acts as the background color for transparent images. If you are using transparent images, setting the background to white will allow you to see your sheet music normally.

· Only Display Track Filenames

o Determines whether audio tracks will be displayed using both their artist and title, or just the filename of the track.

· Link Point Radius

o Provides control over the size of link points. This increases both their size on the screen, and the hit detection area.

Show Preview During Page Seek

o Enables/disables the mini-preview window that appears while using the page slider to change pages. Disabling can improve performance while using the slider with PDFs.

· Show Page Turns

o Enables/disables the blue line that is visible on the screen edges indicating user initiated page turns.

· Always Show the Page Slider

o Determines if the page slider is always visible at the bottom of the screen while viewing a song.

· Always Show the Title Bar

o Determines if the information bar is always visible at the top of the screen while viewing a song.

· Always Show the Pull-out Window

o Determines if the slide-out window is always shown.

3. Bluetooth Pedal

· Disable Pedal While Viewing Library

o Determines if Bluetooth (if supported on the device) is automatically disabled so that the virtual keyboard still works while a Bluetooth device is connected. This is highly recommended if you plan on using a Bluetooth pedal and still want to be able to enter text.

· Bluetooth Pedal Mode

o Various pedal options are available to provide different modes of operation for Bluetooth pedals. Choose the option that fits your needs best.

§ Previous page, next page – This is the default pedal mode. The left pedal goes to the previous page while the right pedal goes to the next page.

§ Scroll page down, next page – The left pedal will scroll the current page down while the right pedal will jump to the next page.

§ Activate link point, next page – The left pedal will activate the first link point found on the current page, while the right pedal will jump to the next page.

§ Manual smooth scroll/turn page at end – Pressing the left pedal will scroll a page up as long as you press the pedal. When you reach the top of the page, pressing the left pedal again will turn to the previous page. Similarly, pressing the right pedal will scroll down, and when you reach the end, pressing again will turn the page.

§ Fixed length smooth scroll/turn page at end – Pressing the left pedal will scroll up a fixed length. Pressing the left pedal again at the top of a page will go the previous page. Similarly, pressing the right pedal will scroll a fixed length down. Pressing again at the bottom of the page will go to the next page.

§ Fixed length instant scroll/turn page at end - Same as the previous option except that the scrolling happens instantly.

§ Intelligent smooth scroll/turn page at end - MobileSheets will attempt to scroll the score so that no staffs are cut off. This works best with sheet music, as it was designed for that. Pressing the left pedal scrolls up, pressing the right pedal scrolls down.

§ Intelligent instant scroll/turn page at end – Same as the previous option except that scrolling happens instantly.

§ Iterate through previous links/next links – This is the most complex mode currently in MobileSheets. A counter is kept that keeps track of what the current link point is. Pressing the right pedal will do one of two things. If the current link start point is on the page, it will jump to the end of that link point and increase the counter by one so that the next link start point will be identified. If the current link start point is not on the page, the right pedal will just turn the page. The left pedal works in a similar fashion. If the end point of the previous link point is on the current page, you will jump to the page of the last link start point, and the counter will be decreased. Otherwise, the left pedal will just turn to the previous page.

· Debounce mode

o Ensures that only one pedal command is processed per allowed timeout. The options include: Disabled, Quarter Second, Half Second, One Second, Two Seconds.

4. Song Metadata and Loading

· Source Type Default

o Determines what the default selection is for source type in the Song Editor.

· Custom field default

o Sets the default value for the custom field in the Song Editor.

· Artist Default

o Sets the default value for the artist field in the Song Editor.

· Album Default

o Sets the default value for the album field in the Song Editor.

· Genre Default

o Sets the default selection for the genre field in the Song Editor.

· Key Default

o Sets the default value for the key field on the song editor screen.

· Difficulty Default

o Sets the default value for the difficulty field on the song editor screen.

· Automatically Reload Last Viewed Page

o If set, when a song is clicked on the library screen, the last viewed page of the song will be loaded.

· Initial Library Screen

o Determines which filter screen is applied automatically when the library screen is first loaded.

· Always Skip to All Albums for Artists

o If checked, will automatically show “All Albums” when an artist is selected.

5. Annotations

· Auto-save When Switching Pages

o If checked, changes to annotations will automatically be saved when changing pages.

6. Miscellaneous Settings

· Prompt before exit

o If the back button is tapped to exit MobileSheets, a confirmation is required before the app will be exited

· Disable bottom screen media control

o Disables the ability to bring up the media player by tapping the bottom center of the screen in the image viewer.

· Show number keyboard first

o Defaults to showing the number section of the keyboard first. Some tablets show numbers and letters together by default, so this setting may have no effect.

· PDF renderer memory usage

o Used to change the amount of memory the PDF renderer uses per loaded PDF. Some tablets can't handle more than about 32 or 64 MB (tablets running Gingerbread or Froyo, for example). Newer tablets can handle 128 or 256MB without issue. If you get an “Out of Memory” error while loading a song, then you need to lower this setting. (Obviously this only applies to songs created from PDFs.)

Import into MobileSheets

While methods have already been discussed for how to create songs using files on the tablet, MobileSheets also has support for directly importing image or PDF files on your tablet while using file managers. If you download a file off the web, and try to load that file, you will see an option to “Import into MobileSheets”. Clicking this option will load up the Song Editor dialog with the selected file already added to the new song. The import option is shown in the following picture:

35 - Importing Directly Into MobileSheets

Troubleshooting

Problem	Resolution
I am unable to connect my tablet to my PC.	Verify that both your tablet and PC are connected to the same network. If problems persist, disconnect both the tablet and pc before reattempting to connect. Then, ensure that you toggle your tablet wifi off, and then back on again. If you are still unable to connect, you may have a firewall that is blocking either the multicast traffic that is used by the PC to identify the tablet, or the TCP/IP connection that directly connects the tablet to the PC. If you have a firewall (often included in virus scanner software), you have to allow ports 16568 and 16569 for MobileSheets.
The page slider is sluggish while change pages	The page slider is slowed down a little bit while the preview window is rendering images. You can disable the preview window if you want the slider to be more responsive.
MobileSheetsFree says I can only add 8 songs, 2 bookmarks, and 2 link points. What gives?!	The free version of MobileSheets is fully functional, but limits your library size, bookmarks and link points. This is done in order to provide future support and enhancements for MobileSheets, as users need some incentive to upgrade to the paid version.
I am unable to use the voice-based searching feature	This feature requires an active internet connection and voice input capabilities on your tablet. If you know your tablet has voice input capabilities, please connect to a wireless network and try again.
I made changes to my setlist in the image overlay, and the changes are gone the next time I load the setlist.	If you make changes to a setlist in the image overlay, you must click the save button in order to make those changes permanent. This allows you to make temporary modifications on the fly without messing up established setlists.
I try to load my setlist, but only one song is loaded.	To load all of the songs in a setlist, you must either click the “Load All” option at the top of the list in the library, or press and hold on the setlist and select one of the load options.

If you have a question that hasn’t been answered yet or you have a feature request, please visit the forums at http://www.zubersoft.com/mobilesheets/forum/ or send a message directly to my email at http://www.zubersoft.com/mobilesheets/support.html. You can also send emails to support@zubersoft.com. If you would like to formally submit a bug or enhancement, these are now being tracked at http://www.zubersoft.com/mobilesheets/issues.