MobileSheetsPro PDF
MobileSheetsPro PDF
MobileSheetsPro PDF
User Guide
Version 1.1.4
MobileSheetsPro Version 2.7.7
©2015-2019 Zubersoft
CONTENTS
Introduction ............................................................................................................................... 1
Getting Started........................................................................................................................... 1
Library Management.................................................................................................................. 6
Filtering .................................................................................................................................. 7
Printing .................................................................................................................................21
File Management .....................................................................................................................23
Deleting Songs......................................................................................................................42
Group Management.................................................................................................................61
Transposing ......................................................................................................................98
Groups ................................................................................................................................113
Textboxes ...........................................................................................................................116
Stamps................................................................................................................................117
About..................................................................................................................................141
Storage ...............................................................................................................................141
Import Settings...................................................................................................................146
Library Backup....................................................................................................................161
FAQ.........................................................................................................................................164
Troubleshooting .....................................................................................................................165
INTRODUCTION
Welcome to MobileSheetsPro, the premier sheet music reader for the Android platform.
This user guide will help you get the most out of MobileSheetsPro by providing detailed
explanations of every screen and feature. While it’s recommended that every user read this
documentation in full, the most basic information needed to get started with
MobileSheetsPro is covered in the next section. As you will soon find, MobileSheetsPro has
a vast number of features and options, so you will most likely find yourself coming back to
this document once you have some experience with the application. The table of contents
at the top will help you skip right to the section you need, as well as the index at the end.
GETTING STARTED
This section is going to briefly cover the essential features you need to know about to start
viewing songs in your library. Later sections will cover the various parts of the application in
detail.
If you are upgrading from the original MobileSheets and want to transfer your library over
to MobileSheetsPro, the process is very simple. The first step is to generate a library backup
using the original MobileSheets. To do this, access the settings screen by tapping the
Options button at the bottom of the library screen. Then, tap on the “Utilities” section
followed by the “Backup Library” option. Backing up your library in MobileSheets is basically
the same as the process for MobileSheetsPro. Once you have generated a .msb file, load
MobileSheetsPro and use the library restore feature under Settings->Backup and Restore-
>Restore Library from Backup to restore your library from that backup file. After the restore
finishes, you will have access to your entire library of songs, including all annotations,
bookmarks, link points, and files. If your tablet has a limited amount of storage space and
you aren’t able to generate a backup file due to the size of your library, you can use the
original MobileSheets companion app to back up the MobileSheets library and the newer
MobileSheetsPro companion app to perform the library restore.
If this is your first time loading up MobileSheetsPro, your library will be empty and a help
window will be displayed linking to this manual. Once that window is closed, a prompt will
be displayed asking if you want MobileSheetsPro to manage your imported files. This is an
important setting, as it determines whether MobileSheetsPro will copy imported files into a
storage location it manages, or if it will use files from the locations you specify. It is normally
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recommended to select “Yes” to let MobileSheetsPro manage your files, but if you have
directories already set up with your files organized as you like, select “No”. This setting can
always be changed later under Settings->Storage. For more information on this, see the
section on storage.
Once the prompts are gone, you will see the main library screen. The image below shows
this screen with numbered boxes corresponding to the areas of the screen you will interact
with when creating and loading songs.
1. Library tabs – These tabs let you switch between the various lists of data in your
library. For this introduction, the only tab that will be used is the songs tab. For more
information on the various tabs and their ordering, see the library management
section or the section on configuring tabs.
2. Import – Provides a list of different options for importing files. For now, we will focus
on the “Local File” option. Importing files using any of the options listed is the fastest
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way to create songs, but you will not be able to enter detailed information or setup
audio and MIDI. See the sections on importing and batch importing for more details.
3. Active List - Displays all items that correspond to the selected tab that match the
current filters. If the list is currently displaying songs, tapping on an entry in the list
will load that song.
Now that you are familiar with the basic layout of the library screen, the next step is to
create a song by importing a file.
IMPORTING A FILE
For this example, an Android tablet will be used with a computer running Windows 10.
When the tablet is plugged in to the PC using a USB cable, an option will be presented in
Windows to start viewing the files on the device. This will show a Windows Explorer window
with “Internal Storage”. Double-clicking this will show the list of folders. Create a new folder
called “mspro”. Drag & drop a PDF from your PC to this folder.
Now switch to your tablet. Tap the “Import” button at the top right and then tap “Local
File”. This will take you to the MobileSheetsPro file browser, which shows all of the files and
folders on your tablet. Next, tap on the “mspro” folder you created earlier. You should see
your PDF in this folder. Tap on it to select it and then tap the “OK” button at the bottom of
the screen. You will now see an “Import Settings” dialog. Uncheck the “Automatically crop
pages” checkbox if you don’t want MobileSheetsPro to crop your document (you can always
change the cropping later as the original file is not modified) and then tap “OK” to finish.
Your new song will be visible in the songs list.
Tap on the new song in the list to load it. The library screen will slide over and the PDF will
be shown. To turn pages, tap the left or right sides of the screen. To access the overlay, tap
the center of the screen. A quick overview of important features will be described below.
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Figure 2 - The song overlay
1. Page slider – This slider will let you preview and jump to any page in the song. You
can also tap the numbers on the right side to enter a specific page.
2. Display mode button – Tapping this button will display a dialog with options for
configuring the display mode and other related display settings. The default display
mode to use for all songs for the current tablet orientation will be displayed at the
top. You can change the mode for the current able tablet orientation by selecting a
new value from the dropdown. The following display modes are supported:
a. Single Page – Shows one page at a time, and scrolls pages horizontally.
b. Two Pages – Displays two pages side-by-side. When selected, an additional
icon with a “1” will be shown at the bottom left of the overlay. This lets you
control how many pages are advanced at a time. This mode is only available
in landscape orientation.
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c. Half Page – Pages advance half a page at a time. This provides a way to
preview the top of the next page while playing through the bottom of the
current page.
d. Vertical Scrolling – Pages are scrolled up and down, and tapping on the sides
scrolls the next section into view.
3. Page Scaling Button – Displays a dialog with options that determine how the current
page is stretched to fill the screen. By default, the “Fit Screen” option will ensure
pages are made as large as possible without changing the aspect ratio (the image will
not be distorted). If you choose one of the other options, the page will be stretched
to fit the screen as specified.
You now know the basics for song creation and how to view a song. This barely scratches
the surface of what MobileSheetsPro has to offer though, so continue reading to learn
about the other great features that are available.
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LIBRARY MANAGEMENT
In order to get the most out of your library, it is important to understand what songs are,
how they are organized and grouped, and the fastest ways to find the songs you want. This
section will focus on the library screen and the various supported tabs that help you
organize your library.
To start, a song is composed of one or more files (images, PDF, text, or chord pro), metadata
(title, artists, albums, etc.), audio tracks, and MIDI commands. Other than having a title and
a file, everything else is optional. Songs can be grouped by attributes such as artists,
composers, albums, genres, etc, as well as setlists (ordered lists) and collections (used for
quick filtering). The same song can show up in many different groups – there is no limit. The
more details you add to songs, the more options there are for filtering and quickly locating
them. By default, the library has the following tabs at the top:
These are the most commonly used tabs, but there are other supported tabs as well, such as
composers, keys, and bookmarks. To learn about selecting which tabs to display and their
order, consult the section on configuring tabs. The different types of tabs will be explained
below, as well as the data they hold.
• Recent – Displays a list of all songs and setlists that been recently created and/or
loaded. This lets you easily keep track of what songs and setlists you have recently
accessed, and also provides a mechanism to let you quickly load any of those items if
you wish to play them again. Tapping on any entry in this list immediately loads that
song or setlist.
• Songs – Displays all songs in the library. By default, songs are sorted alphabetically
and split up by the letter they start with (sorting and filtering will be discussed later).
Filtering can be used to quickly find songs in this list, as well as the alphabet list.
• Setlists – Displays all setlists in the library. A setlist is an ordered list of songs. When
a setlist is loaded, all songs are loaded at once, which lets you easily page between
those songs without interruption. This is perfect for performances where you know
the order of the songs you will be playing and want them all accessible at once.
• Collections – Displays all collections in the library. A collection is a list of songs that is
primarily used for filtering purposes, but like other group types, can also be used just
to organize lists of songs. Collections can be used to divide the library based on the
types of songs you want visible. For example, if you play in multiple bands,
collections can be used to create mini-libraries only containing songs that pertain to
each band. This lets you switch what songs are listed with a couple taps. Filtering by
collections will be covered in the section on filtering.
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• Artists/Albums/Genres/Composers/Source Types/Keys/Signatures/Years – All of
these tabs are used to group songs based on a particular field. Songs can be
associated with one or more of each of these types. For example, a song can be
associated with multiple artists if needed or no artists if that field isn’t populated in
the song. Tapping on an entry in one of these lists will view the list of songs
associated with that entry. Tapping on “Load All” will load all songs for viewing at
once, whereas tapping an individual entry will load just that song.
• Custom Group – This is a unique tab as it can be named whatever you want. For
example, if you want to group songs by instrument, you can change the custom
group name to “Instruments” in the settings and this will tab will then read
“Instruments”. Besides the custom name, this tab behaves exactly like all other song
groups listed above.
• Bookmarks – This tab shows all bookmarks that have been created and made visible
on the library screen. Tapping on a bookmark will load the song that owns that
bookmark, and will jump to the bookmarked page. More details about bookmarks
can be found in the bookmarks section.
MobileSheetsPro lets you enter as much or as little information as you desire for each song.
This flexibility lets each user determine what information is critical for organizing their
library. What is really important is the ability to quickly locate any song when needed. The
next section will cover the various supported methods of filtering and locating songs.
FILTERING
At the top of the library screen, the following row of controls can be seen:
This collection of controls provides a number of different ways to filter the current list of
entries on the library screen. The various filter fields are explained below:
• Search: The search field can be used to filter the list so that only entries that match
the search phrase will be shown. The default search type is “All Fields”, which means
that the search phrase is compared against every field of every song. This means that
if you type “abc”, a song whose title contains “abc” will be shown as well as another
song whose artist is “abc”. If you select a specific field to search against, such as
“Album”, then only that field will be considered when matches are found. When
viewing group types, the search text is compared against both the group and all of its
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songs to ensure that it either has a matching title or contains at least one song that
matches.
• Source: Filters on one or more matching source types.
• Key: Filters on one or more matching keys
• Collection: Applies a filter based on collection.
• Diff: Filters on difficulty. Only songs with a matching difficulty will be shown.
• Genre: Filters on one or more matching genres.
• Rating: Filters on rating. Only songs with a matching rating will be shown.
• : Displays a menu to save or manage the current filters. If “Save” is selected and
filters were not previously saved or loaded, a prompt is displayed to name the new
filters. Otherwise the previously saved or loaded filters will be updated. If “Save as”
is selected, a prompt is displayed for a name. If the name matches an existing filter,
it will be updated, otherwise a new entry is created. If “Manage Filters” is tapped, a
dialog will be displayed where saved filters can be deleted by tapping on the “X”
next to their name.
• : Displays a list of saved filters. Tapping on an entry will load those filters.
• : Initiates a voice search. Any entries that match the spoken words will be shown
in a popup window. Tap on one of the entries to accept that selection (equivalent to
tapping on that entry in the list). Tap outside the window to cancel the voice search.
For all group filter fields, four different filter modes are supported – Include, Exclude,
Unassigned and Assigned. These types are explained below:
• Include - Every song must be included in one of the selected groups to be shown.
• Exclude – Songs are only shown if they have not been added to any of the selected
groups.
• Unassigned – Only songs that have not been added to a group of the given type are
shown.
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• Assigned – Only songs that have been added to a group of the given type are shown.
ALPHABET LIST
In addition to the filters described above, another import tool is the alphabet list. At the
right side of every list on the library screen is a list of letters. This list is referred to as the
“alphabet list” and is composed of letters that entries in the list start with. Tapping on any
of these letters will scroll items starting with that letter into view. Tapping on the ‘?’ in the
alphabet list will select a random item from those in the list. If a filter is applied to the list,
reducing the number of items, the characters in the alphabet list will change to reflect the
items in the filtered list.
One useful feature of the alphabet list is the ability to match on multiple characters at the
start of song titles. To do this, long press a letter in the alphabet list and a second list of
letters will be displayed. This second list is composed of all of the second letters of words
that started with the first letter. You can tap any of those letters to be taken to the first
word that starts with those two letters, or you can long press one of those to be shown the
third letter of every word that started with those two letters. In this way, you can drill down
to find a specific group of words very quickly by long pressing. For example, if a song title
started with the word “Lucky”, you could long press “L” followed by “U” and then tap “C” to
be taken straight to that section. In most cases, the second letter is all that is required to
find the desired song.
Now that you have the necessary tools to filter entries, the actions that can be taken on
those entries will be covered.
At the top of the library screen you will see a row of icons and text with a blue background.
This section is known as the action bar. The action bar reflects what actions are available for
the current tab and, if items are selected in that tab’s list, what actions can be performed on
those items. If you long press an item in any list on the library screen, it will start the multi-
selection mode, which puts checkboxes next to the items to show which ones are selected.
When this occurs, the action bar will display different actions that can be performed on
these items. For the songs tab, this would include actions like “Copy Song” or “Edit Song”.
To exit multi-selection mode without performing any actions, hit the tablet back button or
tap the checkmark at the left side of the action bar. If an action cannot fit at the top of the
screen or is not a frequently used action, it will show up in the overflow menu, which is
accessible through the icon at the top right of the screen. Tap this icon to see additional
commands in a dropdown menu.
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While there are a large number of actions spread across the tabs, most of the actions are
the same for tabs of the same type (i.e. groups like artists and albums). Common actions for
songs, groups and setlists will be covered below, as well as actions that are specific to
certain tabs.
• New – Creates a new instance of whatever type is specified by the selected tab. If
the Songs or Recent tab is selected, tapping this action will display the song editor
screen, which is used to create a new song. If you are on another tab such as Setlists,
Artists or Albums, tapping this action will create a new group of the selected type
and take you to the group editor.
• Import – Provides a number of different ways to quickly create songs from files.
While this is the fastest way to create songs, most of the options will create songs
without metadata, audio files or MIDI commands. These fields would need to be
added by editing the songs in the song editor. The import action supports importing
from the local tablet SD card, Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive and external
applications. There is also a batch import feature that can import all files from a
selected directory and sub-directories, and a batch audio import feature for creating
blank songs from audio files. Lastly, a CSV and PDF bookmark import feature is
available to split up large PDFs into a list of songs with relative ease. All of these
options are covered in more detail in the import section. If the import action is used
on a group tab such as setlists or collections with an active group (meaning you are
viewing the list of songs under that group), any new songs will be added to the
active group. This can be used to import new songs directly into an existing group.
• Add Placeholder – Creates a new song with a single blank page in it. This can be used
to create and prepare a song that will later contain a real file instead of blank pages.
• Connect Tablets – Allows multiple devices to be connected using wifi or bluetooth.
The master device can load songs and setlists, and turn pages on the slave devices.
See the section on connecting devices for more information.
• Connect to PC – Initiates a connection to the MobileSheetsPro Companion App. The
companion app can be used to manage the tablet library on a Windows PC.
• Sync to Library – Synchronizes the current device to another device, a cloud folder
or a backup file. See the section on synchronizing device libraries for more
information.
• Manual – Downloads the latest version of the manual (if necessary) and opens it
inside MobileSheetsPro.
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• Settings – Enters the settings screen for MobileSheetsPro. These settings can help
you get the most out of MobileSheetsPro by changing the behavior of the
application.
• Edit – If no group has been tapped (meaning the list of groups is displayed), tapping
this action will enter the group editor for the currently selected tab. If a group has
been tapped (meaning the group’s songs are displayed), tapping this action will edit
the selected group.
• Sort – When viewing the list of groups on a given tab, you can sort the list by “A-Z’,
“Date Created” and “Date Modified”. When a group is tapped to view its songs, you
can also sort the list of songs inside the group. The song sorting options include
“Manual”, “A-Z”, “Shuffle”, “Date Created” and “Date Modified”. Manual sorting
means that the order of the songs is user specified, A-Z sorting means that songs are
ordered alphabetically and shuffle randomly orders songs. The sorting selection is
saved per group. When MobileSheetsPro is exited, the order of a shuffled group will
change the next time the application is loaded.
a. Reshuffle – If the sort mode is currently “Shuffle”, this will reshuffle the list.
• Recent Tab
a. Clear List – Clears all of the recent entries from the list.
• Songs Tab
a. Sort – Changes the way songs are sorted in the tab. The selections include “A-
Z”, “Date Created” and “Date Modified”, or the option to sort on one of the
song fields such as Custom. You can also toggle whether the sort is ascending
or descending (i.e. A-Z versus Z-A)
• Edit Song – Displays the song editor to begin editing the selected song.
• Copy Song – Creates a copy of the selected song in the song editor that can be
modified before adding it to the library. If copying a song that uses a text or chord
pro file, a dialog is displayed to let you choose whether to use the same file or copy
the contents into a new file.w
• Swap File – Swaps out one of the song’s files for another. The process for swapping a
file is covered in more detail in the section on file swapping.
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• View/Edit Notes – Displays a dialog containing notes entered for the given song.
These notes can also be viewed through a button on the song display screen.
• Load Start of Song – Loads the given song and starts at the first page. This is
normally the default behavior, but if the “Always Load Last Viewed Page” setting is
enabled, this is a quick way to load the first page of the song.
• Load Last Viewed Page - Loads the given song and displays the last page that was
viewed.
• Edit - Opens the batch edit dialog to change the metadata for multiple songs at once.
• Delete Song – Deletes the selected songs from the library and optionally deletes the
files associated with them. The songs will be removed from any groups that were
referencing them. More details can be found in the section on deleting songs.
• Share – Tapping this action will display a list of supported ways to share or export
the selected songs. This list will include any external apps that support sharing as
well as options like Bluetooth or “Copy to Clipboard”. More details can be found in
the sections on sharing songs, .msf files and exporting songs and setlists.
• Add to Setlist – Provides a list of setlists to choose from and adds all selected songs
to the selected setlist.
• Remove from Setlist – Provides a list of setlists to choose from and removes all
selected songs from the selected setlist.
• Add to Collection – Provides a list of collections to choose from and adds all selected
songs to the selected collection.
• Remove from Collection – Provides a list of collections to choose from and removes
all selected songs from the selected collection.
• Create Setlist From Songs – Creates a new setlist and adds the selected songs to it.
You must enter the name for the new setlist.
• Create Collection From Songs – Creates a new collection and adds the selected
songs to it. You must enter the name for the new collection.
• Print – Uses one of the installed print services on the device to print the selected
songs. See the section on printing for more information.
It should be noted that if you are viewing a group’s list of songs, and you select one or more
songs, you will see a “Remove” option at the top instead of “Delete Song”. This will remove
all selected songs from the currently viewed list. A “Delete Song from Library” action is
available at the end of the overlay menu instead if you wish to delete the song. Additionally,
all of the options from “Add to Setlist” and below are also available when viewing a group’s
list of songs without any selections. In this case, all of the group’s songs are used for the
action.
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ACTIONS FOR SELECTED GROUPS
• Delete – Deletes all selected groups. This does not delete the songs they contain – it
just updates those songs by removing their references to the groups.
• Share (Setlist only) – Displays options for sharing or exporting a selected setlist into
a .mss or .msf file. If one of the share options is selected, the resulting file can be
shared using the application you select. See the section on sharing songs and setlists
for more details. If one of the export options is selected, it will write the selected
setlist into a .mss or .msf file stored on the tablet’s SD card. See the section on
exporting songs and setlists for more details.
• Add Songs to Setlist – Adds all of the selected group’s songs to a given setlist.
• Add Songs to Collection – Adds all of the selected group’s songs to a given
collection.
• Remove Songs from Setlist – Removes all of the selected group’s songs from a given
setlist.
• Remove Songs from Collection – Removes all of the selected group’s songs from a
given collection.
• Create Setlist from Songs – Creates a new setlist from the songs of the selected
groups.
• Create Collection from Songs – Creates a new collection from the songs of the
selected groups.
Setlist Tab:
• Generate Song List – Sends the setlist’s list of songs (as text) to the program you
select. Unlike the main sharing feature that generates files to be shared, this feature
just generates a list of song titles that can be placed into an email or written to a
document. The format of the title that is used for each song can be controlled
through the Generate Song List Format dialog.
• Load Start of Setlist – Loads the selected setlist at the first page of the first song.
• Load Last Viewed Page – Loads the selected setlist at the page that was last viewed
when the setlist was loaded.
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FLOATING TOOLBAR
At the bottom right corner of the library screen, a floating toolbar with icons can be seen.
The toolbar can be seen in figure 4 below:
• View Previous Button – If a group was selected in the list, and songs are being
displayed, tapping this button will go back to viewing the list of groups.
• Performance Mode – Tapping on the performance mode button will enable
performance mode and turn the button orange. In performance mode, most
features are disabled except for page turning and the quick action box. See the
section on the song display and performance mode for more details.
• Enable/Disable Filters – Tapping this button will show or hide the filters at the top of
the library screen.
• View Last Song – If a song was loaded, tapping this button will go from the library
screen back to the song display to continue viewing that song.
It should be noted that the toolbar can be hidden in the library settings if desired.
CONFIGURING TABS
Both the number of tabs shown and their order can be configured in MobileSheetsPro on
the settings screen. To access the tab order dialog, load the Settings through the action bar
overflow menu then tap on “Tab Order” item under “Library Settings”. The following dialog
will be displayed:
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Figure 5 - The Tab Order Dialog
The left list shows tabs that are currently visible on the library screen. The right list shows all
tabs that are currently not being shown. A tab can be added to the list by either tapping the
entry in the right list, or by dragging the tab name from the right list to the left list. Tabs can
be reordered by dragging the up/down arrow boxes in the left list up and down. Tabs that
are currently visible can be removed by tapping the “X” next to their name in the left list. To
accept changes to the tab ordering, tap the OK button at the bottom of the dialog.
In certain situations, it may be easier to have multiple independent libraries instead of using
a single library with filtering. To create a new library, go to Settings->Library Settings-
>Switch Library. The following screen will be displayed.
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Figure 6 - The switch library screen
To create a new library, tap the icon and then enter the name for the library. A
database file will be created for the library with the same name. The active library is shown
with a checkmark next to it. To switch libraries, tap the entry in the list and tap the “Set
Active” button. To rename a library, tap the icon, and to delete a library, tap the
icon.
Currently, all libraries use the same storage location for their files. This means that if you
use the same file in multiple libraries, you may encounter file conflicts. This may be desired
by some users as it eliminates redundant files that take up extra space for no gain. Others
may want to keep their files isolated. A future update will be added to allow each library to
have its own independent storage location.
When songs are displayed on the library screen, they normally show data from a couple of
fields, namely the title on the top row and “artists – albums” on the row below it (referred
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to as the caption). This formatting can be configured to include any fields you want in any
format you want. You can also hide the caption if you only want one row of text per song.
To change the song title formatting, go the Settings->Library Settings, and tap the “Song
Title Formatting” option. The following dialog will be displayed:
The title format text is set up so that any fields you want included have to be inside “%”
characters. Any text outside of those characters is shown normally. So, for example, you
could create a format such as %TITLE% - [%KEYS%] if you wanted to the title to show up as
something like, “New Song [Gb]”. If you don’t want the caption displayed below the title,
uncheck the “Show Caption” checkbox. The “Use formatted title for sorting” checkbox
determines whether a song’s original title is used for sorting or the formatted title chosen
on the dialog. This is very important if a field other than title is used at the beginning of the
title format. If either the “Title Format” or “Caption Format” fields are tapped, the following
dialog is displayed:
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Figure 8 - Title Format Dialog
This dialog provides an easier way to build a format string. You can tap the fields you want
displayed and the separators you want between them by tapping the appropriate buttons.
Tap the “…” button for a list of additional supported fields. An example output is shown to
give you an idea of what your format will look like on the library screen. Tap OK to accept
your changes to the format, and you will see the title format on the first dialog update to
reflect the changes.
If you want to have a song title format that can dynamically account for missing fields and
display different content depending upon conditions, you will want to take advantage of the
more advanced syntax that can be used. The basic pattern for the advanced syntax is shown
below:
FIELD can be any of the values shown in Figure 8, such as ARTISTS, ALBUMS, GENRES,
COMPOSERS or KEYS. The “text if field is not empty” section can be composed of any words
or symbols, other fields or a special ${VALUE} keyword that is used to insert the value of the
field listed by FIELD. For example, if the section was defined as “_${VALUE}_” and the field
value was “Bach”, then it would show up as “_Bach_”. Each field can contain multiple values
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though, and by default, these are separated by commas. If the field instead contained both
Bach and Chopin, it would be “_Bach, Chopin_”. The separator between multiple values can
be specified as part of the VALUE keyword by placing the separator after the word VALUE
but inside the braces. If instead of commas a slash should be used to separate values, the
following could be used: ${VALUE/}. It should be noted that you can use other fields (or
even complex conditional statements) inside of either the “text if field is not empty” or “text
if field is empty” sections. This would be done by specifying the field inside ${} as seen with
VALUE. If you wanted to show Key when ARTIST is defined, but Genre when it is not, you
could do the following:
%ARTISTS:${KEYS}|${GENRES}%
Furthermore, if you wanted to show keys when artist is defined, and if keys is not defined,
show signatures, you could do:
%ARTISTS:${KEYS:${VALUE}|${SIGNATURES}}|${GENRES}%
This demonstrates that you can nest complex statements if needed for very dynamic
behavior. It should be noted that the text if not empty statement is optional – if you only
want behavior when a field is not empty, you can use just the first section, i.e. $FIELD:[text if
not empty]|
A common scenario for using an advanced statement would be to hide a separator if the
first value is empty. For example, using the default %ARTISTS% - %ALBUMS%, if ARTISTS is
empty, a “ - “ will be shown before the albums, and if albums is also empty, only the dash
will be shown. This could be avoided with the following format string:
%ARTISTS:${VALUE} - %%ALBUMS%
With this format, a dash will still be present after artists even if albums is empty. This makes it
easy to tell which field is missing. If you would rather only ever show the separator when both
values are present, the following would be necessary:
%ARTISTS:${VALUE}${ALBUMS: - ${VALUE}}|${ALBUMS}%
While most users will not need to take advantage of the advanced syntax format, it provides
a powerful set of options for those that want complete control over the song formatting on
the library screen.
When a setlist is used to generate a song list, the way in which songs are printed in this list
can be controlled. Much like the song title format dialog, there is a dialog for the generate
song list formatting that determines what fields are included and in what format. The dialog
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can be accessed by going to the Settings->Library Settings->Generate Song List Format. The
dialog is shown below:
If you want the setlist title included with the list, check the “Show Group Title” checkbox. If
you want to modify the song title format, tap the text field next to “Title Format”. A Title
Format Dialog will be displayed (the same as used with the song title formatting). Tap OK to
accept the changes and return to the library screen.
A number of settings are available that can change the appearance and behavior of the
library screen. These include:
There is a comprehensive list of all of the settings with explanations in the library display
settings. It is highly recommended that users learn about the various settings that are
available.
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BATCH EDITING
If multiple songs are selected on the library screen and “Edit” is tapped, the batch edit
dialog will be displayed, as shown below. This dialog allows the metadata of multiple songs
to be modified at the same time. Fields that are different between the selected songs are
highlighted in red.
PRINTING
If a song is selected and the print option is selected from the action bar overflow menu, a
new print screen will be displayed. This can be seen in the screenshot below. This printing
support was added to the Android OS in version 5.0, so tablets running 4.4 (KitKat) will see
something different, but the selections are mostly the same. A print service can be selected
from the dropdown at the top left of the screen. This print service determines how the
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document is sent to the printer. Some print services support printing over ethernet while
others only support printing over the cloud. As printing options are changed at the top of
the screen, all of the pages will be re-rendered to display the effects of those changes.
Additional settings can be shown by tapping the down arrow at the center of the top
section. Once all selections have been made, printing can be completed by tapping the print
button at the top right.
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FILE MANAGEMENT
File storage and access is a very important, but somewhat complex, topic in
MobileSheetsPro. This section aims to cover the following in detail:
FILE STORAGE
The first thing that must be covered when discussing file storage is a setting titled, “Let
MobileSheets Manage My Files”. This setting can be found on the settings screen under the
Storage section. When this setting is checked, MobileSheetsPro will make copies of
imported files and place them into its storage directory. The storage directory can be
specified by tapping the “Set the MobileSheets Storage Location” setting. The dialog for
setting the storage location is displayed below:
Tapping the folder icon will display the file browser so that you may pick a folder to store
your library in. The file browser is explained in detail in the section on importing files.
Tapping the SD card icon will instruct MobileSheetsPro to cycle through any potential
removable SD cards on your device. Each path that is listed is a special application directory
that MobileSheetsPro has write access to without any additional actions. Tapping the SD
card multiple times will cycle through all available choices, where the last choice is the
default storage location on the internal tablet SD card. If MobileSheetsPro is unable to
identify your external SD card correctly, or you wish to use a custom folder on the external
SD card, then you will have to use the file browser to select the correct location.
When a new storage location is chosen, and “Let MobileSheets Manage My Files” is
checked, you will be asked to confirm the selection, as all files in the previous storage
location will be moved to the new one. While it is possible to uncheck the “Manage My
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Files” setting and then change the storage location, this is usually not recommended, as
MobileSheetsPro will no longer be able to properly manage the old files.
If you do not want MobileSheetsPro to manage your files, then you must manage your own
files and folders. MobileSheetsPro will not attempt to copy files or move them. It is
important to note that the MobileSheetsPro storage location is still important for several
reasons:
• Files imported from online/cloud sources such as email and Dropbox will be copied
to the storage location. MobileSheetsPro is designed so that an internet connection
is not required to load any songs, so that an internet connection is not required for
performances. In order to support this, files must be available on the tablet itself.
• MobileSheetsPro stores all song metadata (including annotations) in a database file.
This database file is stored in a private application storage location by default, but if
the “Expose Database File” setting is checked, the database will be stored in the
MobileSheetsPro storage location.
One last important thing to mention about file storage is that, when MobileSheetsPro is
managing your files, there is the potential for conflicts with file paths. If the “Create
Subdirectories For Songs” setting is enabled, file conflicts can be eliminated by ensuring that
all songs have unique titles. Otherwise, all imported files must have unique names. This is
because all imported files will be copied to the same location, and files would overwrite
each other if their names are not unique.
REMOVABLE SD CARDS
If the SD card icon is tapped in the “MobileSheets Storage Location” dialog, this is the
directory that is automatically chosen if a removable SD card is found. It is important to note
that this limitation is only for write access. If it is only necessary to read files off a removable
SD card, then there are no limitations to which directories you can use.
Google has changed the restrictions for Android 5.0 and higher. If you try to select a
directory on a removable SD card, the file browser will prompt you to select the removable
24
SD card in Google’s file chooser window (this is required to grant access). The following
instructions will be shown:
The steps are fairly simple – just tap the overflow menu, show the SD card if needed, tap the
SD card to select it, and then tap the select button. It is important to note that your SD card
will have a different name than “3861-3764”, and it’s different for every device. Once the
location is selected and access is granted to the SD card, you will be able to choose any
directory you want on the SD card. You can use it as the storage location, export files to it,
or create backup files on it. It should be noted that writing to the removable SD card is much
slower if a folder is used other than <path to removable sd
card>/Android/data/com.zubersoft.mobilesheetspro/files. This is because MobileSheetsPro
is given direct access to that location without needing to go through a special interface. Any
other directory will go through Google’s Storage Access Framework, which is much slower.
If MobileSheetsPro is unable to detect your removable SD card, and the file browser states
that the directories on the removable SD card are read-only, then you will have to manually
provide access to the SD card. To do this, tap the overflow menu at the top right of the file
browser, and select “Set SD Card”. You will have to go through the same steps described
above. After you’ve selected the SD card in Google’s file chooser, you should then be able to
select folders on the SD card.
IMPORTING FILES
MobileSheetsPro supports a number of different ways to import files. Before exploring all of
the different options, it’s important to discuss what kinds of files are supported.
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SUPPORTED FILE TYPES
Freehand files (.fh) are also supported, but they will be converted into .png files during the
import process. It is important to note that text and chord pro files have a number of
significant differences from image and PDF files:
• The appearance of text and chord pro files in MobileSheetsPro can be configured
through the text file display settings dialog. This can have a large impact on how the
files appear on the screen. Image and PDF files cannot be configured in this way.
• Text and chord pro files do not have a fixed size or number of pages in
MobileSheetsPro. If you change the font size or other properties, the number of
pages may change, and content may appear in different areas. Image and PDF files
have a fixed number of pages and do not support changing properties such as font
sizes.
• Text and chord pro files support both transposing and capos to change the keys of
the songs. Image and PDF files do not support transposing or capos.
• Text and chord pro files cannot be rotated, and there is no option to change the
page ordering (as the number of pages can change). These features are supported
for both images and PDFs.
When importing multiple image files, whether through quick import or batch importing, file
names are very important for determining if the images will be joined into one song, or
placed in separate songs. In order for multiple image files to be joined into one song, their
file names must be nearly identical with a different number at the end (i.e. MySong1.png
and MySong2.png).
MobilesheetsPro introduces a new custom file format called .msf (MobileSheets Song File).
A .msf file contains either a list of songs or setlists. For each song, all files the song uses are
bundled in the .msf file as well as any information stored in the database. It’s basically a
direct copy of the song in your library with all settings intact. For setlists, all songs the
setlists use are packaged in their entirety. This makes .msf a very useful format for exporting
or sharing songs with band members. Just remember that while .msf files can easily be
imported through the quick import mechanism, there is no way to extract the PDFs or other
files embedded in them outside of MobileSheetsPro.
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MobileSheetsPro also introduces a file format called .mss (MobileSheets Setlist Songs)
which is XML based and can be viewed/edited in a text editor if needed. This file format
contains just a list of songs in the setlist along with information about the file each song
uses. When this file is imported on another device, it will try to create the same setlist with
matching songs found in its library. If no matching song is found, it will be skipped and not
added to the setlist.
Many different features in MobileSheetsPro require the user to select a file or folder off
their device. In order to handle this, MobileSheetsPro comes with a custom file browser.
The browser is made up of several different areas as can be seen below:
The top of the browser is composed of icons along the action bar. These icons are explained
below:
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Displays a text input field for filtering the current list of files and folders. As
you type in letters, the list of files and folders will be reduced to only those
which match the search phrase.
Displays a list containing the internal storage and all detected external
storage, including SD cards, thumb drives, USB drives, etc. Tapping on an
entry in the list will navigate to that folder. If no external storage locations
are found, this will switch to the internal storage.
Displays a list of cloud sources. Currently supported cloud sources include
Dropbox, Google Drive and OneDrive. After selected one of the entries from
the list, you will be prompted to log in to your account if it is your first time
accessing that cloud source. This information will be saved securely and used
to skip the login with future imports. If you ever need to change the account
used, you can do so through the storage settings screen.
• Home – Switches the file browser back to the first folder it was viewing when it was
loaded. It’s important to note that the file browser will save the last folder you were
in after selecting files. This is always the first folder shown.
• Reload – Reloads the list of files from the current folder.
• Sort – Changes which property is used for sorting (name, size or date) and whether
the list should be in ascending order or descending
• Grid view – Switches the file browser to a grid-based display. The list will be split into
multiple columns on the screen. This option will switch to “List view” after being
selected. Selecting “List view” will switch it back to the default.
• New folder – Creates a new folder inside the currently viewed folder. Note: not all
locations will let you create a folder in them. Some folders such as Root are read-
only. You must go to a writeable directory such as /storage/emulated/0 in order to
create a folder.
• Select None – Deselects all items in the current list
• Select All – Selects all items in the current list
To select one or more files or folders, just tap on the items in the list. You will see a
checkbox next to their name indicating that they are selected. When you are ready to
accept your selections, tap the OK button at the bottom of the screen.
The import dropdown menu is by far the fastest way to import new files if you don’t need to
enter detailed information up front for each song and only need to import files from a single
directory. The import menu on the library screen supports seven different actions:
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• Local File
• Dropbox
• Google Drive
• OneDrive
• External/Cloud
• Batch Import
• Batch Audio Import
• CSV or PDF Bookmarks
LOCAL FILE
Selecting the local file option will launch a file browser so that one or more files can be
selected. After a selection has been made, the following dialog will be shown:
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Figure 15 - Import Settings Dialog
The first dropdown is used to determine how the songs created during import will be
named. There are two choices:
• Guess Title From Filename – File names will be converted to a more user-friendly
title. Underscores will be replaced by spaces, and words that are joined together
such as “MyNewSong” will become “My New Song”.
• Use Filename as Title – The title of all songs will match their files without the
extension (i.e. “my_song.pdf” would become a song titled “my_song”)
If a single file has been imported, the title of the song that will be created will be shown.
This title can be edited if needed. If a chord pro file is imported, this field will not be shown
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if the chord pro file contains a title and MobileSheetsPro is configured to populate song
fields from the chord pro metadata.
The “Automatically crop pages” checkbox determines if all imported files will be cropped to
eliminate margins. Cropping in MobileSheetsPro does not change the original file – it just
draws the file on screen without the margins. Additional information about cropping can be
found in the section on cropping. The setting below that, “Load song editor after import”, is
only shown when a single file is being imported (or a series of images that are joined into a
single song). If enabled, this setting will cause MobileSheetsPro to display the song editor
after the song is created so that additional data can be entered or files can be added.
The “Duplicate File Behavior” dropdown specifies what action should be taken if a file is
imported that exactly matches an existing file in name, size, and content. There are two
possible choices:
• Create New Song From Existing File – If this is selected, a new song will still be
created from the imported file, but it will reuse the existing file that is already there
instead of overwriting it with the duplicate.
• Ignore Duplicate Files – Any file that is a duplicate will be ignored during the import
process.
The bottom section of the dialog lets you assign the new songs to any groups in the library.
If you need to create a new group of any type, you can do so by just entering in the name of
the group into the appropriate category and hitting the accept or enter key. Tapping the
icon will cause the listed groups in that category to be deleted permanently from the
library. Songs assigned to those groups will remove the references to those groups, but will
not be affected in any other way.
After tapping OK, the import will proceed, and a dialog will show the results at the end. If a
file conflict is detected, a dialog will be shown with different options depending the type of
conflict. If there is another file already in the storage location that is tied to an existing song,
then the following dialog will be shown:
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Figure 16 - File conflict dialog when matching song is found
Selecting “Rename” will present a dialog so that a unique file name can be assigned. If
another conflict occurs, you will be prompted to rename the file, overwrite the existing file
or cancel. “Update Existing Song With New File” will replace the file used by the existing
song and update metadata if required. “Skip” will move to the next file being imported.
If the file being imported matches a file already in the storage location but no song is tied to
it (an orphan file), then the options shown will instead be “Use Original File”, “Rename”,
“Overwrite” and “Skip”. “Use Original File” will not import the new file and will instead use
the existing file for the song that will be created. “Overwrite” will replace the existing file
with the new one. The other two options function the same as described above.
DROPBOX/GOOGLE DRIVE/ONEDRIVE
The process for importing from Dropbox , Google Drive and OneDrive is almost identical to
the local file option. If this is your first time accessing Dropbox, Google Drive or OneDrive,
you may need to select the account to use. After selecting the files you want to import,
MobileSheetsPro will download these to a temporary storage location. After accepting
selections on the import settings dialog, the files will be copied to the MobileSheetsPro
storage location like normal.
EXTERNAL/CLOUD
When the external/cloud option is picked, a request is sent out to the tablet to display any
applications that support choosing files. On a tablet running Lollipop (Android 5.0), you will
see a brand-new file chooser that Google uses to handle this:
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Figure 17 - Google's File Chooser
This window provides a way to import files from a variety of locations and applications. If
you are running earlier versions of the Android OS, you will be presented with a list of
applications to choose from. After making your selection, you will be returned to
MobileSheetsPro and the import settings dialog will be shown. From that point on, the steps
are the same as a local file import.
BATCH IMPORT
When the batch import option is selected, the following screen will be displayed:
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Figure 18 - The Batch Import Screen
This dialog comes with a number of settings, and each will be explained below.
• Import Directories – The directories that files will be imported from. Tap the folder
icon to select the folders in the file browser.
• File Filter – A search filter that can determine what files will be imported. For
example, if you wanted to only import PDFs, you could enter *.PDF.
• Scan all subdirectories for files – If checked, all child directories inside the import
directories will also be scanned for files.
• Avoid duplicate songs – If checked, new songs will not be created from duplicate
files that already exist in the library. Other settings can affect MobileSheetPro’s
ability to identify duplicate songs, such as changing the “Create Subdirectory For
Songs” settings, as a new song would store its file in a different directory if this
setting was changed.
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• Update songs if matching files are found – If a file is not a duplicate, but would
overwrite an existing file, this setting determines if MobileSheetsPro should update
the song using the file after it is replaced (to handle differences between the files).
This setting can reduce the number of user actions that need to be taken during the
import (to handle file conflicts) if you know you are replacing existing files.
• Automatically crop pages - Determines if all imported files will be cropped to
eliminate margins. Additional information about cropping can be found in the
section on cropping.
• Populate Metadata from Directories – Determines if metadata for the songs will be
populated using the names of the directories containing the files. The song fields
that are populated depend upon the metadata format string which is explained in
the next section.
• Title: See the import settings dialog description here.
• Keywords: A list of words that will be placed into the keywords field of every new
song.
• Custom: The value to put in the custom field of every new song.
• All groups at the bottom: All new songs will be placed into any groups that you
select from the dropdowns. New groups can be added by entering the name of the
new group into the appropriate category and hitting the enter or accept key.
Tapping the icon will cause the listed groups in that category to be deleted
permanently from the library. Songs assigned to those groups will remove the
references to those groups, but will not be affected in any other way.
After tapping start at the top right, a progress dialog will be shown indicating what file is
currently being imported. Depending upon the number and size of the files being imported,
this can take a while. Note that if you turn on “Automatically crop pages”, the import
process will take much longer as each file has to be opened and page boundaries have to be
calculated. Once the import is complete, a dialog will be shown displaying the results of the
import.
The batch import supports the ability to populate song metadata fields from the names of
directories containing files. Each part of the metadata string represents the field that should
be populated for the sub-directory at that depth. For example, if the format is
%ARTIST%/%ALBUM%/%GENRE%, the first sub-directory is used for the artist field for all
files in that folder. All folders in that folder would be used for album, and any folders under
those folders would be used for genre. Any further sub-directories would not be used for
metadata. It is important to note that you do not have to have the same number of sub-
directories as you do metadata format sections. Given the previous example, if only one
level of sub-directories is used, then only artist will be populated.
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If the metadata format field is tapped, the following dialog is displayed to allow editing of
the format field:
Current entries can be removed by tapping the delete button at the top right. Additional
fields can be added by tapping on them. Tap OK to accept all changes to the format string.
The batch audio import screen is identical to the normal batch import screen, and all
settings operate the same way. The only difference is that a batch audio import only targets
audio files such as .mp3 or .wav files. For each audio file that is found, a song will be created
with a blank page and the audio file will be added to that song. This allows MobileSheetsPro
to be used just for audio playback while still utilizing all of the library organization features.
The CSV and PDF bookmark features are extremely powerful tools for splitting up PDFs that
contain a large list of songs. After the “CSV or PDF Bookmarks” option is tapped, the file
browser will be shown so that a .csv or .pdf file can be selected. If importing a .csv file, You
must ensure that the PDF and .csv are in the same directory so that MobileSheetsPro will be
able to locate the PDF. After a valid file is selected, the following dialog will be displayed:
36
Figure 20 - CSV or PDF Bookmark Import Dialog
This dialog allows one or more songs to be selected that will be created with the supplied
information. Checkboxes at the bottom left allow for more or less detail to be displayed,
and pages can optionally be cropped upon import. When a PDF file is selected, the
bookmarks in the file will be used to create sections, where each section is the number of
pages between the bookmarks. If bookmarks have been created for every song, this is a
convenient and fast way to only select the songs that are needed from the file. Further
refinement of pages can be made in the song editor if required.
CSV files provide much more functionality than PDF bookmarks. A .csv file is nothing more
than a text file with values that are delimited by a certain character such as a comma or
semi-colon. The first line of the file specifies the order of the song fields that will be
populated, while each line after that specifies the details for a song. The example shown in
figure 17 was generated from the following CSV file:
title;pages;composers;difficulty
SongA;1-3;ComposerA|ComposerB;8
SongB;4-5;;
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In this example, the first line specifies that song title comes first, then the range of pages
used from the source PDF, then the list of composers and finally the difficulty. When a list of
values is supplied, it must be delimited by a | character, as is used above to separate
ComposerA and ComposerB. Fields can be skipped for a song by providing no value other
than a semi-colon, as seen for SongB which doesn’t specify any composers or a difficulty.
The last thing that should be mentioned is that two columns are always required: title and
pages. These must be put somewhere on the first line, and every song must provide these
values. The full list of supported field names is shown below:
If you happen to be viewing files in an external application, such as an email client, file
explorer or image gallery, you can tap on a file to initiate an action on that file. One action
38
you may see in the list is the option to import that file into MobileSheetsPro, as shown
below:
If you tap the “Import into MobileSheetsPro” option, the song editor will be loaded and the
file will be added.
If the icon is tapped in the action bar on the library screen, the song editor will be
loaded with the files tab selected. On this tab, you can tap the folder, gallery, camera, cloud,
or blank page icon to add a new file. These files will not be copied into the storage location
until the “OK” button is tapped at the top right, and the new song is created. See the song
editor section for more details on creating songs using this approach. While this approach is
the most time consuming, it also provides the most control over the configuration of the
new song.
PLACEHOLDER SONGS
Placeholder songs are songs that have been created with metadata, but contain only a
single empty blank page. There is no actual file associated with these songs. The idea behind
placeholder songs is that they can be created in anticipation of having a file at a later date in
time, and once that file is obtained, it can be swapped in place of the blank pages. This
allows the song to be created, metadata put in place and annotations made before being in
possession of the actual file. Placeholder songs can be created through the action bar on the
library screen. Swapping files is covered in the next section.
SWAPPING FILES
If a song contains a file that needs to be swapped out for a newer version, or if a song has
blank pages that you want to swap for a file, you will want to take advantage of the “Swap
File” option on the library screen. To begin the file swap process, long press the song whose
file you want to swap, access the overflow menu in the library action bar, and select “Swap
File”. If the song contains multiple files, you will be prompted to select the file you want to
39
replace. The file browser will then be shown so that you can pick the file you want to swap.
After selecting the file, you will be presented with options for the swap as shown below:
The top of the dialog shows the name of the file to be replaced followed by the new file to
use in its place. The “Update song title” option determines if the song’s title is updated
based upon the name of the new file. The “Automatically crop pages” option determines if
the pages of the new file will be cropped to reduce margins. The “Delete existing file” option
controls whether or not the existing file used by the song is deleted after being replaced by
the new file. Note that the file won’t be deleted if it is used by other songs. The “Copy or
Move New File” checkbox determines how the storage of the new file will be handled. If you
check the “Copy or Move New File” checkbox, the dropdown below it will be enabled so
that you can select the exact action you want. If you uncheck that setting, the current
location of the new file will be used, meaning it will not be copied into the MobileSheetsPro
storage location, which is usually not recommended unless you manage your own folders
and files. The dropdown contains the following options:
• Copy new file to same folder as replaced file – The new file will be copied into the
same folder that contained the existing file. The original file will remain where it is. If
the existing file is in the storage location, then this behaves in the same way as the
“Copy new file to MobileSheets storage” option.
• Move new file to same folder as replaced file – The new file will be moved into the
same folder that contained the existing file. If the existing file is in the storage
location, then this behaves in the same way as the “Move new file to MobileSheets
storage” option.
• Copy new file to MobileSheets storage – The new file will be copied into the
MobileSheets storage location, and the original file will remain where it is.
• Move new file to MobileSheets storage – The new file will be moved into the
MobileSheets storage location.
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After tapping OK to accept the selections, the swap will occur and moments later you will be
back at the library screen.
The fastest way to share a setlist with another user who has the same songs in their library
is to create a .mss file. The process for this is simple:
1. Long press the setlist on the library screen to start the selection mode
2. Tap the “Share” action on the action bar, then “Share song list” and then select the
method you wish to use to share (Bluetooth, Email, Google Drive, etc).
3. MobileSheetsPro will ask you to name the file you are sharing, so provide a name.
The .mss at the end is optional, and will be automatically added if you leave it out.
4. MobileSheetsPro will proceed to create the .mss file, and then will load whichever
application you selected to use for sharing. Refer to the specific application’s
instructions for information on how to send files.
The destination device, when it imports the file, will either create a new setlist or update an
existing one (if a matching setlist name is found), and then populate that setlist with the list
of songs in the .mss file. For each song, if a matching song is not found in the library, it will
be skipped.
Another important feature of MobileSheetsPro is the ability to both archive and share songs
and setlists using a .msf file. The process for this is quite simple:
5. To share a list of songs, or a list of setlists (you can’t combine the two), long press an
item on the library screen to start the multi-selection mode and then tap each item
to be shared.
6. Tap the “Share” action on the action bar, then “Share as .msf” (if sharing songs) or
“Share songs and files” (if sharing setlists) and then select the method you wish to
use to share (Bluetooth, Email, Google Drive, etc).
7. MobileSheetsPro will ask you to name the file you are sharing, so provide a name.
The .msf at the end is optional, and will be automatically added if you leave it out.
8. MobileSheetsPro will proceed to create the .msf file, and then will load whichever
application you selected to use for sharing. Refer to the specific application’s
instructions for information on how to send files.
If you only want to share the files used in a song or setlist, select the songs as described
above and then tap on “Share files”. You must choose an application to use for sharing, and
then you will be shown a dialog with the following options:
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• Use song page ordering for shared files – Select this if you want the shared files to
use the same page ordering as the song. If only using a few pages from a large PDF
for example, this setting should be checked.
• Share with cropping – Determines if the shared files should crop each page to match
the song’s cropping.
• Share with rotation – Determines if the shared files should rotate their pages to
match the song’s page rotation.
• Share with annotations – Determines if the shared files should contain all of the
annotations from the song.
• Export iOS compatible annotations – When annotations are exported, they are
added to the PDF as PDF annotation objects that can be modified in PDF editors
outside MobileSheets. These annotations are not supported well by the default iOS
PDF reader though, so this setting writes out the annotations as images embedded
into the PDF pages, making them permanent.
• Draw highlights behind content – The PDF specification does not support a
mechanism to embed highlight annotations behind existing content. The only way to
accomplish this is to rebuild the entire PDF with the images generated from
MobileSheets. While this setting produces highlights that are more visually pleasing,
it may drastically increase the file size and result in a slower loading file.
It should be noted that if a single file is being shared or exported, the name of the file will be
shown on the dialog. This can be modified if a different name is desired for the new file. If
sharing a text or chord pro file and annotations are both present in the song and “Share
with annotations” is enabled, a new PDF will be generated for sharing purposes, as text and
chord pro files don’t support annotations in them. The process for exporting songs or
setlists is very similar:
To import a .msf or .mss file, use the Import->Local File option on the action bar, and select
the file inside the file browser.
DELETING SONGS
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To delete a song from your library, long press the song on the library screen, and then select
“Delete Song” from the action bar at the top. You will be presented with the following
dialog when you do that:
Two checkboxes are present to control whether or not files are deleted. It is important to
note that if multiple songs share the same file, it will not be deleted even if you leave this
checkbox checked. For this reason, you almost always want to leave this box checked if
MobileSheetsPro is managing your files.
One of the most important features in MobileSheetsPro is the ability to back up your entire
library, including all files and annotations, to one single backup file that can be safely
archived. These backup files can be restored at any time through a simple process. This also
means that if you replace your tablet with a newer one, or switch from the free version of
MobileSheetsPro to the paid version, you can easily transfer your library over. The backup
and restore features will be discussed further below.
To back up your library, you must first access the settings screen. This can be accomplished
by tapping the action bar overflow menu at the top right of the library screen, and then
tapping the “Settings” option from the dropdown. On the settings screen, tap the “Backup
and Restore” option on the left side of the screen. Lastly, tap the “Backup Library” option in
the list on the right side of the screen. After selecting this option, a dialog will be displayed
as shown below:
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Figure 23 - The Library Backup Dialog
This dialog only has three selections: the directory you want to create the backup file in, the
option of whether or not to backup audio files, and the option of whether or not to include
MobileSheetsPro settings in the backup file. The directory can be selected by tapping on the
folder icon, which displays the file browser. It is important to note that you must select a
writeable directory, meaning a directory which has not been locked. For example, if you
select the “Root” directory, also known as just “/”, this will not be allowed as it is read-only.
If you are struggling to know where to put the file, the easiest location is to first tap the
storage icon and select “Device” from the list. This will take you to the internal storage
root, and then you can tap on the overflow button at the top right of the screen and select
“New folder”. Enter the name for a new folder to store your backups in, tap OK, and then
tap on that new folder. Then enter the name of the backup file at the bottom of the screen
and tap the checkmark to continue. Note that backup files have a .msb file extension.
A progress dialog will be displayed to show how many songs have been written to the
backup file. You can press the back button to cancel the backup if needed. Once the backup
completes, a dialog will be presented indicating success.
To restore your library, you must have previously created a backup file using the library
backup utility discussed in the previous section. The first is to access the settings screen as
described previously, but select “Restore Library from Backup” instead of “Backup Library”.
You will be shown the following dialog:
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The first selection on this dialog is the backup file to restore. To browse for a backup file, tap
the folder icon. This will display the file browser, which will let you locate the folder
containing your .msb file. Tap on the file to be returned to the library restore dialog. You will
see the name of your backup file to the right of the “Backup File” label. Next, you must
determine where you want to extract the files in the backup file. The “Restore To” options
are as follows:
• Original File Locations – All files will be extracted to their original path. If you are
restoring the backup file on the same tablet that created it, this option may be
desirable. If you are restoring the backup file on a different tablet, this option is not
recommended, as the SD card may have a different folder structure.
• MobileSheets Storage Location – All files will be extracted to the MobileSheetsPro
storage directory. This is the default and recommended selection most of the time.
The next selection that must be made is whether or not the storage location will be cleared
of all files before the library is restored. This is usually recommended in order to ensure
unused files aren’t left on the device. The last selection is whether or not to extract the
settings in the backup file (if it contains settings). Checking this option will replace all
MobileSheetsPro settings, so use it with caution if restoring a backup from a different user
with settings different from your own.
The fields tab is the main screen where song metadata is managed. The fields tab can be
accessed by long clicking on a song and pressing “Edit Song” in the action bar. This screen
can be seen below:
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Figure 25 - The Song Editor Fields Tab
While there are nearly twenty supported fields, the only required field is Title. Data entry in
most of the fields is pretty straight forward. The song ID can be manually entered or the
icon can be tapped to find the next smallest unique song ID. To change the rating, tap
the star that matches the rating you want to provide. For each of the group fields, you can
type enter as many values as needed. For each value, enter the name and hit the accept key
on the virtual keyboard. The value will be placed in a light blue rectangle. You can then
repeat the steps for each additional value. You can also tap on the dropdown, and then tap
the items you want to select on the selection dialog. This dialog also provides filtering
controls when the list is longer than a few values. You can type a search term at the top or
tap the letters on the right side to find the items you want to select. Note that tapping the
“X” to remove a group does not delete it, it will just no longer be associated with the song.
To permanently delete all selected values for a given group field, tap the icon.
If you decide you don’t need some of the fields and would like to hide them, tap the
“Configure Fields” option at the top right of the screen. You will be presented with a list of
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every field (except Title). Uncheck the fields you no longer wish to see, and tap OK to
continue.
1. Multiple methods of adding files (Tablet storage, Google’s file picker, camera,
Dropbox, Google Drive and blank pages)
2. The ability to control page ordering
3. Rotation of pages
4. Cropping
If you are editing an existing song, you will see the song’s files listed at the top of the screen.
These files can be reordered by pressing on the box with up and down arrows and dragging
this box up or down. The full path of any file can be viewed by long pressing on the file. To
remove a file from the list, tap the “X” on the right side of the screen for that file (note that
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the file will not be deleted if you do this). If you are creating a new song, this list will be
empty and you will be instructed to add a new file. There are six ways to add a new file, and
they will be discussed below:
Opens the file browser and allows one or more files to be selected. While
multiple PDFs and images are allowed, only one text file is allowed, and you
cannot mix text/chord pro files with PDFs or images.
Uses an external application to pick a file. This is the same as described in the
external/cloud import section.
Uses the camera to take a picture, and then imports this file into the song
editor.
Adds any number of blank pages to the song. No file is actually added – white
pages will be shown that match the size of the screen. These pages can still be
used with annotations.
This option is displayed when the song contains no files, and allows a new text
or chord pro file to be created. A prompt will be presented for a new filename
and then the text editor will be shown.
After at least one file has been added to the song, a number of features become accessible.
The most noticeable is the file preview at the bottom of the screen. The page that is
previewed can be changed by either tapping on the white arrows on the side of the preview
area or by moving the page slider at the bottom of the screen. You can also select a specific
page by tapping the page number at the bottom right of the screen. In addition to
previewing the file, you can also change the page ordering, rotate pages or crop the file. The
only exception to this is if a text or chord pro file has been added. Those features are not
supported with text or chord pro files as described in the supported file types section.
If the song being edited contains a text or chord pro file, an additional icon will be displayed
at the bottom right of the preview area instead of the cropping icon. The icon will bring
up the text display settings dialog, which can be used to configure various display settings
for the current file.
If a file is added with the same name and output path as an existing file, a conflict dialog will
be displayed, as shown below:
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Figure 27 - File Conflict Dialog
You can either replace the existing file, rename the file before it is copied, or use the
existing file instead of the one being imported. If you want to update an existing song with a
new file, you should use the swap file feature.
PAGE ORDERING
If you have a PDF with more than one page, you can change the order of the pages. This
feature is actually quite powerful because you can create a custom page order that repeats
pages multiple times, and each instance of a page can have different cropping, annotations,
link points, etc. This can be used to eliminate the need to jump to previous pages for
repeats. For example, if you have a four-page song that jumps from page three to page one,
you could set up the ordering as follows: 1-3, 1, 3, 4. To change the page order, tap on the
page order field, and then enter the desired order on the dialog that is displayed.
ROTATING PAGES
To rotate just the currently displayed page, tap the rotate left and rotate right
buttons at the bottom left corner of the screen. To rotate every page in the file, tap the
rotation buttons beside those. Long press these buttons to rotate every page in every file in
the song. The rotate left button rotates the page 90 degrees to the left, and the rotate right
button rotates the page 90 degrees to the right.
CROPPING FILES
There are a number of different ways to crop files in the song editor. By default, all new
imported files are automatically cropped. The algorithm used for cropping and which pages
of the file are cropped can be controlled in the additional settings. If you want to get rid of
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the cropping, you can tap the “Reset Crop” button at the bottom right to reset the
document back to being uncropped. If you want to manually crop the document, tap the
icon at the right side of the page preview area. This will bring up the cropping screen,
which will be discussed in the next section.
The cropping screen is composed of the current page in the center with seven blue squares
that define the boundaries of the region you want displayed. This cropping screen can be
seen below:
Changing the cropping area is as simple as pressing on one of the blue squares and dragging
it to a new location. Anything outside of the blue rectangle is cropped out of the document,
meaning it won’t be displayed on the main song display. It is important to note that
cropping does not affect the original file in any way – it just instructs MobileSheetsPro on
what section of the page you want to see, so you do not have to worry about modifying the
50
underlying file unintentionally. You can change the page that is currently viewed by tapping
the arrows at the bottom of the screen. Several actions are supported on the action bar at
the top of the screen:
• Apply To – Changes the pages that will be cropped based on the current cropping
region. The default behavior is to only crop the current page. You can also select “All
pages in selected file” to crop every page identically in the currently displayed file,
and “All pages in all files” if you want every page in every file of the song cropped
exactly the same way. If the song is part of a loaded setlist, another option will be
available to apply the cropping to all songs in the setlists. This can be used not only
to apply cropping to a large list of songs at once, it can also be used to clear the
cropping if needed.
• Reset – Resets the cropping region to what it was when the cropping screen was first
loaded.
• Clear – Clears cropping completely, meaning the cropping region matches the full
page.
• Auto-Crop – Automatically crops the current page, and depending upon the “Apply
To” setting, other pages as well. After the automatic cropping completes, you can
view the new crop regions on all of the cropped pages.
• Auto-Crop All Pages – Automatically crops every page in the song, across all files.
This is just a shortcut to crop all pages without having to change the “Apply To”
setting.
• Go To – Provides a mechanism to select the page you want to view. This is slower
than using the arrows at the bottom of the screen, but if the document has many
pages, this provides a convenient way to access a specific page.
• Enable/Disable Aggressive Cropping – Determines whether aggressive cropping is
used. This cropping algorithm is discussed in detail in the additional settings section.
Once you are satisfied with the cropping regions, tap OK to apply them. Tap Cancel if you
wish to exit without applying any modifications.
ADDITIONAL SETTINGS
If you tap the “Settings” action at the top of the song editor screen, you will see the
following dialog displayed:
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Figure 29 - The Song Editor Settings
• Current page only – Applies the crop to the currently displayed page only.
• All pages in selected file – Applies the crop to all pages in whatever file is
currently being displayed.
• All pages in all files – Applies the crop to all pages in all files used by the
song.
The “Auto-Crop Imported Files” setting determines if files that are added to the song are
immediately cropped. The “Aggressively Crop” setting determines whether the automatic
cropping uses a “safe” algorithm for cropping or an “aggressive” one. The main difference is
that the safe cropping is guaranteed to not cut any content out of the document at all. This
means that as soon as a single non-white pixel is encountered anywhere on the document,
the cropping on that side will not go past that pixel. The aggressive setting will try to avoid
any black content around the very edges of the document (like you can often get from a
scanner). The safe algorithm is the best choice if the margins of your documents are white
or near-white.
Lastly, the “Populate Metadata When Importing Audio” determines if the song’s metadata
will be updated when new audio files are added. For example, if the song’s artist, year and
duration fields are blank, these values can be extracted from an imported audio field and
entered automatically. Note that existing values will not be changed in any way – they must
be blank for this setting to take effect.
The audio tab is composed of a list of audio files at the top and an audio player at the
bottom that can be used to play those tracks and set different properties of those tracks.
This can be seen in the picture below:
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Figure 30 - The Song Editor Audio Tab
Much like the files tab, there are two ways to add files: use an external program on the
tablet or browse for a file on the tablet’s storage. Find an audio file you want to add on the
tablet, and add it to the current song. You will see the audio file show up in the list at the
top and the audio player will display the audio track’s title. You can reorder audio tracks in
the top list by dragging the box with the arrows in it up and down. You can remove audio
tracks by tapping on that track’s “X” at the right side of the list.
Once there is at least one audio file present, you will be able to play that file in the audio
player at the bottom of the dialog. The audio player on the audio tab has five playback
buttons: previous track, pause, play, stop and next track. One very useful feature is the
ability to specify an a-b loop in the song. To do this, you must first tap the icon to enable
a-b looping. The icon will turn orange after it has been selected to indicate that looping is
active. Next, change the track’s position to the start of the loop by dragging the slider. Then,
tap the icon to set the start of the loop. An orange vertical bar will be drawn showing
53
the start of the loop. Move the slider to where you want the loop to end and press the
icon. You can now press play to test out the loop.
If you wish to change the duration of the current track, you can slide the ends of the “Track
Start/End” slider to change where the track will start and end. This can be useful if you only
need a certain section of an audio track.
The audio player on the audio tab does not contain all of the features present on the song
display’s audio player. To learn about the other available features, see the song display’s
audio player section.
In MobileSheetsPro, you can set up songs so that they either transmit MIDI commands
when they are loaded, or are loaded when specific MIDI commands are received. The MIDI
tab provides the tools to create and edit MIDI commands. The MIDI tab screen can be seen
below:
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Figure 31 - The Song Editor MIDI Tab
While a full explanation of MIDI won’t be provided in this manual, an overview of the
supported MIDI commands will be. Consult the manual for your MIDI device to determine
what MIDI commands are supported. The following MIDI commands are recognized in
MobileSheetsPro:
• Patch Select – Contains two control change messages and a program change
message, and is typically used to change the selected instrument on a keyboard.
• Control Change – Contains a controller number and value.
• Program Change – Contains a single value.
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• System Exclusive – Contains a series of bytes. This is the most advanced command,
and is normally only needed for setting more complex configuration settings on a
connected device.
• Number (KORG only) – This requires just one number as input that should be either
three or four digits. This is converted to four control change commands.
• Note Off – Contains the value of the note released.
• Note On – Contains the value of the note pressed down.
• Batch Command – Command used to group together commands to be sent or
received. The primary use is to trigger a song to be loaded or an action to be
triggered in response to all of the matching commands being received in a row.
• Pause – Pauses the sending of messages for the specified time.
• Song Select – Contains a single value representing the song to select.
• MIDI Start – Starts MIDI playback on the connected device.
• MIDI Continue – Pauses MIDI playback on the connected device.
• MIDI Stop – Stops MIDI playback on the connected device.
• Toggle Timing Clock – Turns on or off the sending of timing clock messages to the
device which determines the tempo it uses for playback. The tempo is based upon
the metronome settings for the currently loaded song.
To add a new MIDI command, tap the icon at the top right of screen. This will display a
separate dialog allowing the command to be configured. The dialog can be seen below:
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The label field at the top can be used to display a different description for the MIDI
command in the list on the MIDI tab. This can make it easier to remember what a given
command is configured to do. Next, you will see a “Patch Select” command in the command
type dropdown (or “Number” if the MIDI Device is set to KORG in the settings). Selecting a
different command from the dropdown will change the data that is required. For example, a
control change message requires two values while a program change message only requires
one. The patch command is unique in that you can turn off which pieces of it are sent (or
required on receipt).
The input and output port fields are only visible if Google’s MIDI library is being used. This
can be used to provide an extra layer of filtering to send messages out on a specific port or
only trigger the song to load when receiving on a specific port. To switch to Google’s MIDI
library, see the section on configuring MIDI connections.
At the bottom of the dialog, two toggles related to sending and receiving are visible. If you
want the MIDI command to be sent from MobileSheetsPro to your device when the song is
loaded, switch the “Send on Song Load” to “ON”. If you want MobileSheetsPro to load the
song when the current MIDI command is received, switch the “Load Song on Receive” to
ON. If you have both of these switches active, a song can be loaded when a command is
received and that same command will then be sent back to the device. If you are using a
KORG keyboard and need additional information concerning the “Number” MIDI command,
you can consult the KORG documentation here. In order to use the KORG number
command, you must set the MIDI device in the MIDI settings to “KORG”.
By default, MobileSheetsPro will listen to MIDI commands on MIDI channel 1. This can be
changed in the MIDI settings if you need to send commands to different channels than the
one used for receiving. MobileSheetsPro supports sending commands on multiple channels
if needed. To do this, enable the “Allow Multiple MIDI Channels” in the MIDI settings, and
you will see a channel dropdown on the Add MIDI Command dialog. This dropdown controls
which channel that command will be sent to.
If multiple songs are configured to be loaded when the same MIDI command is received, the
song that was first configured to use that command will be loaded first. If the MIDI
command is received again, the next song listening for that MIDI command will be loaded.
This provides a means to cycle through all songs set up for the same MIDI command. Note
that if any other MIDI commands are received before that command is received again, it will
reset back to the first configured song.
In some scenarios, it is useful to be able to trigger songs to load when multiple commands
are received from a device. This cannot be accomplished by adding multiple different
57
commands on the MIDI tab, as the song would be loaded if any of those commands were
received. This is where the batch command comes in. A batch command can contain any
number of MIDI commands and can be configured for sending to a device when a song is
loaded, or more commonly, to load a song when all child commands are received in order.
To create a batch command, bring up the Add MIDI Command dialog and change the
command type dropdown to Batch Command and tap the edit icon that appears. This will
display the Edit MIDI Command dialog as shown below:
This dialog is pretty straightforward – tap the add button to be presented with the familiar
dialog for creating a new MIDI command, and tap the edit button to edit the currently
selected command. Like other MIDI commands, the batch MIDI command can be assigned a
label and input/output ports, and can be set up to be sent when the song is loaded or load
the song when it is received.
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MIDI LISTEN DIALOG
One easy way to create a batch command designed for listening is to use the MIDI listen
dialog. To display this dialog, tap the icon on the MIDI tab. The following dialog will be
displayed:
This dialog will display messages received from the MIDI device that can be used in a batch
command. Select each command you want to use to trigger the song to load, then tap the
add button at the top right. If multiple commands are selected, this will generate a new
batch command on the MIDI screen configured for “Load Song on Receive”, otherwise the
command itself will be added to the MIDI screen. In addition to being useful for generating
batch commands, this MIDI listen dialog can also be used to monitor any MIDI traffic from
the device, which can be helpful when analyzing problems.
One powerful feature is the ability to link songs in MobileSheetsPro to Genos registrations.
This will ensure that if a song is loaded in MobileSheetsPro, the registration is loaded on the
Genos, and vice versa. To set this up, first go to Settings->MIDI Settings and change the MIDI
59
Device to “Genos”. If you are connected to your MIDI device, the link icon will appear
on the MIDI tab. Tapping this will link the song to the registration that is currently loaded on
the Genos. If the registration changes or you wish to use a different registration, you can tap
the link icon again to update the song.
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GROUP MANAGEMENT
In MobileSheetsPro, songs can be placed into three different types of groups:
• Setlists
• Collections
• Metadata Groups
A setlist is an ordered list of songs that can be used to create a continuous playlist. This
means you can page through all of the songs sequentially, which is perfect for
performances. You can also adjust the ordering of a setlist to be manual, alphabetic,
shuffled, the date the songs were created or last modified.
A collection, like other metadata groups, is a list of songs that is used primarily for filtering
that has the same sorting options as a setlist. The important difference between collections
and other metadata groups is that there is additional filtering that can be used with
collections. See the section on filtering for more information.
Metadata groups, such as artists, albums, genres, and composers are used for grouping
songs to aid in filtering. All of the songs in a given group can be loaded into a temporary
setlist by tapping the “Load All” option when viewing that group’s songs, but their primary
purpose is to provide additional filtering on the library screen so that songs can be located
by a number of different attributes.
While the Song Editor can be used to place new and existing songs into any of the different
group types, the fastest way to manage groups is through the Group Editor. The group
editor can be accessed in two ways. If a tab is selected, such as Setlists, and you hit the Edit
button in the action bar, you will see the following screen:
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Figure 35 - The Top-Level Group Editor Screen
1. To create new group types by using the button at the top right. First tap on the tab
you want to create a new instance of and then tap on the button.
2. To edit existing groups by clicking on the tabs at the top to change groups, and then
tapping on an entry to edit it.
Like other library screens, you can tap on the letters on the right side of the list to jump to
entries beginning with that letter. If you long press a group type, you will see the following
list of actions: Rename, Copy and Delete. If you are long pressing a setlist, you will also see
Share, Export and Generate Song List. All of these actions are described in the library section
on selected group actions.
The second way the group editor can be accessed from the library screen is by tapping on a
group tab, tapping on a group to view its song, and then tapping on the Edit action at the
top of the screen. This will switch straight to editing that specific group type instead of first
going to the screen above. Once a group has been selected for editing in the group editor,
the following screen will be displayed:
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Figure 36 – The Group Editor
In the example above, a Setlist has been edited titled “Classical” which can be seen at the
top left of the screen. The number of the songs in the setlist is shown in the title. At the top
right, the following actions are available:
• Sort – Changes the sorting of the group (sorting groups is described in further detail
here).
• Clear All – Removes all songs from the currently displayed group.
• Rename – Renames the group being edited
• Show/Hide Filters – Shows or hides all of the filters shown above the list. For more
details, see the section on filtering. When filters are hidden but active, the filters
icon will be blue.
• Add Placeholder – Adds an empty placeholder song to the group. A placeholder is a
song with a single blank page that can be edited later.
When another group type is shown other than a setlist, a “Create Setlist” action is available.
This action will place all of the songs of the current group into a new setlist for which you
provide the name.
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The group editor is mainly composed of the two lists in the center. The left list is the songs
currently in the edited group while the right list is all of the songs in the library. When a
song is added to the current group, it will be highlighted in blue in the right list to show that
it’s been added. You can filter the right list by using the filters at the top of the screen to
more quickly find the songs you want to add. Songs can be removed from the current group
by tapping the “X” to the right of the entry in the left list.
If the group is manually sorted, songs can be reordered by dragging the box with the arrows
up or down beside each song. Additionally, drag & drop is enabled, providing a mechanism
to drag a song from the list on the right to the position you desire in the left list. If the group
is using A-Z sorting, songs can be added by tapping on them. It should also be noted that
you can add the same song to a setlist multiple times, whereas with other group types, a
song is either part of a group or not, so tapping on a song that is already in the list will
remove it, and vice versa.
If you wish to add all songs, tap on the icon above the right list. You will be prompted to
confirm that you want to add all of the songs. If you have filtered the list of songs on the
right, only the filtered songs will be added, so this can be used to quickly add all songs that
match the current filter.
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THE SONG DISPLAY
When a song or setlist is loaded on the library screen, the library screen will shift over and
you will be shown what is referred to as the song display. The song display contains both the
rendered pages of the songs as well as various windows and controls that are useful while
performing, such as the metronome and audio player. The song display is driven by a
powerful display engine that is responsible for loading content from all the various file
formats, displaying the pages of those files on the screen, and drawing annotations on top
of the files. The way in which the engine displays the pages of the songs is determined by
the selected display and page scaling modes. The display modes determine how pages are
drawn in relation to each other and how page turns are handled, while page scaling
determines how pages are stretched to fit the screen. These settings and other features of
the song display are controlled through something called the song overlay. In order to
access the song overlay, it’s important to first understand how touch events are handled on
the song display. The following image shows the various touch zones that can be accessed:
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The corners (colored green and yellow) and the top and bottom (colored orange) are areas
of the screen that can be configured to perform various actions, such as starting/stopping
audio, toggling night mode and cycling through bookmarks. More information on this can be
found in the section on configuring touch actions. The sides (colored red) turn the pages of
the song when tapped. Tapping the left side turns to the previous page while tapping on the
right turns to the next page. The bottom right corner (colored yellow) brings up what is
known as the quick action box, which provides convenient access to start/stop the audio
player, metronome and scrolling. The quick action box is available even when performance
mode is enabled, making it a useful tool in all scenarios. See the section on the quick action
box for more information. The quick action box can be moved to any of the other corners if
desired or hidden if it is not needed. Lastly, the center of the screen can be tapped to bring
up the song overlay, which provides access to all of the various features of the song display.
When the song overlay is accessed by tapping the center of the screen, a title bar will slide
down from the top of the screen, the page slider and other buttons will slide up from the
bottom, and the audio player (depending upon its settings and whether an audio track is
present in the current song) will be displayed. This can be seen in the image below:
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Figure 38 - The Song Overlay
The title bar at the top left of the overlay will be covered first. The following buttons can be
found in the title bar:
Configures the active song’s or setlist’s notes in a dialog. This can be used to
configure whether or not the notes are automatically displayed. See the
section on displaying notes for more information.
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Transposes the current text or chord pro file (only shown for those file types).
See the section on the Transpose dialog for more information.
Displays a dropdown menu with two choices: Text Display Settings and Edit
File. The first option edits the text display settings for the current text file, and
the second edits the current file in the text editor. These options are not
displayed if the current file is not a text or chord pro file.
It should also be noted that if you tap the page number at the top right, a dialog will allow
you to enter the page you want displayed.
The title bar normally is only displayed when you tap the center of the screen to bring up
the overlay. If you prefer to always see the title bar, there is an “Always Show the Title Bar”
option on the display settings screen. When this setting is used, the score will account for
the space used by the title bar when rendered. Normally, the score is reduced in size when
the overlay is visible so that parts of the score are not obscured. This reduction in size uses a
faster, lower quality scaling of the page compared to normal, as the overlay is not meant to
be hidden while playing through the song. If the title bar is always shown, the page will be
reduced in size using a higher precision scaling so that there is no reduction in image quality.
At the bottom of the screen there is a row of buttons. The buttons on the left are used to
change settings and activate various features while the buttons on the right are used to
bring up windows and other tools like the audio player and metronome. The buttons on the
left will be described first.
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• Crop – Loads the cropping screen for the current page so that the cropping region
can be adjusted.
• Clock Settings – Displays a dialog that allows a clock to be shown on top of the score
in a designated area. The font size, style and color can be modified if desired.
• Rotate – Displays a dialog that allows the current song’s pages to be rotated. To
rotate the currently displayed page, tap the rotate left and rotate right
buttons at the bottom left corner of the screen. To rotate every page in the file, tap
the rotation buttons beside those. Long press these buttons to rotate every page in
every file in the song. The rotate left button rotates the page 90 degrees to the left,
and the rotate right button rotates the page 90 degrees to the right. Tap the arrows
on the sides to change pages.
• Sharpen Image – Brings up a dialog with an “Enable Sharpen” checkbox and a
Sharpen level slider. “Sharpening” is a feature in MobileSheetsPro that cleans up
images with a lot of “noise”. For example, if you have a scanned page of a book with
a lot of smudges, gray areas and/or other undesirable markings, sharpening can help
remove these and make the background whiter and the content darker. The higher
the value used for “Sharpen Level”, the more aggressive the sharpening algorithm
will be, but this can sometimes cause visual artifacts, and the image can become
more jagged in areas, so it’s important to select a value that removes undesirable
content without negatively affecting the score.
• Orientation – Locks or unlocks the current orientation. If the orientation of the
tablet is locked, rotating the tablet will no longer have any effect.
• Show Annotations – Shows or hides annotations.
• Night Mode – Enables night mode which inverts the color of the sheet music.
• Zoom/Pan Settings – Displays the “Apply Zoom/Pan Settings” dialog, which is shown
below:
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This dialog determines what pages are affected when either pinch zooming or
panning occurs. By default, all pages are zoomed by the same amount. If you find
yourself using zooming to remove margins, the cropping feature is much better for
this. You can change which pages are zoomed using the first dropdown, which
supports Current Page Only, All Pages in Current File, All Pages in All Files (Current
Song), and All Pages in Setlist. The pan settings dropdown also supports these same
options. When the “Enable high-quality zooming” setting is enabled, every pinch
zoom will result in a new high-quality rendering in the background. With some
documents, this can be quite slow. If you like to zoom in and out frequently,
disabling this setting can result in a much better experience at the cost of a little bit
of image quality.
If “Reset pan and zoom on load” is checked, zoom and panning changes will not be
saved so that each time a song is loaded, no zooming will be applied. Additionally,
pages cannot be turned while zoomed in – you must zoom out before turning pages.
While zoomed in with this setting enabled, you can perform a single finger pan of
the page. For users that like to zoom in and out a lot, turning off high-quality
zooming and enabling the “Reset pan and zoom on load” setting will make it very
fast to zoom in, pan the page, and then zoom back out.
If you do not like the current pan or zoom settings, tapping “Reset Pan and Zoom”
will remove any zooming or panning that has been applied. Lastly, the “Allow zoom
out smaller than 100%” option determines whether the page will be allowed to be
smaller than the screen in both dimensions. By default, this is not allowed as it’s
normally desirable to use as much as the screen as possible without stretching the
score.
- Enables panning, which means you can change what part of the current page is
displayed on the screen. This feature only works if the page is larger than the screen, as
otherwise there would be no need to move the sheet music around. By default, all zoom
and pan settings are saved and automatically applied when a song is loaded. That means if
you like to start a page with it partially scrolled, you can set it up so that it’s always loaded
that way. As described in the previous section, you can change this behavior if desired. The
majority of users will not need zooming and panning, and instead should rely on cropping to
eliminate sections of the page that aren’t needed.
- Tapping this icon will display a dialog used to change the current display mode for
songs as well as various display settings for the display modes. The display mode determines
how pages are positioned, and the way in which pages are turned. The icon will change
depending upon which mode is currently selected. The display mode is saved per
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orientation, so you can assign a different display mode to portrait versus landscape
orientation. By default, the same display mode is applied to all songs. You can override the
display mode per song if required. The dialog used for selecting the display mode is shown
below:
The display mode per orientation can be set by changing the Orientation dropdown.
Likewise, the default display mode can be set by tapping the Display mode dropdown. If a
different setting is required for the current song, uncheck the “Use default display for song”
checkbox and provide different settings. At the bottom, different settings are shown
depending upon what display mode is currently active. This provides quick access to change
settings instead of having to go to the main settings screen. The following display modes are
supported:
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The single page display mode shows one full page in portrait and
horizontally scrolls pages during page turns. In landscape mode,
you can split each page up into two parts (see the “Display Half
Page in Landscape” setting) to make full use of the available
Single Page screen width. In landscape, you can also turn half pages at a time
if you enable the “Half-Page Turns in Landscape Mode” setting.
This mode supports zooming and panning.
The half page display mode shows one full page, but only
advances one half-page at a time. This means that if all of page
one is showing and a page turn occurs, the top half of page two
will be displayed. Another tap will display all of page two. This
Half Pages makes it easy to prepare for page turns as the pages can be
turned ahead of time whenever it is convenient.
- Similar to the display mode icon, the page scaling icon displays a dialog that is used
to change the current page scaling mode which determines how pages are stretched to fill
the screen. The icon will change depending upon the currently active page scaling mode.
Like the display mode, the page scaling is also saved independently for portrait vs landscape
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orientation. A default page scaling mode can be set and individual songs can override the
default settings if required. See the page scaling dialog below:
Change the orientation dropdown to pick a page scaling for each orientation. The page
scaling options are described below:
The Fit Screen scaling mode will stretch the score as large as possible to
fill the screen without changing the aspect ratio. Either the width of the
score will match the width of the screen, or the height of the score will
match the height of the screen, depending upon which one doesn’t cut
off any content. That means that you won’t experience any distortion or
Fit Screen tearing as the sheet music grows or shrinks. This is the default mode and
is recommended for most users.
The Fit Width scaling mode will stretch the score so that the width of the
page matches the width of the screen. This may cause parts of the top or
bottom of the score to be off the screen.
Fit Width
The Fit Height scaling mode will stretch the score so that the height of
the page matches the height of the screen. This may cause parts of the
sides of the score to be off the screen.
Fit Height
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The Full scaling mode will stretch the score so that it completely fills the
screen. This will not respect the aspect ratio of the original file though,
so you will see some distortion of the original image. If your files have an
aspect ratio that closely matches the tablet, this mode may not cause
Full much distortion, and may be favorable to other modes. Otherwise, it will
almost certainly make your scores a little harder to read.
One other icon can show up at the bottom left that has not been discussed yet. This is the
half-page turn position icon, which looks like this: . This icon is only shown when using
the single page display in landscape orientation with half-page turns enabled. Tapping this
icon allows you to position the two halves independently so that no content is cut off during
the half-page turns. It’s as simple as tapping this icon, scrolling the first half to where you
like it and releasing your finger to accept, and scrolling the second half to where you like it
and releasing your finger to accept. This must be performed per page of the song.
The buttons at the bottom right of the overlay are more involved and will be explained in
the next sections.
The setlist window provides a convenient way to view all songs in the current setlist, and
skip to any of those songs with a single tap. It also supports reordering songs, and a series of
buttons at the bottom of the window. Different buttons are available depending upon
whether a single song was loaded, or an actual setlist. The window (both variations) can be
seen below:
Figure 42 – The Setlist Window with a Song on left and Setlist on right
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If any of the song entries are long pressed, a menu will be shown with options to either edit
the song or remove it from the setlist. The buttons at the bottom of the window are
described below:
Pauses the current setlist and loads another song. This action is only available
when a setlist has been loaded. When this action is tapped, a dialog will be
shown from which you can pick a song in your library. This dialog supports
basic filtering (search words, collections, an alphabet list, etc) so that a song
can be quickly located. When you select the song from the list, the song
display will load that song. If you hit the tablet hardware back button or the
back button at the top left corner of the overlay, it will go back to the last
viewed page in the setlist. If an audience member requests a song, this makes
it easy to handle one-off requests that are not a part of the setlist.
If a setlist is loaded, this brings up a search window to quickly locate a song to
add to the current setlist. Note that the change to the setlist will not be saved
unless you explicitly hit the save button.
If a single song is loaded, this brings up a list of all setlists in your library and
lets you add the current song to one of your choosing. Just tap on a setlist in
the list to add the song to it.
Creates a new placeholder song and adds it to the current setlist. The slider at
the top of the dialog provides a way to select the position in the setlist for the
new song. This option is only available if a setlist was loaded.
Saves any modifications to the current setlist, making them permanent. This
option is only available if a setlist was loaded.
Loads the current setlist in the group editor. This option is only available if a
setlist was loaded.
Bookmarks are used in MobileSheetsPro to mark pages in a song for quick future access.
They can also be configured to show up on the bookmarks tab on the library screen, which
provides a mechanism to jump to specific parts of songs by searching for the bookmark
name. Bookmarks are very useful when dealing with large scores or PDFs containing
multiple songs in them, as you can individually mark the songs with bookmarks, and load
these from the bookmarks tab.
The Bookmarks window is used to create and view all bookmarks for the current song or
setlist. It can be seen below:
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Figure 43 - The Bookmarks Window
The window is fairly simple – the bookmarks are shown in a list, and each entry can be
removed by tapping on its “X” on the right side of the window. New bookmarks can be
created by tapping the button at the bottom right. If a bookmark entry is tapped in the
list, the song display will skip to the page of the bookmark. If the “Show All Songs” checkbox
is checked then bookmarks from all songs in the current setlist will be shown, otherwise
only bookmarks from the active song will be shown in the list. If “Show PDF Bookmarks” is
checked, then any PDF bookmarks found will also be displayed in the list. If a non-PDF
bookmark is long pressed, a popup menu will be displayed with an option to go to the
bookmark, edit the bookmark or delete the bookmark.
When the button is tapped to create a new bookmark, the following dialog is shown:
The name of the bookmark can be assigned in the text field at the top, and the page can be
set using the slider in the middle. The currently displayed page is used as the default, so in
most cases, a name is all that is needed. If you want the bookmark to show up in the
bookmarks tab on the library screen, check the “Display in Bookmarks Tab” option.
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LINK POINTS
Link points are used in MobileSheetsPro to create a connection between two pages. The link
point will show up as a partially transparent circle on the score. When it is tapped, it will
jump from one page to the other, and briefly highlight the link point so that you know
where you should be looking. This makes link points great for handling things like repeats
(D.S/D.C.). The only other way to effectively handle repeats is to create a custom page
ordering that repeats pages so that you are always advancing forward. The list of link points
can be seen in the Links window, shown below:
Each start and end link point will be assigned the same color, and all pairs will have different
colors to make them easier to distinguish. Up to 10 pairs of link points are allowed. To
remove a pair of link points, tap the “X” at the right side of the list. Be aware that this may
adjust the colors of existing link points. Tap on entries in the list to view the start and end
pages for the link points (tap the same entry multiple times to cycle between the start and
end). The image below demonstrates what a link point looks like on a page:
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Figure 46 - A page with a blue link point
To create a link point, tap on 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. You can cancel the
creation at any time by tapping the “Cancel” button at the top left. 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. Tap the position on the screen for the end link point and you will see both a
partially transparent circle on the score as well as a new entry in the Links window.
To edit an existing link point, long press the entry in the Links window. You will see the
following dialog displayed:
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Figure 47 - Editing a link point
This dialog lets you adjust the size of any link point. The default size for all link points is 28.
To adjust the size of the current link point, drag the slider or press the minus and plus
buttons on the side. You will see the size of the link point change in real time as you do this.
Once you have found an acceptable size, you can either tap OK to accept the change for that
one link point, or tap the “Apply To” button to apply the change to other link points.
Tapping this button gives you the following options:
• Current Link Only – Only modifies the current link point. Equivalent to just tapping
OK.
• All Link Points in Current Song – Sets the size of every link point in the current song
to match the new size.
• All Link Points in Setlist – All link points in every song in the setlist will be modified
to match the selected size.
• All Link Points in All Songs – This will modify all link points in every song in the
library to match the selected size. If you are trying to set a new default, and want to
update all of the existing link points to match, this is the way to accomplish that.
If you would like all future link points to have a different default size, you can tap the “Set as
Default” button to set the selected link point size as the new default.
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.
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SMART BUTTONS
Smart buttons are a powerful feature in MobileSheetsPro that let users place buttons on
top of their scores that can trigger various actions when tapped. One of the most common
uses for smart buttons is to send a series of MIDI commands to a connected device. This is
useful as it allows devices to be configured at the appropriate time instead of when the
song is loaded. It also provides a mechanism to change device settings partway through a
song. To place a smart button, first bring up the smart buttons window, then tap the
button to being creating a new button. The following dialog will be displayed:
The first setting on the dialog is the button label which is the text that will be shown on the
button. While this field is optional, it can help provide context for what the button is
programmed to do. The next setting is the action, which determines what will happen when
the button is tapped. The following actions are supported:
• Send MIDI commands – Sends one or more MIDI commands when the button is
tapped. When this command is selected, you will see the list of MIDI commands as
shown above. Tap the button to see the new MIDI command dialog, or tap an
existing command tap the to edit that command.
• Start or Pause Audio Track – Starts or pauses audio playback.
• Start or Stop Metronome – Starts or stops the metronome
• Go to Start of Song – Goes to the first page of the current song
• Go to End of Song – Goes to the last page of the current song
• Go to Previous Song – Goes to the previous song
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• Go to Next Song – Goes to the next song
• Load or Go to Song – Loads a different song in the library or current setlist and skips
to the provided page. Unlike link points, which can only be used to skip between
pages of the same song, this provides a mechanism to quickly jump between pages
of different songs in the library. If this option is selected, the dialog will reveal a song
dropdown for picking the song and a field for entering the page number.
• Reset Next Link Point – When using a pedal to advance through link points, this will
prompt the user to indicate which link point should be triggered next.
• Open File in External Application – Loads the file that was linked to the smart
button in an external application. If no default application is assigned for the
selected file type, you will be prompted to select a supported application to load the
file.
• Show Notes – Shows any notes assigned to the current song.
• Pause or Resume Audio Track – If the audio player is currently playing, the track will
be paused, otherwise playback will resume from the current position.
• Show or Hide Audio Player – Displays the audio player if it’s currently hidden, or
hides the player if it is shown.
• Load and Play Audio Track – Links the button to one of the audio tracks in the
current song. This provides a convenient mechanism to play back a specific track in
the song and set the playback position (if desired).
• Open URL – Opens a URL. This can open a web browser for a URL that starts with
http:// or https://, or can load a file if it starts with file://.
The size of the button that is created can be changed by selecting a different value from the
“Button Size” dropdown. After selections are made and the OK button is tapped, the
window will be hidden so that the smart button can be placed on the score. To place the
button, just tap on the score where you would like it positioned. After that, the smart
button window will be shown again with the new button in the list. To edit an existing
button, long press on it in the smart buttons window. See the screenshot below for an
example of what a medium size smart button looks like on the score:
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Figure 49 - A smart button placed on the score
To reposition an existing smart button, long press it on the score and you will see the button
vanish and the overlay will be shown. Tap on the new position for the button and it will be
visible again. Tap cancel to put the button back in its initial position.
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THE AUDIO PLAYER
MobileSheetsPro comes equipped with an audio player that can be used to play backing
tracks for scores. This is incredibly useful if you want to practice with a recording of other
instruments, are performing live and need to fill in missing parts with an audio track, or
need to hear how something is supposed to be played while learning a new song. The audio
player can be seen in the image below:
To see how the audio player looks in the overlay, see the beginning of this section. The
audio player comes with a lot of functionality but the interface is quite simple. Before all of
the various buttons are addressed, it should be noted that there are three different sizes for
the audio player – small, normal, and large. These can be cycled through by tapping the
icon. Every time the icon is tapped, a different number will be shown in the icon, and the
size of the audio player will change. The small size can be seen below:
This has the same functionality as the top window except for the missing volume control.
The other layout is the large size:
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Figure 52 - Audio Player (large)
The large size comes with additional features not present in the normal size. A track playlist
is shown below the player with the ability to skip between tracks by tapping them, as well as
support for reordering them (tap and drag the box to the left of the track). To edit the
current playlist, tap the icon to be taken to the song editor audio tab. To change the
playlist so that it only contains tracks from the current song, tap the icon. This is the
default. To change the playlist so that it contains tracks from every song in the current
setlist, tap the icon.
The next thing that should be explained is the audio player settings dialog. To view the
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Figure 53 - The Audio Player Settings Dialog
The audio player settings are the same for all songs with the exception of the setting:
“Automatically play audio when song is loaded”. If you want audio playback to start
immediately after a song is loaded, you need to view this dialog with that song loaded and
check the checkbox. The other settings are explained in the list below:
• Fade Out: Determines if the audio player will fade out when the overlay is closed.
The following values are supported:
o Never – The audio player will stay visible even if the overlay is closed. The
audio player can still be hidden by tapping the “X” at the top right. If you do
this, you must tap the button in the overlay to show the audio player
again.
o With Overlay – The audio player is shown when the overlay is shown, and
hidden when the overlay is hidden. This is the default behavior.
o After 5 Seconds – The audio player is hidden after five seconds of inactivity,
meaning you have not touched any of the audio player controls within five
seconds.
• Fade Out Completely – Determines if the audio player is hidden completely when it
fades out, or if it will stay partially visible. If this option is not checked, the
transparency slider can be used to determine how transparent the player is.
• Show playback time on page – If enabled, displays the current playback time at the
top right corner of the screen.
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• Track List – Determines if the tracks loaded in the audio player are for the current
song only or all songs in the current setlist. If the selection is set to “All tracks in
setlist”, the “Switch track when song changes” setting is shown.
• Crossfade tracks – If enabled, allows crossfading between tracks which allows the
current track’s volume to be faded out as the next track’s volume is faded in. When
this setting is enabled, a slider is shown providing a selection for the length of the
crossfade between 1 to 11 seconds.
• Automatically play next track – Determines if the audio player will continuously play
through all tracks in the playlist. If this option is unchecked, the audio player will
stop playback after finishing the current track.
• Switch track when song changes – Determines if the audio player will change the
current track when the song changes. If this option is enabled, and you change from
one song to another in a setlist, the audio player will stop playback and switch to the
first track associated with that song. This setting is only valid when “Track List” is set
to “All tracks in Setlist”.
• Show artist with title – Determines if the artist is shown with the song title. In order
for this to work, the audio track must contain artist information.
• Use advanced audio player – Switches the audio player engine to the Superpowered
Audio library instead of Microsoft’s audio library. This enables use of pitch shifting
and tempo adjustment and provides better performance. If a file can’t be loaded
with the Superpowered Library (which only supports wave and mp3 files), the
Microsoft Library will be used instead.
Allows the audio player to be moved by pressing and dragging this button
across the screen. The new position of the audio player will be saved and
automatically restored the next time MobileSheetsPro is loaded.
Enables a-b looping. If an a-b loop has previously been set, orange vertical
bars will be drawn to show where the start and end points are for the loop.
Sets the start and end points for an a-b loop. First, change the track’s position
to the desired start of the loop by dragging the slider. Then tap the icon to
set the start of the loop. An orange vertical bar will be drawn showing the
start of the loop. Move the slider to where you want the loop to end and
press the icon. If you have not enabled a-b looping, the start/end will not
be shown, so you must do this first if you want to test the loop.
Adjusts the pitch of the track without affecting its playback speed.
Adjustments can be made in steps from -12 to 12.
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Adjusts the playback speed of the track without affecting its pitch. Values can
be selected between 0.01 and 3 (meaning 1/100 th of the speed to 3 times the
normal speed)
Mutes or unmutes the volume. You can adjust the volume by using the slider
to the right of this icon. If volume is muted the icon will look like .
Goes to the previous track. If the current playlist only has one song, this will
have no effect.
Pauses playback for the current track. If the track is currently paused, tapping
this again resumes playback.
Plays the current track. If the current track is already playing, tapping this
again will restart at the beginning of the track.
Fast forwards within track. If pressed it will fast forward in 5 second intervals.
If held down it will continuously fast forward.
Skips to the next track. If the current playlist only has one song, this will have
no effect.
Sets the repeat mode. Tap this once to repeat the current playlist. Tap it again
to repeat the current track. Tap it again to turn repeating off.
The last icon that should be mentioned is the icon which can be used to control the
panning of the speakers. When the icon is tapped, the following popup is shown:
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If the audio is panned completely to one side, the “Use mono output” checkbox will be
enabled. This allows a single channel of audio to be output to both speaker channels at
once.
MobileSheetsPro comes with a fully featured metronome that can be accessed through the
overlay. The metronome contains multiple display modes, sound effects, and options for
controlling the tempo and beats. The metronome window is shown below:
The metronome window has controls for adjusting tempo, time signature, beat subdivisions,
sound effects, the first beat accent, and volume. You can also change the playback mode if
you only need visual or audio playback. At the top there is 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
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• Cowbell
• Metal Metronome
• Woodblock
If the Accent First Beat checkbox is selected, a different sound effect will be used on the first
beat of every measure to make it easy to identify.
At the top left of the window, there are multiple icons. The first icon is which displays
the metronome playback settings dialog when tapped. This can be seen below:
The metronome playback settings must be set individually for each song. This gives you the
ability to control the metronome behavior based on what song or setlist you are loading.
Each of the settings is explained below:
• Auto-Start – Determines if the metronome will immediately start playing when the
song is loaded. If the song is part of a setlist, the metronome will start playing as
soon as the song is visible.
• Count In – Determines if the metronome will play a certain number of beats for a
count-in, and then stop. If the metronome is stopped in the middle of a count-in, it
will instead skip the count in. This provides an easy mechanism to override a count-
in if needed so that the metronome will continue to play without stopping.
o # of measures to count: If count-in is enabled, this is the number of
measures that will be played before the metronome stops.
• Auto-Turn Pages – Determines if the metronome will automatically turn pages when
it reaches the number of beats set for a given page.
• Apply to all songs in setlist – Applies the auto-start, count-in, # of beats to count,
and auto-turn pages settings to all songs in the current setlist.
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• # of beats on current page – Determines how many beats there are on the current
page, which is used with the Auto-Turn Pages setting. The metronome will count this
number of beats, and then turn the page. This setting must be set for each page in
the song.
• Apply to all pages in current song – Uses the current “# of beats on current page”
value for all pages.
The next icon at the top left of the metronome window is the icon. This is used to
change the display settings for the metronome. The display settings dialog can be seen
below:
The first dropdown changes between the four different display modes. The choices are:
LEDs, Glow, Metronome and Circle. For every mode but “Metronome”, you can change the
color used in the second dropdown. You can also tap the square next to the dropdown if
you wish to select a custom color. In order to understand the four display modes, pictures
are provided below with an explanation for each mode.
LEDs:
The LEDs display mode will draw a series of colored squares at the top of the screen. The
number of squares matches the number of beats in the current time signature.
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Glow:
The glow display mode will draw a colored box around the whole screen that pulsates with
the beats. The box will be colored orange for the first beat if the option to accent the first
beat has been enabled.
Metronome:
The metronome display mode places a little metronome image at the top left corner of the
screen. The metronome arm will toggle between left and right on each beat.
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Circle:
The circle display mode will draw a blinking circle at the top left corner of the screen. It will
be drawn when a beat occurs, and then quickly fade out. Like glow display mode, if the first
beat is accented, the circle will be orange on the first beat.
At the top of the metronome window, you can also see the icon. If this icon is tapped, a
new tempo will be added for the current song. This lets you switch tempos for the current
song, which can be useful if the song contains multiple tempo changes. A dropdown will be
displayed to the right of the Tempo label so that you can select which tempo is active. You
can also delete a tempo by tapping the icon at the top of the window (this is only shown
if more than one tempo is available). The tempo can be quickly changed by assigning a
touch or pedal action to cycle through the tempos. The ability to switch tempos after a
certain number of beats is going to be added soon as well.
The snippet tool is a very useful feature for quickly cutting out a section of a song with
which to create a new song. It can be accessed by clicking on the popup menu in the
bottom left corner of the song overlay. If you happen to be using a PDF that contains
numerous songs, the snippet tool can be used to break up that PDF into a series of songs
which all share the same file. The snippet tool window is shown below:
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Figure 58 The Snippet Tool
This dialog lets you enter a name for the new song that will be created as well as a range of
pages to use from the current song. The page range that is entered must be between 1 and
the value shown next to “Pages in File”. The range does not need to be continuous – you
can enter “1, 3, 5-7, 9” if you only wanted those specific pages. The “Copy Metadata”
checkbox determines whether the new song will be created with the same metadata
(artists, albums, genres, etc) as the current song. Likewise, “Copy Annotations” determines
if the current song’s annotations are copied into the new song. If “Load Snippet After
Creation” is checked, the new song will be immediately loaded into the song display after
creation. If “Edit Snippet After Creation” is checked, the song editor will be displayed for the
new song.
If the bottom right corner of the song display is tapped (see this picture for a visual of the
tap zones), the quick action box will be displayed. The quick action box contains a collection
of buttons that can be used to perform actions such as starting/stopping the audio player,
metronome, automatic scrolling, and performance mode. There is also a button whose
action can be changed if desired. The quick action box is shown below:
The quick action box will automatically fade out after five seconds of inactivity. The buttons
have the following actions:
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Turns the metronome on. Long pressing this icon will display the metronome
window.
Starts playing the track that is loaded in the audio player. Long pressing this
icon will show the audio player.
Shows the setlist window. Long pressing this icon will change the action of
this icon to one of the following:
• Show setlist window – Displays the setlist window
• Show bookmarks – Displays the bookmarks window
• Add new song to setlist – If a setlist is loaded, this will display a dialog
to find a song and add it to the current setlist. If a song is loaded, this
will display a list of setlists to add the song to.
• Pause setlist for request – Explained in detail here.
• Quick find song – Displays a dialog to find a song and load it.
• Edit song – Edits the currently displayed song in the song editor.
• Settings Screen – Loads the settings screen.
• Set Pedal Actions – Loads the screen used to configure the pedal
actions
• Toggle Night Mode – Toggles night mode which inverts the colors
showing white on black instead of black on white.
• Annotate Song – Loads the current page in the annotations editor.
• Change Text File Settings – Loads the Text Display Settings Dialog. If a
text file is loaded, the dialog will change the settings for that text file,
otherwise the dialog will change the default text file settings.
If the icon action is changed to something other than “Show setlist window”,
the icon will change to to indicate that it is a custom user action.
Starts automatic scrolling. Long pressing this icon will show the automatic
scrolling settings.
Users may wish to enable performance mode for live performances, as it disables the
overlay and zooming. When performance mode is enabled, the quick action box is very
important as it provides access to features that would otherwise be inaccessible.
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AUTOMATIC SCROLLING
One of the most useful features of MobileSheetsPro is the ability to have hands-free
playback through either the use of a pedal or automatic scrolling. Automatic scrolling is very
configurable and can be set up to scroll and turn pages with appropriate pauses. Automatic
scrolling is especially great when paired with the vertical scrolling display mode, as you can
have it continuously scroll at a slow pace. The automatic scrolling can have different settings
per song so that you can fine tune the behavior for specific behaviors. The scrolling will also
automatically stop when the last page of a song is reached in a setlist, so there is no danger
of it scrolling too far after a song is finished. Automatic scrolling can be initiated in multiple
ways:
• By tapping the icon in the overlay, and then tapping “Start Scrolling”.
• By tapping the bottom right corner to bring up the quick action box and then tapping
the icon.
• By assigning “Start or stop scrolling” to either a touch or pedal action.
To change the automatic scrolling settings, either tap the icon in the overlay and tap
“Scroll Settings”, or long press the icon in the quick action box. The following screen will
be displayed:
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• Scroll Behavior – Determines how each page will be scrolled. Four different modes
are supported.
o Scroll and Pause – Each page will be scrolled by the percentage specified for
“Scroll Amount”, and then paused for the number of seconds specified in
“Pause Duration”.
o Scroll and Pause After Page Turn – Each page will be scrolled until the end,
the page will be turned, and then the automatic scroller will pause for the
number of seconds specified in “Pause Duration”.
o Scroll Continuously To End – The automatic scroller will continuously scroll
and turn pages until it passes the end of the song.
o Scroll Entire Song in Fixed Time – Scrolls to the end of the song in a fixed
amount of time. When selected, a new “Total Duration” field will be visible
where you can enter the time value.
• Pause Duration – The number of seconds to pause between scrolls, depending upon
the scroll behavior.
• Scroll Speed – The speed at which the screen is scrolled. This value is used in
conjunction with the scroll amount to determine how much of the screen to scroll,
and how fast. Each supported value will be explained below. The first time is the
amount of time per scroll with a scroll mode of “Scroll and Pause” while the second
time is the amount of time per page when using the other modes.
o Slowest – 90 seconds per page.
o Slower – 75 seconds per page.
o Slow – 60 seconds per page.
o Medium – 45 seconds per page.
o Fast – 30 seconds per page.
o Faster – 15 seconds per page.
o Fastest – 7.5 seconds per page.
o Immediate – Scroll occurs immediately (no animation).
o Fixed Duration – Scrolls for the duration specified in the Fixed Duration
setting.
o Use Metronome – The scroll speed is based upon the current metronome
tempo. The basic rule is the # of beats/bps * 4 measures per line = the
number of seconds per scroll.
• Fixed Duration – If the Scroll Speed is set to Fixed Duration, this is the amount of
time to scroll per Scroll Amount or per page, depending upon the scroll behavior.
• Scroll Amount – The percentage of the page to scroll at a time when using the
“Scroll and Pause” scroll behavior.
• Time Before Scrolling Starts – The number of seconds to wait before scrolling
begins.
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• Start Scrolling When Song Loads – Immediately starts the automatic scrolling when
the song is loaded.
• Scroll continuously between songs in setlists – Normally, automatic scrolling is
stopped when the last page of a song is reached. This ensures that MobileSheetsPro
does not transition between songs in a setlist. If you prefer to have all of your songs
scrolled continuously, enable this setting.
• Apply To – Applies the selected scroll settings to the current song, all songs in the
current setlist, or all songs in the library.
• Set as Default – Uses the current scroll settings as the default for all new songs.
At the bottom of the song overlay there is a slider for changing the current page called the
page slider. When only one song is loaded, the page slider shows 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 combined total number of pages for all songs in the setlist, and the
information about the position in the current song above the slider. When pressing on the
slider to change the current page, a preview window is displayed above the slider to show
you what page you are turning to before you release. The preview window is shown below:
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Normally, the page slider is only shown when the overlay is visible. If you like having access
to the page slider at all times, you can change its behavior in the display settings.
Conversely, if you don’t like the page slider, you can choose to hide it entirely.
TRANSPOSING
When a text file is currently displayed, the icon is displayed at the top right of the song
overlay. Tapping this icon will display the dialog used to transpose text files. The dialog can
be seen below:
The transpose dialog is fairly simple in nature – to transpose to a different key, just tap the
right or left arrows to switch the key until you’ve reached the desired key. If you want to
transpose to a sharp key, tap the toggle button. If you instead want to transpose to a flat
key, tap the toggle button. To reset the key back to the key that was first displayed, tap
the reset button.
The number of intervals used to adjust the chords in the current song is determined by the
difference between the currently selected transposition key and the starting key. The
starting key is normally determined by the selected algorithm in the settings, but if the
starting key of the song needs to be adjusted, tap the “Set Starting Key” button and select
the starting key using the same approach used for selecting the transposition key.
When a text file is currently being displayed, an icon is displayed at the top right of the
song overlay. Tapping this icon will display two choices: Text Display Settings and Edit File.
The first option lets you change the text display settings for the current file. The text display
settings dialog is shown below:
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Figure 63 - Text Display Settings (Simple on left, Advanced on right)
As can be seen above, there are two modes for the dialog: simple and advanced. The switch
at the top controls this, and the default is simple. The only difference between the two is
that the simple mode hides a number of settings that are not commonly needed by most
users. Values on the dialog can be changed to immediately see the effect on the file in the
background. The changes are not applied until the OK button is clicked. The settings are as
follows:
• Encoding: Changes the character encoding used to read the file such as UTF-8 or
ASCII. If you find that your file doesn’t display correctly and has diamonds with
question marks in them, try changing the encoding. This setting is only shown if
Settings->Text File Settings->Display File Encodings is enabled.
• Right-to-left – When a file is imported, MobileSheetsPro will check to see if the file
contains a language with right-to-left characters such as Hebrew. If this is detected,
MobileSheetsPro will toggle the right-to-left setting to true and the file should switch
the layout accordingly. This switch lets you override the right-to-left setting that was
initially assigned.
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• Font: Changes the currently selected font for the text file. The list of supported fonts
is provided below. Not every font is available on every device. Only the fonts that are
supported on your device will be shown.
o System Default – Uses the system font default which is used for all controls
and labels.
o Monospace – Uses a fixed width font. While it is not very aesthetically
pleasing, it is very useful for displaying guitar tabs and other content where
every character needs to have the same width so that everything lines up
correctly.
o Sans Serif – On most tablets, this is the same as the system default.
o Serif – A pleasing font that takes up a little more width than sans serif.
o Light – A font that has a smaller thickness than standard sans serif.
o Condensed – A font with less width between characters than sans serif.
o Condensed Light – A font that has less width between characters and a
smaller thickness than standard sans serif.
o Thin – A font with a very small thickness.
o Medium – A font with a larger thickness than sans serif, making it appear
darker.
o Black – A font with even more thickness than medium, making it appear
darker.
• Title Size: The font size used to display the document title, which will be the first line
of the text file unless a specific title is specified in the chord pro syntax.
• Meta Size: The font size used to display content such as sub-title or artist.
• Lyric Size: The font size used to display lyrics.
• Chord Size: The font size used to display chords.
• Line Spacing: The amount of space to leave between lines of lyrics and chords. This is
a multiplier.
• Chord Highlight: The color to put behind chords. If any color other than white is
chosen, a square block of color will be drawn behind chords to highlight them.
• Chord Color: The color to use for chords. This can help make them stand out from
the lyrics.
• Capo: Changes the capo applied to the current song. The capo, much like
transposing, changes the chords that are displayed. If the “Modulate Capo Down”
setting is enabled in the text file settings, then the chords will be modulated down
the number of steps entered for the capo. For example, if the chord is normally C,
and the capo value is set to 3, the chord will be displayed as A. This is because, if you
have a capo on the 3rd fret of a guitar and wanted to play a C chord, then you should
play an A chord, as the two are equivalent. If “Modulate Capo Down” is unchecked,
then an Eb chord will be displayed, as playing a C chord with a capo on the 3 rd fret is
equivalent to playing an Eb chord without a capo.
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• Apply To: Provides a popup with a selection to apply the settings to the current file,
all files in the current song, all files in the setlist, or all files in the library.
• Set as Default: Replaces the default text file settings with the current settings.
• Reset: Resets the settings to what they were when the dialog was first shown.
• Auto-Size Font: Determines the largest font that can be used without any lines
having to wrap around. In order to prevent ridiculously large font sizes from
potentially being selected, the “Maximum Auto Font Size” is set to 30 by default in
the settings. This means that if the calculated font size is larger than 30, 30 will be
used instead.
In some situations, the text file display settings dialog is displayed not for a current text file,
but to modify the default text settings. In this case, the capo field is not displayed.
Chord pro files are text based files that contain directives for the program loading them.
This allows the program to customize how the text is displayed such as making a title larger,
or by placing chords above the lyrics instead of in line with them. This makes them much
more powerful than standard text files. MobileSheetsPro tries to support some of the same
features with text files (such placing chords above lyrics), but many features are chord pro
specific. That is why chord pro files are the preferred format in MobileSheetsPro for
combining lyrics with chords. The chord pro specification can be found at the following
website: http://www.chordpro.org
MobileSheetsPro supports most of the standard directives, and a number of custom ones as
well. The following table shows which commands are supported and what effect they have.
Note that multiple values may be present in the first column – they all have the same effect.
Use whichever you feel most comfortable with.
{title:text}, {t: text} Sets the title of the document. This is typically rendered
in larger font at the top (you can control the font size
specifically)
{subtitle:text}, {st:text}, Sets the sub-title. This is shown underneath the title using
{su:text} the font size specified for the meta size.
{album:text}, {a:text} Sets the album. This can be used to automatically
populate the song’s album field when the file is first
imported.
{artist:text} Sets the artist. This is shown underneath the title and
subtitle. It uses the meta font size. It can also be used to
automatically populate the song’s artists field when the
file is first imported (see the “Use Fields For Songs”
setting)
{key:text} Sets the key of the song. This is important for transposing
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the chords. This can also be used to automatically
populate the song’s keys field when the file is first
imported. (see the “Use Fields For Songs” setting)
{capo:number} Sets the capo for the song.
{tempo:number} Sets the tempo for the song. This can be used to
automatically populate the song’s tempo field when the
file is first imported (see the “Use Fields for Songs”
setting)
{time:text} Sets the time signature for the song. This can be used to
automatically populate the song’s signature field when
the file is first imported (see the “Use Fields for Songs”
setting)
{duration:number} Sets the duration for the song. This can be used to
automatically populate the song’s duration field when the
file is first imported (see the “Use Fields for Songs”
setting)
{comment:text}, {c:text}, Displays a comment in the file, which will be shown with
{guitar_comment:text}, an italicized font.
{gc:text}
{comment_box:text”}, {cb:text} Displays a comment surrounded by a box.
{start_of_chorus}, Marks the start of a chorus. A chorus will be indented and
{start_of_chorus:text}, {soc} will display the text provided above it (or Chorus if no
label was provided). This chorus can be repeated where
needed by using the {chorus} command.
{end_of_chorus}, {eoc} Marks the end of a chorus.
{start_of_tab}, {sot} Marks the start of a tab. All of the text between this and
the end of the tab will be shown using a monospace
(fixed width) font. This is useful for displaying guitar
tablature where every character needs to be the same
width so that things line up properly.
{end_of_tab}, {eot} Marks the end of a tab.
{tabsize:number} Sets the font size to be used for tab sections. This is only
processed when the file is first imported.
{copyright:text} Displays a copyright at the bottom of every page which is
bolded and capitalized.
{footer:text} Displays the given text at the bottom of every page.
{book:text} Has the same effect as {album}
{textsize:number} Sets the font size to be used. This is only processed when
the file is first imported.
{textfont:text} Sets the font to be used. This is only processed when the
file is first imported. The value must match one of the
following:
• Monospace
• Sans Serif
• Serif
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• Light
• Condensed
• Condensed Light
• Thin
• Medium
• Black
• sorttitle
• collection
• setlist
• source
• genre
• difficulty
• custom
• custom2
• customgroup
• keywords
• rating
{column_break}, {cb} Switches to a new column if multiple columns are
enabled. If there isn’t room for a new column, this acts as
a page break.
{transpose: steps} Transposes every chord after this keyword by the number
of steps specified. The transpose can be cleared later by
specifying either {transpose: 0} or {transpose} without
any value. Note that total the number of steps transposed
will be determined by combining this value, the
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MobileSheetsPro transpose setting for the song and the
current capo setting.
{start_of_part:text}, {spp} Marks the start of a part. The text provided will be
bolded.
{end_of_part}, {eop} Marks the end of a part.
{start_of_verse:text}, {sov} Marks the start of a verse. The text provided will be
bolded.
{end_of_verse}, {eov} Marks the end of a verse.
MobileSheetsPro contains a text editor that can be used to generate new text or chord pro
files, or edit existing files. To create a new file, a song must first be created by entering the
Song Editor by tapping the “New” action in the action bar, and then tapping the icon on
the Files tab. A prompt will be shown requesting the name of the new file, and it will be
placed inside an appropriate folder in the MobileSheets storage location. You can also
create a new file if the current song being edited contains no other files. If a song is edited
that is currently using a text or chord pro file, the same icon can be used to edit that existing
file. Similarly, if a song is currently being viewed that uses a text or chord pro files, you can
edit the text file using the icon in the song overlay.
The text editor displays the current file’s contents in the center section of the screen with a
series of options at the top of the screen in the action bar as seen below:
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Figure 64 - Text File Editor
• Move – Enables the chord move mode. This is only shown when editing a chord pro
file. When this mode is enabled, tapping on a chord will select that whole chord
(including the brackets) and display a toolbar with options to slide that chord left or
right one character. This makes it easy to reposition chords in the file. Tapping the X
in the toolbar will temporarily hide it until the next chord is tapped.
• Transpose – Allows the chords in the file to be transposed. This uses the same
transpose dialog as the one in the song overlay – just tap the arrows to switch keys
and switch between flat and sharp if needed.
• Insert – Allows chords and certain directives to be inserted into the current file to
make editing faster. This is only shown when editing a chord pro file.
o Title – Inserts a {title:} directive and places the cursor after the colon.
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o Chord – Inserts the brackets for a chord and places the cursor between the
brackets so the chord letters can be entered.
o Comment – Inserts a {comment:} directive and places the cursor after the
colon.
o Chorus Section – Inserts a {start_of_chorus} and {end_of_chorus} directive
and places the cursor on the line between them.
o Tab Section – Inserts a {start_of_tab} and {end_of_tab} directive and places
the cursor on the line between them.
o Repeat Chorus – Inserts a {chorus} directive to repeat the chorus.
• Save – Saves all changes that have been made to the file and exits the editor.
• Cancel – Cancels any changes that have been made and exits the editor.
• Preview – Shows a preview of what the text or chord pro file will look like when
rendered in the normal song display.
• Chord Insertion Mode – While this mode is active, tapping anywhere in the file will
created chord brackets in that location and the cursor will be placed between the
brackets. This mode is useful if you need to insert a lot of chords in succession.
When using a setlist, it’s often very useful to know when you’ve reached the last page of a
song, and what is coming up next. In order to do this in a convenient, non-obtrusive way,
the next song bar was created. The next song bar shows up at the top of the screen when
you are on the last page of a song, and displays the title of the upcoming song. Depending
upon the settings, the next song bar can be configured to fade out after a number of
seconds. If you really like knowing what the next song is at all times, you can also configure
the next song bar to be shown at all times. The picture below demonstrates the next song
bar:
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Figure 65 - The Next Song Bar
To configure the next song bar, tap the icon at the far right side of the bar. This will
display the following dialog:
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The “Show Next Song” setting determines when the next song bar will be shown. The
options are:
The “Fade Out” setting determines how long the next song bar waits before fading out. The
following options are supported:
• Never – The bar will stay visible until you change pages.
• After 2 Seconds – The bar will fade out after two seconds.
• After 3 Seconds – The bar will fade out after three seconds.
• After 4 Seconds – The bar will fade out after four seconds.
• After 5 Seconds – The bar will fade out after five seconds.
• After 10 Seconds – The bar will fade out after ten seconds.
The “Text Size” setting determines how large the font in the next song bar is, and the “Text
Color” determines what color it is. Lastly, the “Background Color” setting determines what
color is used for the next song bar background.
If you have never seen the next song bar shown, it is likely disabled. You can change this by
going to the Display Settings, and selecting the “Show Next Song Indicator” setting. You will
see the same options described above for the “Show Next Song” setting.
If the icon is tapped in the top left corner of the song overlay, the following dialog will
be displayed:
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Figure 67 - The Notes Dialog
Notes can be saved both for individual songs and setlists. In each case, checking the “Show
notes when loaded” checkbox will show a popup window containing the notes when the
song or setlist is loaded. When that box is checked, a dropdown will be displayed with
choices for how long the pop window should be shown. The window can be shown until a
tap occurs or until a certain amount of time passes. If the notes dialog is opened when a
setlist is loaded, the “Type” dropdown provides a mechanism to change whether the
current setlist’s notes are modified or the current song’s. If an individual song is loaded, the
dropdown at the top will not be visible and the current song’s notes will be edited. The text
size and alignment can also be set for both the song and setlist notes. Tapping the text size
field will show the following dialog where the text size value can be changed, settings can be
applied to more than one song and the default settings can be configured:
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Figure 68- The Notes Text Size Dialog
PERFORMANCE MODE
When performing live, it can be nice to disable many elements of MobileSheetsPro that are
not needed, and could cause accidents. For this purpose, the performance mode feature
was created. When performance mode is enabled, the overlay and zooming is disabled, and
taps on the center of the screen will turn the page instead of bringing up the overlay. The
touch actions in the corners, top and bottom still operate normally, and the quick action box
is available to toggle features like the audio player and metronome. To toggle performance
mode, use the quick action box by tapping in the bottom right and tapping the icon, or
return to the library screen, and tap the icon in the floating toolbar. Note that when
performance mode is enabled, the action bar on the library screen will be hidden, as it’s
assumed no changes will be made to the library during a performance.
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ANNOTATIONS EDITOR
One key feature in MobileSheetsPro is the ability to markup music in a variety of ways. This
is accomplished through a screen called the annotation editor. When a song is loaded, the
annotation editor can be accessed by either using a three-finger tap (which is configurable
in the touch actions) or tapping the icon in the song overlay. This will bring up the
annotation editor screen as shown below:
When the annotation editor is first loaded, you will see different options depending upon
what tool is selected at the top. In the example above, the pen is selected, so the Pen
Settings window is shown. If the highlight tool was selected instead, then the Highlight
Settings window would be shown. The following tools are supported in the annotations
editor:
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, useful for copying and pasting annotations.
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Activates panning. If the score is currently larger than the screen (meaning you have
zoomed in) this tool lets you quickly shift what part of the page is visible. Just drag
the page around to move it. To switch between the last selected tool and panning,
use a two finger tap. To switch back, use the two finger tap again. To zoom in or out,
use a pinch gesture.
This selects the draw mode, which supports 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
addition to just showing text, the textbox that is created can be filled and given a
border if desired.
This selects the stamp mode, allowing you to drop various music symbols on top of
your score. In the near future, these images will be replaced by higher quality font-
based stamps (meaning they will scale nicely at all sizes). Additionally, custom user-
provided stamps will be supported.
This selects the eyedropper, which allows you to select a color from the score 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.
In addition to the tools, there are several other icons displayed at the top. The and
icons are used to undo and redo changes made in the editor. The and icons are
used to switch to the previous page or next page. If changes are present in the editor,
tapping these icons will prompt you to save changes, unless you have enabled the
“Auto-save on Page Turn” setting, which will be covered later. Lastly, the icon is
used to show additional settings, which are covered in the list below:
• Show Pen Settings – If enabled, the Pen Settings window will be shown when the
pen tool is selected. If you close the Pen Settings window, you must tap this option
to bring the window back.
• Show Highlight Settings – Same as the Pen Settings window, but for the highlight
tool.
• Show Stamp Settings – Same as the Pen settings window, but for the stamp tool.
• Show List – Displays the list of all annotations on the current page, and provides the
ability to create annotation groups, which will be discussed later. The list is only
shown when the selection tool is active.
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• Show Toolbox – Displays the floating toolbox, which contains all of the same tool
icons as displayed at the top of the page. You can move the floating toolbox by
dragging the arrow icon.
• Show Nudge with Select Tool – Displays the nudge tool when the selection tool is
active. The nudge tool is a simple window with four arrow icons. When an arrow
icon is tapped or held down, the selected annotations will be moved in the direction
of that arrow. This allows for greater precision when placing annotations on the
score.
• Show Nudge with Other Tools – Displays the nudge tool when a tool other than the
selection tool is active.
• Show highlights behind content – Draws highlight annotations behind content on
the page instead of on top by blending the pixels. This results in a more natural
highlight that does not reduce the clarity of the page content. This setting is not
guaranteed to work on every device due to hardware, manufacturer and OS version
differences.
• Grid Settings – Displays options for the grid, including an option to snap annotations
to the grid, an option to show the grid, and a slider for the grid cell size. This can be
useful to help line up annotations.
• Stylus Mode – Enables stylus mode which will attempt to only process touch events
from a stylus, and ignore any touch events caused by a hand. If you are not using a
smart stylus, do not enable this option, as it will cause the touch processing to not
work correctly.
• Auto-save on Page Turn – When enabled, any changes in the annotation editor will
be automatically saved when you turn to a different page.
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.
To view groups, first activate the selection tool. If you do not see the selection list, enable
the “Show List” setting as described in the previous setting. The annotations list can be seen
below:
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Figure 70 - 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 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 icon . To delete the current group (and
all annotations under it), tap the icon at the top right of the list window.
You can quickly switch the selected annotations by tapping the items 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 list window.
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SETTINGS WINDOWS
Whenever the draw, highlight, text or stamp tools are active, their settings window will be
displayed (if they are enabled in the settings). These windows let 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 windows, any selected annotations 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.
When multiple annotations of the same type are selected, the settings windows will change
their values to match the first annotation of their type, and will change the labels of a
setting to green if the annotations are using different values for that setting.
DRAWING MODES
When the tool is selected, you will be able to draw on top of the page. What is drawn is
determined by the active draw mode. To change the draw mode, enable the pen settings
window and tap the “Mode” dropdown. 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.
When drawing, the settings that are applied depend upon 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. The “Smooth”
setting determines if line smoothing will be applied, which only affects freeform drawings.
The pen type dropdown contains several options that affect the style of the lines that are
drawn. The following pen types are supported:
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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. To edit an existing freeform
drawing, press and hold on the freeform object to bring up a popup menu, and select the
edit option. This ensures that any new drawings are grouped together with the original as
one annotation instead of separate annotations.
TEXTBOXES
When the tool is selected, 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. The popup can be seen in the
screenshot below:
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. Tapping on the insertion dropdown will display a list of characters that can be
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inserted into the text annotation. If you tap the expand button , additional settings will
be shown (these are shown in the screenshot above). These settings include the text color,
the fill color, the auto-size setting, whether a border is shown, the border size, border color
and opacity. 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. The opacity determines the transparency of the textbox. A
higher value indicates less transparency, while a lower value indicates more transparency.
To edit existing text annotations, use the selection tool and tap on them. You can also draw
a box around them to edit multiple at a time. When editing multiple text annotations, their
text cannot be changed – only the other settings.
STAMPS
When the tool is selected, 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
MobileSheetsPro. A later update will add support for user-provided stamps, as well as
additional built-in 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.
In order to move or resize an annotation, the selection mode must be active by pressing the
tool 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
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To copy an annotation, the selection mode must 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.
In order to easily toggle annotation groups while viewing a score, support has been added
for both touch and pedal actions to trigger switching the active group. For example, you can
assign the top left corner to “Previous Annotation Group” and the top right to “Next
Annotation Group”, and this will cycle through the annotation groups when you press either
corner. If you plan on using annotation groups, consider utilizing these features.
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TOUCH AND PEDAL ACTIONS
In MobileSheetsPro, the area used to display songs has nine tap zones, six of which can be
configured for triggering actions. The division of these tap zones can be seen here. The
screen to determine what action is triggered for a particular zone can be found by going to
the settings screen, then Touch & Pedal Settings, and finally “Touch Actions”. This will bring
up the following screen:
For each of the five programmable zones, two finger taps and three finger taps, the
following options are available:
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• Go to Previous Song – Skips back to the previous song in the active setlist. This will
have no effect if a single song is loaded.
• Go to Next Song – Skips to the next song in the active setlist. This will have no effect
if a single song is loaded.
• Toggle Night Mode – Toggles night mode, which inverts the colors for low light
situations.
• Go to Start of Song – Skips back to the start of the current song.
• Go to End of Song – Skips to the last page of the current song.
• Go to Next Metronome Tempo – Switches the current metronome tempo to the
next one in the list.
• Annotate Song – Loads the current page in the annotation editor.
• Go to Previous Bookmark – Changes the page to the page matching the closest
bookmark before the current page.
• Go to Next Bookmark – Changes the page to the page matching the closest
bookmark after the current page.
• Start or Stop Scrolling – Starts automatic scrolling if it is stopped, or stops it if the
pages are currently scrolling.
• Reset Pan and Zoom – Resets the pan and zoom for the current song or setlist.
• Create Snippet – Loads the snippet dialog for creating a snippet from the current
song.
• Return to Library – Switches back to the library screen
• Show Notes – Displays any notes that have been entered for the song
• Reset Next Link Point – When using a pedal to advance through link points, this will
prompt the user to select the link point that should be triggered next.
• Turn Two Pages Backward – Advances up to two pages backward.
• Turn Two Pages Forward – Advances up to two pages forward.
• Pause or Resume Audio Track – If the audio player is currently playing, the track will
be paused, otherwise playback will resume from the current position.
• Show bookmarks – Displays the bookmarks window.
After making selections, press the back button to exit the touch action settings page.
The pedal actions can be configured by going to the settings screen, then Touch & Pedal
Settings, and finally “Pedal Actions”. This will display the configuration screen for the pedal
actions, which can be seen below:
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Figure 73 - Pedal Action Settings
The first setting, “Debounce”, determines the amount of time that must be measured
between pedal presses for them to be accepted. The options are: Disabled, Quarter Second,
Half Second, One Second, and Two Seconds. Having something other than “Disabled” for
the debounce setting is normally recommended to prevent multiple page turns at once.
The next setting, “Scroll Speed”, determines how fast the screen is scrolled after a pedal
action has initiated a scroll. This value is used together with “Scroll Amount” which specifies
the percentage of the page to scroll every time the pedal is pressed. For example, Medium
speed is one second, so if the scroll amount is 20%, 20% of the page will be scrolled in one
second after the pedal is pressed. The following values are supported:
• Slowest – 5 seconds
• Slower – 3 seconds
• Slow – 2 seconds
• Medium – 1 second
• Fast – 0.75 seconds
• Faster – 0.5 seconds
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• Fastest – 0.2 seconds
• Immediate – The page is scrolled immediately (no animation).
• Fixed Duration – The value specified in the “Fixed Duration” setting determines the
number of seconds to use for the scroll time.
• Use Metronome – The current metronome tempo is used to determine how quickly
the screen is scrolled.
The fixed duration field, as explained above, determines the amount of time to use for
scrolling when the scroll speed is set to “Fixed Duration”.
In the middle of the screen, four sections are present – one per pedal. While
MobileSheetsPro supports up to four pedals, you can use any number of pedals you want. It
doesn’t even have to be a pedal – any device that can send Bluetooth or USB keyboard
commands will be recognized. It should be noted that the labeling of pedal 1 through 4 is
purely for organizational purposes – you can tie whatever pedal or device to whatever pedal
number you want, as each one is just a mapping of one or more keyboard commands to a
MobileSheetsPro action. To set up the action for a particular pedal, you can either tap one
of the “Pedal #” buttons or tap the “Keys” dropdown first to set up the keys to listen to,
then the action dropdown to specify the action (the Pedal # just sets up one after the
other).
When you tap the Keys dropdown, the following dialog will be displayed:
While this dialog is displayed, MobileSheetsPro will be waiting to receive commands from
any devices. If you have a pedal connected, press the pedal to see the value appear in the
“Keys” field. You can first tap “Clear” if you want to remove all values then press the pedal
to have just its value added. Tap OK to accept the current list of keys to map to the action. If
you don’t see anything added after pressing your pedal or other device, first ensure that you
have a valid connection over Bluetooth or USB and try again.
Once the keys are set, you can assign the pedal action. The following pedal actions can be
selected by tapping the action dropdown:
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• None – No action will be taken.
• Go to Previous Page – Advances backward one page.
• Go to Next Page – Advances forward one page.
• Scroll to Top of Page – Scrolls continuously to the top of the current page.
• Scroll to Bottom of Page – Scrolls continuously to the bottom of the current page.
• Activate Link Point or Turn Page – Activates a link point if one exists on the page,
otherwise turns to the next page.
• Scroll Down or Turn Page if at Bottom – Scrolls down to the bottom of the current
page, or turns to the next page if already at the bottom.
• Scroll Up or Turn Page if at Top – Scrolls to the top of the current page, or turns to
the previous page if already at the top.
• Predictive Scroll Down and Turn – Attempts to scroll the next measure into view by
looking at the content of the page, or turns to the next page if at the bottom of the
current page.
• Predictive Scroll Up and Turn – Attempts to scroll the previous measure into view by
looking at the content of the page, or turns to the previous page if at the top of the
current page.
• Activate Previous Link – Triggers the previous link which skips to the end link page. If
the first link has not been activated yet, this has no effect.
• Activate Next Link – Triggers the next link which skips to the end link page. If all links
have been triggered, this has no effect.
• Activate Previous Link or Go to Previous Page – Triggers the previous link if it is on
the current page, otherwise it turns to the previous page. Additional details are
provided at the end of this section.
• Activate Next Link or Go to Next Page – Triggers the next link if it is on the current
page, otherwise it turns to the next page. Additional details are provided at the end
of this section.
• Previous Annotation Group – Switches to the previous annotation group.
• Next Annotation Group – Switches to the next annotation group.
• Show or Hide the Audio Player – Shows or hides the audio player.
• Previous Audio Track – Skips to the previous audio track.
• Next Audio Track – Skips to the next audio track.
• Start of Pause Audio Track – Starts the audio player if it is stopped, and stops it if it
is playing.
• Start or Stop Metronome – Starts the metronome if it is stopped, otherwise it is
started.
• Go to Previous Song – Skips to the previous song in a setlist. This has no effect if a
single song is loaded.
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• Go to Next Song – Skips to the next song in a setlist. This has no effect if a single
song is loaded.
• Go to Start of Song – Turns to the first page of the current song.
• Go to End of Song – Turns to the last page of the current song.
• Go to Previous Bookmark – Turns to the page of the closest bookmark before the
current page.
• Go to Next Bookmark – Turns to the page of the closest bookmark after the current
page.
• Start or Stop automatic scrolling – Starts automatic scrolling if it is stopped,
otherwise it is started.
• Go to Previous Page or Loop to End of Song – Turns one page backward if not at the
start of the song, otherwise it advances to the last page of the song. This looping
mechanism works per song and doesn’t rely on the global repeat mode setting.
• Go to Next Page or Loop to Start of Song – Turns one page forward if not at the end
of the song, otherwise it returns to the start of the song.
• Annotate Song – Opens the annotations editor for the current song.
• Return to Library – Switches back to the library screen
• Show or Hide the Setlist Window – Displays or hides the song overlay setlist window
• Show Notes – Displays any notes that have been entered for the song
• Turn Two Pages Backward – Advances up to two pages backward.
• Turn Two Pages Forward – Advances up to two pages forward.
• Reset Next Link Point – When using a pedal to advance through link points, this will
prompt the user to select the link point that should be triggered next.
• Activate Next Smart Button – Advances forward through the song’s list of smart
buttons triggering each one in order regardless of what page they are on.
• Activate Previous Smart Button – Advances backward through the song’s list of
smart buttons triggering each one in order regardless of what page they are on.
• Audio Player Volume Up 5% - Raises the volume of the audio player by 5%
• Audio Player Volume Down 5% - Lowers the volume of the audio player by 5%
• Pause or Resume Audio Track - If the audio player is currently playing, the track will
be paused, otherwise playback will resume from the current position.
Several of the pedal modes reference activating the previous or next link, or the previous or
next smart button. When a first song is loaded, a counter is kept determining what link
point and smart button were last triggered. If a song has four link points, and you’ve
triggered the first link point, the next link point is the second link point in the song. With the
“Activate Previous Link or Go to Previous Page” and “Activate Next Link or Go to Next Page”
settings, it should be noted you must trigger the link points in order. If you skip past a link
point without triggering it, you will not be able to activate later link points with the pedal
until the song is reloaded (or you go back to the page containing the link point and trigger
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it). Those modes are designed so that you can design a sequence of pages, such as, 1,2, 3, 1,
2, 5, 6, and advance through them using the pedal. This would be done by having a link
point from 3 to 1, then from 2 to 5. You could then use the “Activate Next Link or Go to Next
Page” mode to just step through each page in order. The only other way to achieve this is
with a custom page order.
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CONFIGURING MIDI CONNECTIONS
By default, MobileSheetsPro will automatically start communicating with any MIDI device
that is connected with a USB cable. A connection will be made to every available input and
output port found. While this works for most Android devices, some devices (such as
Chromebooks) have restrictions that prevents the default MIDI library in MobileSheetsPro
from functioning correctly. If you find that you cannot connect your MIDI device or you
need additional port-based filtering, then you will want to switch the MIDI library that is
used. To do this, open the Settings screen and go to MIDI Settings->Configure MIDI
Connections. The following screen will be shown:
If the MIDI Library is switched to Google, Input/Output ports become visible as shown
below:
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Figure 76 - The Google MIDI Library
Tapping on an entry in the input or output ports will start a connection to that port.
MobileSheetsPro will put (Connecting) next to the port to show that a connection is process,
and then replace that with (Connected) once the connection is successful. Once a port has
been connected to successfully, MobileSheetsPro will save the port information and will
automatically reconnect to it in the future, preventing the need to go to the MIDI
configuration screen each time MobileSheetsPro is run. The “Show only MIDI devices”
checkbox is used to control whether or not MobileSheetsPro restricts the USB or Bluetooth
devices shown to those that are class-compliant MIDI devices. It should be noted that the
connection process is identical whether USB or Blueooth is used – you must pick the ports
to connect to by tapping them in the lists.
Another benefit to using the Google MIDI library is the ability to perform port-based filtering
on messages. When the Google MIDI library is selected, it will become possible select input
and output ports while setting up MIDI commands. This provides a means to control which
ports specific messages go out on, and which commands must be received on specific ports
to trigger songs to load. For users with more complex setups, this is a very powerful feature.
The last library that can be selected is the “Superpowered” MIDI library. This third-party
library has extremely good performance but only runs on Android 4.4 or higher and only
works with class-compliant MIDI devices over USB. If you need the absolute best
performance possible when connecting through MIDI and the other libraries aren’t fast
enough, then this library should be considered as an alternative. Like the default library,
devices are automatically connected when using this library and port filtering is not
possible.
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MIDI ACTIONS
Similar to pedal actions, MobileSheetsPro can be configured to trigger various actions when
one or more MIDI commands is received. To configure these actions, go to the settings
screen, then MIDI Settings, and finally “MIDI Actions”. This will bring up the following
screen:
To add a new MIDI action, tap the icon and the New MIDI Action dialog will be
displayed. The dialog lets you choose what action will be triggered in the dropdown at the
top. The same actions are supported for MIDI actions as are supported for pedal actions, so
consult the previous section for more information on the actions. Tapping the icon on
this dialog will display the Add MIDI Command dialog. This dialog lets you select the type of
MIDI command to listen for. See the MIDI tab section for additional details. Add all of the
MIDI commands that must be received in order to trigger the selected action. If you tap the
icon, you can listen for commands from your MIDI device, and setup the MIDI action to
use those commands.
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CONNECTING DEVICES
One feature in MobileSheetsPro that is quite powerful is the ability to have one master
device control other connected slave devices. The master tablet can be configured to load
songs and setlists on the other tablets, turn pages and send pedal actions. To begin
connecting devices, tap the “Connect Tablets” option in the overflow menu on the library
screen, and you will see the following dialog displayed:
There are two ways to connect devices: WiFi and Bluetooth. You can switch between these
modes by tapping the “Connect Using” dropdown. If WiFi is selected and the IP address of
the master tablet is known, the “Direct Connect” button can be tapped to bring up a dialog
that accepts an IP address. After tapping OK, the tablet will connect directly to the master
device, skipping the normal discovery mechanism. This can be useful if the master device
doesn’t show up in the list due to network or device restrictions, but a direct connection is
still possible. Similarly, “Connect with Last Used Settings” can be tapped to connect the
master using the same exact settings as the last session. The button will be disabled if a
connection hasn’t been successfully made to another device. The “Reconnect devices at
startup” option will cause MobileSheetsPro to set up the same connection as the last
successful connection when it is first loaded. This means creating a new group on the
master tablet and connecting to that group from a slave tablet.
Both the Wifi and Bluetooth connection types will be covered in the following sections as
well as the various settings dialogs.
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CONNECT DEVICES USING WIFI
In order to connect devices using Wifi, a common access point that all devices can connect
to must be available. That access point must also allow messages to be sent between
devices (public access points may restrict this). If no access points are available, most
phones now support creating a hotspot access point that other devices can connect to, and
this can be used with MobileSheetsPro.
To begin connecting devices, the “New Master” button must be tapped on the device that
will be designated as the master. The following dialog will be displayed:
A name can be provided for the group which the slave devices will use when joining the
group. It’s useful to provide a unique name if several different groups may be created on
the same access point. The “Book mode” setting is used to treat the master and slave device
as a single pair that will be used to view scores by a single user. This setting emulates the
two-page display mode across two separate devices. You can read more about book mode
at the end of this section.
The next setting shown is whether or not the master will turn pages and/or load songs and
setlists on the slave devices. In order for songs to be loaded, the slave devices must have
songs and setlists with matching titles. The “Keep devices on the same page” setting will
ensure that the same page of each song is displayed on the master and all connected slaves.
Unlike the “synchronize song changes in setlists” option, this option will handle scenarios
where a song might have more pages on one tablet than the other. In order for this setting
to function properly, it’s important that the setlists on each device have the songs in the
same order. The “Synchronize song changes in setlists” option will ensure that if the master
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tablet changes songs (either by changing pages, using a bookmark or jumping to a song) that
the slave devices will change to the same song on their device. Lastly, the “Create
temporary copies of setlists on slave devices” will cause the master tablet to send its setlist
(and list of songs) over to the slave devices when the setlist is loaded. The slave devices will
create a temporary copy of the setlist, and for each song in the list, they will either add a
matching song from their library or a blank placeholder if a matching song can’t be found
When “OK” is tapped on this dialog, the master device will begin broadcasting the group
information to the slave devices. When this occurs, the group will show up in the dialog, as
can be seen below:
In this example, “Group 1” can be tapped, at which point it will be selected, the text will
turn green and the “Join Group” button will be enabled as can be seen in the figure above. If
“Join Group” is tapped, the slave device will attempt to join the selected group. When this
join succeeds, the label in the list will change to “Group 1 (Connected)”, and the master
device will display the connected slave device in its list. At this point, the master can now
load a song or setlist, and the slave device will load the same song or setlist (assuming it can
find a match). If enabled, the master device can also turn pages and the slave devices will
turn their pages in sync. It should be noted that pedal commands, such as scrolling will also
be sent from the master device to the connected slave devices, but only if page turns are
enabled.
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CONNECTING DEVICES USING B LUETOOTH
In order to connect devices using Bluetooth, the devices must be in range of each other and
have Bluetooth enabled. If Bluetooth is chosen from the dropdown but Bluetooth is not
enabled, MobileSheetsPro will prompt you to enable it. Once Bluetooth is selected and
enabled, the dialog will display a new switch labeled “Search” as can be seen in the figure
below:
While switched on, the tablet will search for Bluetooth devices nearby that can be
connected to. This search will only last for 12 seconds, as it will consume a lot of power and
processing resources on the device. If a group has been created, it will show up in the list
during the 12 second search. If the search ends, you can toggle it back on once the master
has created the group.
To create a new group, the master device must tap the “New Master” button, and provide a
name, as described in the previous section. The only difference is that, once OK is tapped,
you will be prompted to allow the device to become discoverable. The device will stay
discoverable for two minutes and the “Search” switch will change to “Discoverable”. If the
two-minute period ends and other slave devices still need to connect, toggle the
“Discoverable” switch back to on.
When a slave device attempts to connect using Bluetooth, a pairing of the two devices will
begin. If the devices have never been paired before, a dialog will be displayed on each
device that requires the user to confirm the pairing. After the pairing completes, the two
devices will be connected, and you will see the list change to reflect this. The master can
then start controlling the connected slave devices.
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SLAVE CONNECTION SETTINGS
If the “Settings” button is tapped on the main connect devices dialog, a separate dialog will
be shown that is used to configure settings on the slave devices. The dialog can be seen
below:
This device name value allows the slave device to be uniquely named which makes it easier
to distinguish in the master devices list. The setting below that, “Match songs using” is
incredibly important. This determines how songs sent from the master tablet will be
matched to songs on the slave tablet. By default, songs are matched based upon their title.
If each device has different songs (such as when each musician has a different version of a
song for their instrument), then it may be better to match on a different field such as the
song ID or custom field. Supported values for this setting are “Title”, “Custom Sort Title”,
“Song ID”, “Custom” and “Custom 2”.
The last few settings let slave devices choose whether they want to allow the master device
to load songs and setlists or turn pages for them. This allows the master to have default
settings that apply to all slave devices, but certain users can override these settings if
needed.
Due to the scarcity of devices with screens large enough for a two-page display, it is often
more convenient to connect two devices as use them as if they were one. The book mode
feature makes this possible. When the master device (the left-hand page) is connected to
the slave (the right-hand page) and a song is loaded, the slave device will always display the
page directly after the page shown on the master device. Pages can be turned by tapping on
either device’s screen. When book mode is enabled on the “New Device Group” dialog, the
dialog will change to show additional options as shown below:
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Figure 83 - New Device Group dialog when book mode is selected
The “Page turn mode” setting is used to determine how pages will be advanced while going
through the song. See the section on the two-page display mode to see supported page turn
modes. The “Separate songs in book mode” will ensure that pages from two different songs
are not shown at the same time on both devices. In the case of a song with an odd number
of pages, the slave device may display a blank page when the last page of the song is
displayed on the master.
In order for book mode to work properly, it is essential that each device has the same
library. This can be accomplished either by using the backup and restore features or the
library synchronization feature. It is important to note that book mode will not be activated
until a device has been successfully connected to the master tablet. This ensures that if the
slave device is disconnected for any reason, the master device can still be used normally
until the slave is reconnected.
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SYNCHRONIZING DEVICE LIBRARIES
When playing as part of a group, it’s often necessary to keep the libraries of each group
member synchronized, especially when utilizing features such as the master/slave
connection feature. While a library backup file can be used to accomplish this, it is an all-or-
nothing approach to solving the problem, as restoring a backup file will replace the entire
library on the device. A much better solution is to use the library synchronization features in
MobileSheetsPro that will merge libraries together. To access this feature, tap the overflow
button on the library screen and select “Sync Library”. When selected, the following types of
synchronization are displayed:
• Synchronize to a device
• Synchronize to a cloud folder
• Synchronize to backup file
SYNCHRONIZE TO A DEVICE
This type of synchronization allows two devices to merge their libraries together over WiFi
or Bluetooth. When this option is selected, the following screen is displayed:
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Figure 84 - Device Sync Screen
• Connect As – This setting is used to designate one device as the server and the other
device as the client. The server device is the one that designates all of the settings
for the merge.
• Sync Type – Determines which device will be updated during the merge. If only one
device needs to be updated, select “Update Server” or “Update Client”, otherwise
“Two-way Sync” should be selected to update both devices as needed.
• Add new songs – Determines whether new songs should be allowed to be created. If
disabled, no new songs will be added to either library.
• Delete songs – Determines if songs will be deleted if needed during the merge. This
setting is only available when performing a one-way merge. If the sync target has a
song that doesn’t exist on the other device and this setting is enabled, that song will
be deleted.
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• Sync song metadata – Synchronizes song metadata, including most data in a song
not associated with groups. Examples include link points, bookmarks, the
custom/custom2/difficulty/rating fields, scroll settings and metronome settings.
• Sync annotations – Synchronizes all annotations.
• Sync MIDI Commands – Synchronizes song MIDI commands. This will only process
MIDI commands added to songs – MIDI actions in the global settings will not be
merged.
• Sync groups – Synchronizes group data including setlists, collections, genres, artists,
etc.
• Sync notes – Synchronizes song notes.
• Sync song display settings – Synchronizes song display settings, which are song
overrides of the display and page scaling modes for both portrait and landscape
orientation.
• Keep screen on – Determines if the screen will be forced to stay on while the
libraries are merged.
• Merge Behavior – Determines how song differences are processed. The following
options are supported:
o Use data from the song that was modified last – When songs are compared,
data from the song that was modified last will be used. Note that this last
modified timestamp is updated when any change is made to the song. When
song files are compared, the file that was modified last will be used.
o Prompt user for decision – A dialog will be displayed for every difference
between songs. This provides complete control over how the merge
proceeds.
o Only merge new songs and groups – Ignores songs that exist on both tablets.
o Only merge new and prompt user – Ignores songs that exist on both tablets,
and prompts the user to decide which songs should be added.
o Always use data from server – Similar to a one-way sync, the server’s songs
will always be used whenever a difference is determined and a merge is
needed. Unlike a one-way sync, new songs can still be created during a two-
way sync if this setting is used.
o Always use data from client – Same as the previous option, but the client’s
songs are always used.
• Connect Using – Determines if the devices will connect to each other using WiFi or
Bluetooth. WiFi is typically more reliable and much faster and should be chosen if a
router is available.
At the top right, the “Folder Settings” option is available in the action bar. Tapping this will
present a dialog where you can create name/path mappings for folders on the device. If
each device assigns different paths to the same names, they can control where files will be
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placed on each device while merging. This is typically only necessary if you manage your
own files and are not relying on the MobileSheetsPro storage location.
After the settings have been selected, the server device can click “Create Server” to begin
the merge. The client should automatically detect the server device if using WiFi, but you
can also tap “Direct Connect” on the client side to enter the server’s IP address if necessary.
If automatically detected, the server will show up in the list. Tap the server name to select
it, then tap the “Connect” button to initiate the connection. The server device should then
show the connected client device. Consult the previous section on connecting devices if
using Bluetooth to connect. Once the devices connect to each other, the merge will
automatically begin. Status messages will be printed to the bottom of the screen and
depending upon the merge behavior, prompts will be displayed if needed. When the merge
completes, you can tap Quit to end the merge.
This type of synchronization allows one device to upload its library to a cloud folder, and
then other devices can synchronize to that same folder to receive updates. Most of the
settings from the previous section are also supported with this type of synchronization (just
substitute the words “Folder” for “Client” and “Device” for “Server”). The following settings
are different:
• Check for updated files in cloud folders – If enabled, each file in the cloud folder
is checked to see if it has been updated. While this is slow, it ensures that if new
copies of files have been copied to the cloud folder, they will be processed. If you
know you haven’t copied any files to the folder, and have always relied upon
MobileSheetsPro to update the folder, you can disable this setting which makes
the synchronization much faster/
• Search for new files and create songs in both libraries (slow) – If enabled,
MobileSheetsPro will scan the cloud folder for files that aren’t currently used by
the library. If found, they will be imported, and then the library in the cloud
folder will be updated as well.
To start the sync, tap on the folder icon, browse for a cloud folder, and then tap the “Start”
button. The first time a device is synchronized to a cloud folder, a copy of that device’s
library must be uploaded to the cloud folder (you can’t just use an existing cloud folder as
no database will be present to store the library information). After this initial upload which
can take a while if the library is large, all subsequent synchronizations will be fast, especially
if MobileSheetsPro does not have to check for updated files. While you can add new files to
the cloud folder manually and search for new files, it’s often much more efficient to import
these files on one device and then sync to the cloud folder.
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SYNCHRONIZE TO BACKUP FILE
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SETTINGS AND OPTIONS
While the default settings for MobileSheetsPro will be fine for most users, everyone likes to
operate a little differently. That’s why MobileSheetsPro provides the ability to change
various settings that impact how the application operates. To access the settings screen, tap
the overflow menu at the top right of the library screen and select settings, or tap the
icon at the bottom right corner of the overlay. The settings screen is shown below:
When the settings screen is accessed from the library screen, the “Library Settings” section
is first shown. When the settings screen is accessed from the song overlay, the “Display
Settings” section is first shown.
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:
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ABOUT
STORAGE
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• Switch OneDrive Account
o Provides a mechanism to change the current OneDrive account.
LIBRARY SETTINGS
• Switch Library
o Provides a mechanism to load a different database file and switch the active
library.
• 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.
• Left Hand Alphabet List
o Places alphabet lists, used to quickly scroll lists to entries starting with a given
letter, on the left side of the screen instead of the right.
• Show Extended Letter List with Tap – This setting changes the behavior of the
alphabet list on the library screen so that a single tap brings up the extended letter
list, which is normally shown after a long press. A long press will then trigger the
normal single tap behavior, which scrolls to the given letter. See the section on the
alphabet list for more information.
• Song Title Formatting
o Loads the song title formatting dialog so that the way in which songs are
displayed in the library lists can be configured. See the section on song title
formatting for more information.
• Generate Song List Format
o Determines how songs are printed when generating a song list from a setlist.
See the section on generate song list formatting for more information.
• Custom Group Name
o Determines what name is displayed for the custom group category.
• Use Dark Theme
o Inverts the list colors so that it shows white text on a black background.
• Alternate Row Color
o Provides alternating row colors for the library screen lists. Options include:
none, light gray, gray or dark gray.
• Library Text Size
o Determines what font size is used for displaying entries on the library screen.
• Text Alignment
o Determines if entries in the library lists are left, center, or right aligned.
• Tab Order
o Loads the tab order dialog to select what tabs are shown and in what order
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• Show Number of Songs
o Determines if, for group types, the number of songs they contain is displayed
to the far right of the entry in the list (or far left if Left Hand Alphabet List is
enabled).
• Show Setlist Duration
o Shows the total setlist duration beside the setlist title on the library screen.
• Calculate Setlist Duration Using Files
o Calculates setlist duration using the combined duration of all audio files used
by songs in the setlist instead of using the song duration field.
• Clear Filters After Load
o Automatically clears any filters than have been applied when a song or setlist
is loaded.
• Show Floating Toolbar
o Determines if the floating toolbar is shown at the bottom right corner of the
library screen.
• Ignore Articles While Sorting
o This determines if articles specified by the “Articles to Ignore” are ignored
during sorting. This is typically used to ignore articles such as “A”, “An”, and
“The”, so that a song titled “The Best Song” would show up under “B” instead
of “T”.
• Articles to Ignore
o This determines what articles are ignored at the beginning of songs when the
“Ignore Articles While Sorting” feature is enabled. The list of articles must be
comma separated.
• Normalize Characters
o Determines if diacritical marks are removed from characters while sorting
and certain other characters are replaced, i.e. Č becomes C, Å becomes A, Ö
becomes O
• Use Language Sorting Rules
o Compares values by using the sorting rules of the currently selected
language. If disabled, a simple comparison will be performed.
• Automatically Load Next Song
o This setting can be used to page through songs in any library list. For
example, if an individual song is loaded using the songs tab, this setting
would let you page through all of the songs on the songs tab, starting with
the first one you loaded. The songs aren’t loaded as a setlist – instead,
MobileSheetsPro will just load the next one in the list when you advance past
the last page of the current song.
• Always Load Last Viewed Page
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o When this setting is enabled, MobileSheetsPro will automatically load the last
page that was viewed for any song or setlist. This ensures that you can pick
up from wherever you left off at when working through pieces.
• Initial Library Tab
o This setting determines what tab is shown first when MobileSheetsPro is
loaded.
• Always Load Whole Setlist
o This setting determines if, when an individual song is tapped inside of a setlist
on the library screen, whether the whole list is loaded (starting at the page of
that song) or just that song is loaded.
• Skip Viewing Groups with One Song
o If a group with only one song is tapped, the song will be loaded instead of
viewing the group. Empty groups will be shown with a gray title. If group song
counts are enabled, no number is shown for groups with a single song.
• Automatically Load Last Used Filters at Startup – If enabled, MobileSheetsPro will
saved all filters when the application is closed. The next time the application is
loaded, those same filters will be applied.
DISPLAY SETTINGS
• Language
o Provides a way to easily change the language used in MobileSheetsPro.
• Allow Zoom Out Past 100%
o When pinch zooming in MobileSheetsPro, you are normally not allowed to
zoom the score smaller than the screen dimensions. This is done so that as
much of the screen space is used as possible. If you want to be able to make
the sheet music smaller than the screen, enable this setting.
• Disable Page Turn Animation
o Normally when using the single page, two page, or vertical scrolling display
mode, the pages will scroll when you tap to advance to a new page. This
setting removes the scrolling animation so that pages instantly change when
you tap.
• Repeat Mode
o If this setting is enabled and you advance past the last page of a song or
setlist, MobileSheetsPro will jump back to the first page of that song or
setlist.
• Display Half Page in Landscape
o Displays half a page in landscape orientation while using the single page
display mode. Pages can be scrolled up and down.
• Half-Page Turns In Landscape Mode
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o Advances half a page at a time while the single page display mode is active in
Landscape Mode. Vertical scrolling is disabled while this mode is active.
• Separate Songs in Two Page Mode
o If this setting is enabled, two different songs will never be shown at the same
time when using the two page display mode. This means if a three page song
is shown, followed by a two page song, page three of the first song will not
be shown at the same time as page one of the second song. This means that
sometimes a single page will be displayed if necessary.
• Link Point Default Size
o Provides control over the default size of link points. This increases both their
size on the screen, and the hit detection area.
• Page Color Tone
o Tints pages using a selected color tone to reduce glare and eye strain.
Supported tints include sepia, gray and cool (a blueish tint).
• Background Fill Color
o Determines what color is used to fill the margins surrounding scores
displayed in MobileSheetsPro. 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.
• 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.)
• Page Alignment
o Normally, pages are aligned with the top of the tablet in MobileSheetsPro.
This makes it easier for your eyes to know where the next page will align. If
you prefer to have your pages centered or aligned to the bottom of the
screen, switch this setting.
• Show Formatted Song Titles
o Determines if the song titles shown in the overlay, setlist window and next up
song bar will use the same formatting as the library screen. If not, the
standard song title will be used.
• Show Next Song Indicator
o Displays the options for determining when the next song indicator will be
shown. The options are never, on page before next song, and always. More
information can be found in the next song bar section.
• Always Show the Title Bar
o Determines if the top section of the overlay, known as the title bar, is always
visible at the top of the screen while viewing a song. Enabling this setting will
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ensure that the sheet music is pushed below the title bar so that nothing is
obscured.
• Show Preview During Page Seek
o Enables/disables the mini-preview window that appears while using the page
slider to change pages.
• Overlay Toggle Mode
o Determines what action displays the image overlay. Choices include: single
tap, long press or swipe diagonally. (A single tap will always close it.)
• Use Page Slider Only for Previewing Pages
o Allows the page slider to be used to view the preview thumbnail for pages,
but when released, the current page is not changed.
• Page Slider Visibility
o This setting determines when the page slider is shown. The options are:
hidden, shown with overlay, and always visible.
• Render Preference
o Determines if pages should be rendered at maximum quality and accuracy or
as fast as possible. This switches between two different PDF rendering
libraries. If you are encountering problems with PDFs loading too slowly, or
any other PDF errors, changing this setting may help.
• Device Orientation Lock
o Locks the orientation of the device to the selected. This overrides song
orientation locks and applies to every screen in the application.
• Dim the Navigation Bar
o If running Honeycomb or later, the navigation bar at the bottom of the
screen will be dimmed (otherwise this has no effect.)
• Hide the Navigation Bar
o If running KitKat or later, this setting will let you fully hide the navigation bar
at the bottom of the screen. You will have to swipe from the top of the
screen to gain access to the hardware back button if you enable this.
• Fullscreen Mode
o Determines if MobileSheetsPro hides the notification bar at the top of the
screen. If you don’t need notifications on your tablet, this will free up
additional space for displaying your library and scores.
IMPORT SETTINGS
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o Determines if matching audio files will be automatically added to songs when
files are imported. The file names (ignoring the extensions) must match and
the audio files must be in the same folder as the files being imported. That
means if a file called “newfile.pdf” is imported, a search for “newfile.*” will
be performed, and any match with a valid audio file extension will be used
(such as newfile.mp3 or newfile.wav).
• Aggressively Crop
o Enables a more aggressive algorithm for removing margins which tries to
ignore noise in the margins of pages.
• Populate Metadata When Importing Audio
o Determines if song fields are populated using the metadata from imported
audio files.
• Join Imported Images with Similar Names – Adds imported image files to the same
song when their filenames are identical except for a number near the end. If you
have many individual image files that were scanned, this can provide an easy way to
import them all at once and have them joined in one song.
• Capitalize Each Word in Song Fields – Normally, MobileSheetsPro will capitalize each
separate word when entering values for song fields. This isn’t desirable in some
languages though, so this behavior can be disabled.
• Pedal Actions
o This loads a separate dialog that lets you assign actions to pedal presses. See
the section on configuring pedal actions for more information.
• Prevent Pedal From Changing Songs
o If you like to change pages with a pedal but do not want the pedal to switch
between songs, enable this option. Songs will only be changed by tapping the
screen.
• Touch Actions
o This loads a separate dialog that lets you assign touch actions to parts of the
screen. See the section on configuring touch actions for more information.
• Enable USB Mouse Processing
o This determines if USB mouse clicks will be used to turn pages
• Swap Mouse Click Actions
o Switches the mouse click actions so that a left mouse click turns back one
page while a right mouse click turns forward one page.
• Treat Mouse Click as Pedal Press
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o If this setting is enabled, mouse clicks can be used like a pedal to invoke a left
or right pedal action. You must assign the actions you want to pedal #1 and
pedal #2 on the pedal action screen.
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• Process Output Directives
o Determines if output directives such as the lyrics font name and size, chords
font name and size and tab font size are processed.
• Detect Key By
o Determines how the key of a given text or chord pro file is determined. The
options are as follows:
▪ First Chord – The first chord in the song will be used as the key
▪ Last Chord – The last chord in the song will be used as the key
▪ Chord Progression – MobileSheetsPro will look at the chord
progression in the song, count the number of chords of each type,
and try to determine the key from this information.
• Display File Encodings
o Determines if the file encoding setting is shown on the text display settings
dialog. Normally users do not need to change the file encoding for text files
as they are determined automatically. If you see <?> characters in your text
or chord pro files, enable this setting, and try changing the encoding for that
file in the text settings dialog.
• Chord Localization
o Determines how chords are handled based upon the rules of the selection
region. Two selections can be made: one for the source localization (how
chords read from the file are interpreted) and one for the display localization
(how the chords are displayed to the user after being transposed if needed).
The supported localizations are as follows:
▪ Default - Displays chords as capital letters from A through G with flat
or sharp symbols as needed. Minor chords are denoted by a
lowercase "m" to the right of the chord.
▪ Czech - Displays chords in a convention familiar with the Czech
language. This displays "B" as "H" and "Bb" as "B". In addition, minor
chords are denoted by lowercase "mi".
▪ German - Displays chords in a convention familiar with German-
speaking people. This displays "B" as "H" and "Bb" as "B".
▪ Scandinavian - Displays chords in a convention familiar with
Scandinavian-speaking people. This displays "B" as "H" and "Bb" as
"Bb".
• Auto-Size Font
o If enabled, the font size will be automatically calculated for imported text and
chord pro files based on the longest line in the file. The font size will be the
largest value possible that doesn’t cause line wrapping and is less than or
equal to the maximum auto font size.
• Maximum Auto Font Size
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o The largest font size allowed when auto-size font is used to calculate the font
for a file. This ensures that extremely large font sizes aren’t used for files with
short lines of text.
MIDI SETTINGS
• MIDI Channel
o The MIDI channel that MobileSheetsPro will send and receive MIDI messages
on.
• MIDI Echo
o Determines if MobileSheetsPro will send all received MIDI messages back out
to every connected device.
• Allow Multiple MIDI Channels
o Determines if MobileSheetsPro will allow MIDI commands to be configured
to be sent out on multiple channels.
• MIDI Device
o Determines what kind of MIDI device is connected. If KORG is selected, an
additional “Number” MIDI command will be available. Consult the KORG
documentation here for more information. If Genos is selected, the option to
link Genos registrations to songs will be available in the song editor.
• MIDI Actions
o Configures actions that MobileSheetsPro will trigger when MIDI messages are
received. See the section on MIDI actions for more details.
• Backup Library
o Displays a dialog that will let you initiate a backup of your entire library. See
the section on backing up your library for more information.
• Restore Library
o Displays a dialog that will let you initiate a restore of your entire library. See
the section on restoring your library for more information.
• Restore Automatic Database Backup
o Allows one of the automatic database backups to be restored in the case that
data has been lost. Restoring a database backup is irreversible, so be cautious
when using this feature.
OTHER SETTINGS
• Keep Screen On
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o Determines when the screen is forced to stay on. The choices are: Never,
While Viewing Scores and Always. Note that if no activity is detected for an
entire hour, the screen will be allowed to turn off to prevent the tablet
battery from being completely drained.
• Keep CPU On
o Determines when the CPU is allowed to sleep. The choices are: Never, While
Viewing Scores, and Always. Normally there is no reason to keep the CPU on,
but if you are experiencing problems with Bluetooth pedals falling asleep,
this may help.
• Find Missing Files
o Shows a dialog that can be used to find songs that are missing files in the
library. Songs in this list can be tapped to swap in valid files, edited to fix the
problem or deleted if they are no longer needed.
• Fix Broken File Paths
o This advanced utility can be used to repair file paths in the library if files have
been relocated to a location that no longer matches what MobileSheetsPro
originally stored. If you have upgraded the Android OS on your device and
the removable SD card path has changed, this utility can help fix the file paths
in MobileSheetsPro. The simplest way to use the utility is to tap the
Automatic radio button and then let MobileSheetsPro search for the files and
fix the paths stored in the database.
• Stop Audio on Back
o Determines if audio playback is stopped when the back button is used to
return to the library screen.
• Disable Audio Player
o Determines when the audio player is disabled. The following values are
supported:
▪ Never – The audio player is always enabled and available for use.
▪ In Performance Mode – The audio player will be disabled in
performance mode, preventing accidental use
▪ Always – The audio player is always disabled and cannot be accessed.
• Prompt before exit
o If the back button is tapped to exit MobileSheetsPro, a confirmation is
required before the app will be exited.
• 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.
• Convert PDF to Images
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o Provides a dialog that can be used to convert a PDF to image files. Provide
the files you want to convert, the directory to place the output files into, the
type of image file you want, the pages from the PDF to create images from,
and a desired height if you want the images to be a certain size (otherwise
leave this blank).
• Clear Library
o Completely clears the library, optionally removing all song files.
• Reset Settings to Default
o Resets all settings across the application to their defaults.
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MOBILESHEETSPRO COMPANION
The MobileSheetsPro 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 using the companion app, the first
thing you need to do is connect your tablet to the MobileSheetsPro Companion.
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). The first step is to start the sync
mode on the tablet. On the library screen, tap the action bar overflow menu at the top
right, and then tap on the “Connect to PC” option. You will be presented with the following
screen:
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By default, this screen is configured to connect over Wi-Fi. It is highly recommended that
you stick with a Wi-Fi connection, as the USB connection is very difficult to configure. That
means that the Wi-Fi connection symbol should be orange in the center of the screen. If not,
tap it to select it.
Next, load up the MobileSheetsPro companion. The tablet will be sending out an
identification message to your PC. The Companion App should then pop up a window that
looks like the following:
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, 16569, and 8888.
After a connection is established, the main window will look like the following:
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Figure 88 - The Main MobileSheetsPro Companion Window
All of the songs in your library will be displayed in the center. You can filter these songs just
like you can on the tablet. See the section on filtering for more information on this. The next
step is to create or edit a song.
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 double-clicking on it. You can also right-click on the list
and select “Add Song” to bring up the song editor to start creating a new song. The song
editor is shown below:
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Figure 89 - The Song Editor
The MobileSheetsCompanion song editor was modeled after the tablet song editor, so you
will see a lot of similarities. Consult the main tablet song editor section for additional
information. The main differences are with adding audio tracks and MIDI commands.
If multiple files are dragged in to the main window, an import of all files will be performed
at once instead of loading the song editor. The following dialog will be displayed:
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Figure 90 - The Import Settings Dialog
This dialog is identical in nature to the one shown on the tablet when the Import->Local File
action is used. See that section for more details on this dialog.
If you select the audio tab in the song editor, and then click the Add button or double click
an entry, the following window will be displayed:
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91- 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:
The first thing you will notice is that the fields are not filled in. You must add a file by either
dragging and dropping a file into the window or browsing for 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 MobileSheetsPro. If you want to keep the audio
file in the same location as the other song files, change the storage location at the top to
“Default Application Storage”
MIDI COMMANDS
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While adding and editing MIDI commands in the companion app is very similar to the tablet,
the main difference is that in the companion app, a separate window is used to create and
edit commands. This window is shown below:
The contents of this dialog will change depending upon what MIDI command type is
selected at the top. Otherwise the data entry is identical to the tablet.
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.
The MobileSheetsPro 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:
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94 - 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.
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CREATING AND EDITING COLLECTIONS
The MobileSheetsPro Companion also provides the ability to create, edit, and delete your
collections. The directions for managing a collection (and any other group type) in the
companion app are identical to that of a setlist, so just follow the directions of the previous
section.
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 window shown below:
First, select the destination for the backup file, and ensure that the hard drive has plenty of
space available. 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. Once the transfer
completes, you will see a popup message indicating success. You can also perform a backup
from the tablet.
LIBRARY RESTORE
If you want to restore a library backup on the tablet that you have stored on the PC, you can
use the Library Restore feature in the companion app to accomplish this. Go to File-
>Restore Library to see the following window:
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Figure 96 - Companion App Library Restore
Select the backup file on your PC using the browse (…) button, and then click Start to begin
transferring the backup over WiFi. If the backup is large, this can take a fair amount of time.
For information on the restore to options, see the tablet library restore section.
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:
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97 - 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.
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FAQ
Question Answer
Is MobileSheetsPro available for A Windows 10 version is available on the Microsoft
Windows 10? store. Search for “MobileSheets”. The direct link is:
https://www.microsoft.com/store/apps/9nblggh6ct6d
Can I restore my MobileSheets Yes, you can restore all MobileSheets backup files in
library in MobileSheetsPro? MobileSheetsPro. Just use the regular library restore
process. It is not possible to restore MobileSheetsPro
backups in the original MobileSheets though.
What kind of pedal would you The most reliable and well-built Bluetooth pedal
recommend? available is the Airturn Duo. You can get two or four
pedal models. All sales using the above link helps
support future MobileSheetsPro development.
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TROUBLESHOOTING
Problem Resolution
I am unable to connect my tablet to my PC. The first step is to check to see if any anti-
virus scanner programs are running, as these
often have firewalls. You must either disable
the anti-virus firewall or allow ports 8888,
16568 and 16569.
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application and select the file using the
appropriate app.
Google Play incorrectly states that my The following steps will fix this problem:
device is incompatible or doesn’t show up
on Google Play at all 1. Reboot your tablet
2. Go to your tablet Settings-
>Applications->Google Play and tap
Clear Data. Do the same for Google
Play Services.
3. Load Google Play and install
MobileSheetsPro
4. If the installation still does not work,
reboot your tablet and try again.
Multiple reboots may be required.
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.
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