What's New in Stage Traxx 4.1

This release adds a lot, so here's a short guide to the new features, what they're
good for, and the exact syntax.

About the Beta (please read first)

The Stage Traxx 4.1 Beta is a separate app. It installs alongside your regular
Stage Traxx and does not share any data with it. Songs, playlists, settings and
iCloud data are kept apart. Nothing you do in the Beta touches your live library.

To move your data into (or out of) the Beta, use one of the built-in transfer options:

Backup / Restore — create a backup in one app and restore it in the other.
Song / Playlist export files — export songs or playlists and open them in the
other app.

⚠️ Important — backwards compatibility. Backups and song/playlist exports created
in 4.1 cannot be read by 4.0.17 (the current App Store version). Loading a 4.1
backup or export in 4.0.17 can crash the app. Reading 4.1 files requires
4.0.18, which will be released shortly. Until 4.0.18 is out, only transfer data
into the Beta (from the full version), not back the other way.

How to join the Beta

The Beta is distributed through Apple's TestFlight:

Install TestFlight from the App Store (if you don't already have it).
Open this link on your device to join:
https://testflight.apple.com/join/sd21jCHj
Tap Install in TestFlight to get the Beta app.

About the in-app purchase: because the Beta is a separate app, it has its own
in-app purchase to unlock the full feature set. You will not be charged — TestFlight
purchases are never billed, and the purchase confirmation dialog says so too. Just
confirm the purchase to unlock everything and keep testing.

How to give feedback

Please post feedback and bug reports as new threads in the Beta section of the
forum. One thread per issue makes it much easier to track. Include your device, iOS
version, and the steps to reproduce.

Please note: 4.1 is feature complete

Version 4.1 is feature complete. No further features will be added to this version.
The only changes from here on are bug fixes and usability enhancements directly
tied to the new features listed below (for example, refinements to how a new feature
works). Please don't submit new feature requests for the Beta. Bug reports and
feedback on the features below are very welcome.

1. New Realtime Audio Engine (on by default)

Stage Traxx 4.1 ships a brand-new low-latency multitrack playback engine, and it is
enabled by default. It gives tighter timing, faster start/stop response, and smoother
crossfades between songs.

You normally don't have to do anything, it just plays. If you prefer the previous
behaviour, you can turn the realtime engine off in Audio Settings. If you ever run
into an audio problem you didn't have before, please report it, since this is the
biggest change under the hood.

2. Lyrics Formatting Tags

You can now change the font family and text colour of any part of your lyrics,
in addition to the existing headings and highlighting. Tags follow the ChordPro
convention, are case-insensitive, and can be nested and can span multiple lines.

Colour tags

Open a colour, then close it. All three spellings are equivalent:

{color: red}This line is red{color}
{colour: red}Same thing, British spelling{colour}
{c: red}Short form{c}

Colours can be a named colour or a hex code (#rgb or #rrggbb):

{c: blue}named colour{c}
{c: #f00}short hex — bright red{c}
{c: #ff8800}full hex — orange{c}

The closing tag has no value: just {c}, {color} or {colour}.
A colour can span several lines — everything between open and close is coloured.

Font tags

Switch the font family for a passage. All three spellings are equivalent:

{font: serif}A serif passage{font}
{textfont: mono}Monospaced text{textfont}
{f: script}Handwritten look{f}

Available font styles:

| Value | Result |
|------------------|----------------------------|
| sans / sans-serif | Clean sans-serif |
| serif | Serif (Georgia-style) |
| mono / monospace | Fixed-width (Menlo) |
| script | Handwritten / chalkboard |

The closing tag has no value: {f}, {font} or {textfont}.
An unknown font name is simply ignored (the tag disappears, text stays default).
New: default lyrics font. You can pick which of the four fonts above your lyrics
use by default in Settings (previously this was only a fixed-width on/off switch).
The font tags above still override it for individual passages.

Bold, italic & underline

Emphasise words inline with paired markers around the text:

*bold*
_italic_
+underline+

New: these now stack. Combine them for bold italic, bold underline, or all three
at once:

*_bold italic_*
*+bold underline+*
*_+bold italic underline+_*

Chord formatting

You can now choose a font and a text style for how chords are rendered, set in
Settings:

Chord font — any of the four font styles (sans, serif, mono, script).
Chord text style — Plain, Bold, Italic or Underline.

This lets you make chords stand out from (or blend with) the lyric text.

Headings and highlight (recap)

Markdown-style headings still work at the start of a line, and you can now set a
default colour per heading level in Settings (they inherit the lyrics colour when
left unset):

# Big heading
## Medium heading
### Small heading

3. Lyrics Editor Improvements

Search & Replace inside the lyrics editor for quick bulk edits.
Text formatting UI: use the native iOS/Catalyst formatting controls (bold,
italic, etc.) and Stage Traxx writes the matching markdown/tags for you.
Insert timecode remote action: drop a timecode at the current playback
position from a remote/assignable control while editing.

4. Smarter Song & Playlist Search

The search bar now understands boolean logic and field scoping. It's the same syntax
everywhere (song lists, playlists, queue).

Multiple words = AND by default: beatles live → contains beatles and live.

UPPERCASE operators AND OR NOT (lowercase stays literal, so "Not Fade
Away" or "Black or White" still search normally):

  beatles OR stones
  live NOT acoustic

- is shorthand for NOT: beatles -live.

Field scoping with title: and artist::

  artist:beatles title:love

Quoted phrases for multi-word terms: "strawberry fields".
Precedence: NOT binds tightest, then AND, then OR.
Search bars stay visible by default (except iPhone landscape), and there's a
setting to always keep the search bar shown.
Tapping a search result now dismisses the search automatically, taking you
straight to the song without an extra step to close the search.

5. Smart Playlists

Create playlists that fill themselves automatically from rules, iTunes/Apple-Music
style. Choose Match All (AND) or Match Any (OR) of your rules.

You can filter on: Title, Artist, Notes, BPM, Year, Duration, Track Count, Play Count,
Key, Capo, Colour, Date Added, Last Played, and Keyword (plus Name/Colour/Date
Added/Keyword when filtering playlists themselves).

Great for things like "all songs in the key of G", "everything added this month",
"BPM between 90 and 120", or "tagged worship and never played".

The greatly expanded filter engine also powers the regular filter dialog, and network
clients can now use the full edit-filter dialog, including keyword filtering.

6. Playlists with Multiple Sets

A single playlist can now be split into sets (e.g. Set 1 / Set 2 / encore). Useful
for gigs with breaks.

With auto-queue mode, selecting a song inside a set loads only that set's songs
into the queue.
You can still drag songs across set boundaries.
Quick sort: sort a playlist non-destructively from the sort menu without
losing your manual order. In a playlist with sets, sorting sorts each set
separately (songs never move across set boundaries).

7. Song Fields: Capo, Count-In, Beat Anchor

Capo — a per-song capo field. Combined with transpose/pitch, chords display at
the right position for your capo.
Count-in — set the number of count-in clicks per song, and trigger a
4-count (or your configured count) play from a remote/assignable action.
Beat anchor — in the audio region editor you can drag a beat anchor handle
to set where the metronome grid starts, independent of the song's start time. The
beat grid is now shown even when no region is selected, with a snap-to-grid toggle.
Extra visible row fields: Year, PDF, Chord Transpose (plus the existing fields).

8. Metronome & Playback

Start on the beat: when the metronome mode is Both or Stop, playback now
starts quantized to the beat automatically (the old manual setting was removed —
it's always on in these modes).
Remote actions: toggle the metronome on/off, and cycle through all metronome
modes, from assignable controls.

9. MIDI

MIDI Macros

Define a named, reusable MIDI command sequence once, then call it from anywhere with a
$ prefix. Handy for patch changes or FX resets you send from many songs.

Create macros in MIDI Settings. A macro has a code and a command list.
Code rules: uppercase, must start with a letter, then letters/digits/_/-,
up to 12 characters (e.g. FX-OFF, PATCH_1). Codes are case-insensitive.

Reference a macro in any MIDI command string with $CODE:

  $FX-OFF
  PC1@5, $PATCH_1

Macros are expanded right before sending, so they work for the internal player and
are also expanded before being sent to network clients.

Other MIDI improvements

MIDI Learn can now record multiple commands in sequence.
MIDI Clock sync automatically sends START and STOP messages. You should
no longer send START/STOP manually when MIDI Clock is enabled — Stage Traxx now
handles them for you, and sending them yourself as well can cause double triggers.

10. Regions & Cues

Mark regions as cues and jump to them via cue remote actions — quick
navigation to song sections during a performance.
Region Presets: define your own reusable region templates (name, colour and
playback mode) and add a new region from a preset with a single tap in the audio
region editor — much faster than configuring each region by hand.

11. Custom Colours & New Colour Picker

Custom colours in addition to the built-in palette, via a new colour picker
(ColorPalettePopover) that replaces the system picker.
Edit track name and colour directly in the mixer by long-pressing the track
label.
Mute groups can be labelled by long-pressing the mute group trigger button.

12. Import & Files

Open audio files in Stage Traxx (from Files, AirDrop, another app, etc.) and it
automatically creates new songs for them — a fast way to build your library.

13. Backup & Restore

Backups now include most device-specific settings (not just the synced ones).
On restore, you choose whether to also apply those device settings or restore
only the common/shared settings — so you can move a library to a new device without
overwriting that device's local audio/hardware setup.

14. Other Nice Touches

Continuous scrolling mode — a new autoscroll mode for lyrics without
timecodes. Scrolling starts at a fixed tempo the moment playback begins. You can
nudge the current position by hand at any time, and scrolling simply carries on at
the same fixed tempo from the new position — no need to re-sync.
Smooth scrolling option for timecoded lyrics.
Faster song editing: jump straight to the next or previous song from within
the Song Details editor, and step between tracks directly in the Track Details
view — no need to close and reopen for each one. The song title is now always
shown in the edit views so you always know which song you're editing.
Assignable controls: new slider type, and a toggle operating mode where two
actions alternate on successive presses.
Auto-resume hosting after an app restart (setting).
Connected audio interface indicator in the title view.
Setting to disable single-tap scrolling inside PDF documents.
Confirmation dialog before deleting playlists.
Plus many stability fixes.