FEEDBACK on SEARCH

Damir

Hi Peter, simply put, i hate the search method as is, it does not work well on stage.
Why?
1
I have to leave playlist mode to song mode, now this i can handle but its not great.
2
I click on search and i get sweet FA! where is the keyboard?
3
I need to find the well hidden button on my foot pedal to release the keyboard to be exposed, well thats a blody pain! doasnt the software recognize im in deep shit and need a song , cant it auto switch the keyboard on screen for me when i hit search, meaning i need the blody thing.
4
I cant think of the real name of the song as the half pissed requester only knows part of the lyrics and i know i have the song but because i have so many things runing in my mind beeing a one man band that uses every part of my body and mind to perform i cant think of the Fing real song name, so i type in the obvious lyrics that everybody recognizes except the blody search engine, with no results, well im in deep SHEEP NOW!
So i give up and try to go on with the next song
5
THE FING KEYBOARD IS STILL THERE , WHAT! After all that useless torture i still need to go back to my foot pedal and find that well hidden button to release the keyboard thats hogging my screen, that didnt do its job in the first place, WELL I NEED A BIG DRINK AFTER THIS SONG.

So my point is , why cant the software recognize i need the keyboard when i hit search?
Why doasnt the search engine search all the lyrics in ST3 and find all songs with those combination words in them , this would find most things you are after even if you cant remember the actual heading of the song.
And once you have cloased the search the keyboard automatically goes back to foot pedal control.

peter

Regarding 2, 3 and 5: use Airturn direct instead of Keyboard mode and all these issues are gone.

Damir

I dont like the search logic on stage for one very simple reason, as you clear the search with the X it still keeps the keyboard in your face blocking your lyrics,yes if you drop down the lyrics it still keeps the search results and thats fine , if you clear the search results using X it still pops up the keyboard assuming you need another search blocking the lyrics, THIS IS WRONG ASSUMPTION, you are on stage you dont have time for another search , the show must go on, WHY ARE YOU TORTURING ME BY BLOCKING MY LYRICS AGAIN! i am here to perform and not to play around with search , then if you drop down the keyboard you are back to normal, now this is very slow and confusing on stage, and the fix is very simple, if you have hit search box it means you need the keyboard and it pops up , thats fine, when you type and find your search it gives you one wrong option for on stage use, this should be the logic, once you have found your song you should have two options, hitting X should exit search clearing the search box and dropping down the keyboard, to cntinue the show, or droping down the keyboard it should only loose the keyboard and still present the search results for you to continue using these results, NOW BY HITTING X AGAIN IN THIS MODE THE SEARCH BOX SHOULD CLEAR AND NOT BRING UP THE LYRICS WINDOW , as this means you are done with this search and the show must go on without your lyrics screen being unnecessariy blocked and you having to drop down the window again, this is absolute waist of time and brain matter when performing, hitting X should CLEAR ALL SEARCH RESULTS AND GET YOU BACK IN TO PERFORMANCE MODE, if you want to search again it is very simple just touch the search box again and the keyboard pops up, this then makes the search engine work for you on stage not against you.
It might appear to be a small thing off stage but it frustrates the hell out of me on stage.
I dont need unnecessary extra button pushes while performing like a stressed out octopus already.
I know apple has a fixed view but sometimes you need to use reverse logic to get a good performance outcome and they should understand that and allow it to be programmed.
Cheers Damir, loving looping!

More feedback
When i select search box i expect to see an X next to it immediately even when no input has been entered so i can immediately exit the search , i dont want to have to think how do i get rid of the keyboard thats blocking my view, and having to find another button somwhere else on the screen that does this its too inconvenient, a simple X next to search should be there at all times to quickly exit the search.
You touch search box to enter search you touch X to exit, simple and in your face stuff , very logical, at the moment its assuming a lot of things that are wrong for on stage use.

peter

Sorry, the searchbox is a system component with very limited possibilities to change the behavior. I will not make any changes and don't comment on any future posts regarding this topic.

Damir

Ipad search

When i type in Test, i dont get the first preference showing, the keyboard seems to raise the result i want hiding it behind the search box, thats the first problem, so then i need scroll with my finger to reveal the correct result and i select it, now i have my song but my song list is hidden by the keyboard so i then drop down the keyboard out of view, now i have my song but i dont see my full song playlist as the search field is filled , so now i have to hit the X button to clear the search and get all my song list back , BUT NOW I GET THE DAMN KEYBOARD POP UP AGAIN AND BLOCK MY SONG LIST AND LYRICS AND IT FORCES ME TO DO AN UNNECESSARY STEP OF DROPPING IT DOWN OUT OF SIGHT AGAIN, THIS IS VERY VERY VERY FRUSTRATING AND TIME CONSUMING, WHEN I DO A SEARCH FOR TEST I EXPECT IT ON TOP IN VIEW AS I CLEAR THE SEARCH I EXPECT TO GET BACK TO PERFORMING, NOT TO HAVE TO DO EXTRA UNNECESSARY STEPS TO CLEAR UNWANTED KEYBOARD POP UP.

This has always been an issue with search , when results pop up , top result should be in view at top of screen, when you clear a search it means you dont need the keyboard anymore so it should go away.
If i want another search i will just touch the search box again and the keyboard will pop up again.
Very simple logicical operation to quickly find and play a requested song.

Cheers Damir

jaytrax

I see your point
To be honest I’ve never typed in a title
Mine are Alphabetical and I just hit the first letter and a fine tune scroll up or down

This is decided probably halfway through my current song or last 30 seconds

Then I crossfade on the final downbeat

Damir

jaytrax I see your point
To be honest I’ve never typed in a title
Mine are Alphabetical and I just hit the first letter and a fine tune scroll up or down

This is decided probably halfway through my current song or last 30 seconds

Then I crossfade on the final downbeat

Yes i do very similar thing the xfade is great at times , the search if fine its just got a couple of bad things going on, top result should always be visible and not dissapear behind search now thats a bug, and when i find a result i just want SEARCH GONE.
It sould be as simple as that.
When under pressure performing these little things become very big things.
But im sure in time they will be ironed out.
Cheers Damir

peter

I can‘t change the logic of the search field in this regard.

Damir

peter I can‘t change the logic of the search field in this regard.

Is there a way to provide a single button to CLEAR the search overall , just like in the song view without the song list, the CLEAR is more usefull than the delete of the search box, as Jaytrax says he only puts in a first letter and gets the right area then he looks for the final song, thats fine but he still needs to clear the search box at some stage to get his normal song list, in which case an unnecessary keyboard pop up appears again to than having to drop it down, there are too many unnecessary steps to do to use SEARCH , firstly the pop up result should be in view and not hidden , thats one bug, secondly we just need a CLEAR button to get out of search .
I know the search engine is probably a modular thing you cant easily manipulate , but can we come up with a better alternative thinking outside the box, perhaps approach apple and ask them to provide you with a choice of how you want the X button to behave , because i am sure most software might benefit from having this type of control.
I have a larger library so i normaly would type in 3 or four letters which probably finds the exact result , it is easy to hit the back deleate button to clear a letter at a time to clear the search criteria, but once i have found my results all i want to do is get out of search and get on with the show.
Good luck with it , i noticed apple has greatly impoved their Diary by adding new facilities and rearanging their logic, so it can be done if logical minds put their heads together.
Cheers Damir

jaytrax

Damir might seem obvious but if you used the iPad in portrait mode you wouldn’t have the issue
At least more would be visible

I assumed it was normal to use portrait mode 😂

Damir

jaytrax might seem obvious but if you used the iPad in portrait mode you wouldn’t have the issue
At least more would be visible

I assumed it was normal to use portrait mode 😂

I always use Landscape on iPad as it gives me a good balance between having a nice song list view and still a great lyrics view on the side.
Portrait mode is too narrow to cater having both screens open . On iPhone i prefer portrait mode as landscape becomes very hard to use as everything is compressed so much it becomes very hard to use, but because i use the iPhone for background music i don't need the lyrics screen so it is quite usable in portrait mode.
Landscape is definitely the way to go if using iPad.
It all depends on your exact need.
I need my easy selection of next song and i definitely need my lyrics to be there permanently.
Thanks for the suggestions.
Cheers Damir

Damir

Using Existing search for home use is usable and fine,
Using it on stage I feel like I’m riding on a drunk donkey instead of a race horse😂, why?
Well when I’m in my gigs PLAYLIST and someone requests a song I know I have but I just have to get to it quickly , using search is a real hard task, I have worked out I have 9 steps to go through to find my song set it up as next and return to my Playlist, this is way to slow to use on stage, yes there is a bug that could reduce 1 step if it was fixed , and that’s the step where I have to manually drop down the no 1 search result as it’s hidden behind the search box, this is still not good enough even if this was fixed I still have way too many steps to find and get my next song.

Peter here is a thought, when I’m playing a song in my playlist I would want to just hit one button to bring up my search box and the keyboard ready to enter the name , once the results are there I just select the appropriate next selection and one more hit to exit back to the playlist, so basically a 4 step process, at the moment it is a 9 step process that is non logical , if you manage to fix the bug of the first result showing on top of list that still makes it an 8 step process.

My suggestion is if you are playing a song in your playlist the SONG selection button becomes a search activation button , if you press it , it means you need a search for a new song and it automatically brings up song mode and the search keyboard ready to just type in your search criteria, once you get a result you just select the next song and hit playlist again to return to the playlist, this song gets inserted as the next song but once it is finished the song that gets selected next is the one that was originally below the last playlist song and not the one that was in SONG mode below the inserted song, meaning it’s purely an inserted song using search it is not a change to SONG mode.

At the moment if you use search it assumes you want to stay in song mode which is a wrong assumption, I use playlist and I want to stay in playlist I just need to search and insert a song , that’s it, with as few steps as possible.

Does this sort of make sense?

I am trying to get a very quick method of using search so that it’s easy for on stage use.
At the moment the search is not as easy and fast as it should be.
Cheers Damir

Just to add something so you understand what I am trying to explain,
If you are in playlist and in stop mode then select SONG then you can either choose any song in that mode or select search, but if you are in playlist and playing a song if you select SONG now it assumes you are wanting to find a next song so the search field is active and the keyboard is presented to you then all you do is type in you search criteria select the new song and touch playlist again to get back to continue ,
The idea is that you keep the show going but you can easily insert a song from all the song library without having too much button pushing.

When you are in stop mode the logic of SONG button goes back to normal.

Can anyone think of a better search option , as at the moment it is not good when using playlists as your main screen on stage.
Cheers Damir

jaytrax

Damir I can do it in 2-3 taps and one foot press

My view is portrait with all songs as my list
If I want Footloose

I tap the F
9 times out of 10 I’ll see Footloose and tap to select
A foot press to crossfade into on the downbeat of the previous song

If I overshoot Step 1 and land on a E or G
the scroll is still quick enough and then Tap Footloose

This is with 487 songs currently in my list

If a request comes in as I’m playing and have already determined the next song
That request comes after the next song not when someone wants to chat after I get close to the end of a song

I like to keep things moving and the energy high
I don’t have ANY dead air between songs

It’s an energy killer

I’m never rude, I take requests, but never stop to have the dead air after songs,
If someone is trying to talk during a song but I’ll point to my In Ear Monitors and say I can’t hear you or the “1 min” sign, then during an instrumental or solo I’ll take one monitor out and see what they want or requesting while the instrumental or solo is being played

Then i choose where to place the song in the set mentally whether it’s next or not
And a lot of the time it’s a shout out for a Birthday rather than a particular song

Damir

jaytrax Thanks Jayrrax its great to hear some of the issues we have on stage and you have pointed out some great points.
There are 3 major reasons i don't use PORTRAIT MODE because i rely heavily on my lyrics, easy song selection , and loops,
LANDSCAPE gives me a good visual combination without having to touch anything, my lyrics are normally between 42 and 50 so i can see them easily at a distance they are all line synced with chords , by going Portrait i would need to reduce the size of the text to squeeze them in to the narrow space as the song list needs to be open at all times as well, i use the song list all the time and i like to see as much of the name of the songs as i can so i dont choose a wrong song as the first words might be identical, thirdly and most importantly when i manipulate the song loops i like to have the segments as large as possible because some of them are very small to hit , Portrait mode reduces that space.
I wish i could remember all my lyrics that would be so much easier to use Portrait, but even then i still would use landscape because of the loops are bigger and that is very important to me as i love using the loops they definitely give you great audience manipulation and make you appear to be free running , i seem to be using foot controls less at smaller intimate gigs and get surrounded by the audience , having too many floor gadgets becomes dangerous as they can be accidentally stepped on , so i prefer to do most control on iPad, so it becomes very crucial that everything is clear and easy, thats why i am trying to get Peter to improve the positioning of loops and song selection area so the hand never blocks your lyrics.
Search just needs a small tweak when using playlists to make it simple and fast.
Had a great gig last night thanks to ST3 , i am getting great feedback from people , i don't think its me thats improved i definitely think its due to ST3 thats made me more confident and flexible on stage that has made the difference.
Thanks again Peter.