New Auto Play Feedback

Damir

Hi Peter, good news and bad news.
The actual operation of Auto Play works exactly how it should now you can use Auto Play while performing and not contaminate your preset playlist, but i have a visual representation issue with it, i am not sure if it can be fixed as it is rather complicated but here it goes,
In stop mode i programed my playlist songs 1,3,5 with Autoplay and played around to see what happens.
If you choose song 1 with Auto play enabled hit play now disable Autoplay the Button goes grey as expected but the autoplay arrow on that song does not dissapear temporarily to represent to what is about to happen, this is not great , what should happen is that the arrows in each song should allways represent the state of the auto play button eventhough after this once off autoplay happens the arrow should reappear again to its default stop setting when the next song is enabled, this way you are allways getting the correct visual feedback to what is to happen next. At the moment you have to rely on the Autoplay button only as the song arrows dont follow to what is actually going to occur.
This logic should be either way if you enable or disable autoplay while a song is playing giving correct visual status.
The actual operation seems to work well its the visual feedback that needs more work.
Cheers Damir

More Feedback
Chose a playlist in stop select autoplay on song 1,3,5 then turn on the Autoplay ALL in that playlist, now play song one through to song 5, you will notice song one has blue arrow next to it and autoplay button is also highlighted, this is correct, now when the second song plays which has a grey arrow next to it because it is a part of the ALL autoplay selection which is also correct, now the Autoplay button is actually grey which it should be blue as the Autoplay is still going to occur using the all autoplay selection yet this grey autoplay is now giving you the wrong indication.

I again suggest the Autoplay button and the arrows that appear in the song column should allways be in sync to truethfully represent to what is actually going to happen in the immediate next step.
At the moment sometimes you have to trust the autoplay button then sometimes you have to trust the arrows this is not correct.

Feedback on repeat Playing the same song.
It is a backward step not to be able to repeat play the now playing song as the next song, this actually almost worked perfectly and would be very usefull on stage if implemented correctly at least in playlist mode if it cant be done in Song mode.
Lots of times the audiance wants the same song again this would really streamline on stage capability when using foot pedals.

More Autoplay feedback something i pointed out a while back,
Autoplay ALL and Autoplay single button is present if you are in playlist mode with lyrics screen showing, this is good and useful, but when you close down this window as you need to edit your playlist you dont have the most important button present on that screen and that is AUTOPLAY SINGLE BUTTON which is the one needed to enable and disable individual autoplays on that screen, it is the more valuable button to have on this screen than the AUTOPLAY ALL button as this is a simple once off switch, so my suggestion is please add on the single autoplay button next to the all autoplay button so we can easily edit our playlist requrement in both screens.
When manipulating song order i allways close down the lyrics screen as i can see more songs at once and more info is on screen so i can better organize my playlist except i cant place single autoplays i have to change screens to do that.
If you cant fit both buttons at least give us the single autoplay button on both playlist screens as thats the button that we need to manipulate a lot of songs individually, the all autoplay button is a once off choice and can easily be on one screen only which is the open lyrics screen while performing it can be activated easily, while the single autoplay button is mainly needed while editing.

Sorry Peter , i am writing feedback as i am discovering things so its a bit random,
i just realised if i slide to left on a song in a playlist with lyrics window closed you do have Autoplay available there as an option.
OK my point is Why did you do that when in the lyrics screen open window you have a simple one button that is always present and easy to ingage to activate autoplay for individual song that is selected, why did you introduce a different system in the edit view, this slide method it clumsy as you could accidently delete your song, it also takes more effort to open up before making a choice instead of just hitting a single button thats always on screen . This slide method is not obvious cause i didnt know it was there and i think i have used this software long enough that i should have known this.

The reason i never used the autoplay slide to left method is because i found a much easier way and thats the single Autoplay button thats on the screen at all times and easy to hit whenever needed, thats probably why i never discovered or perhaps have forgotten the other method because its hidden and its slower and dangerous if i didnt have this easier way i would probably get use to the slide method in time but why not use the most efficient way when available.

My feeling is priority should always go to Autoplay button as this is a button you use when changing your performance method live at that moment you dont want Autoplay ALL to interfere if its present , if you hit this button it means you either want or do not want autoplay to occur, at the moment Autoplay all does have priority and it should not as you are in final control .
With autoplay all engaged i want to be able to override the now playing song using autoplay button and i expect the arrows to represent my autoplay choice.Now the autoplay all hogs control and does not allow you to manipulate the now playing song which is very limiting on stage.
I really think more effort should go in to fine tuning these inconsistancies and streamlining the ease of on stage use before introducing any more features,
Youve done a fantastic job to get so far with ST3 and we all apreciate it, incase i havent said it lately THANKS A LOT this is my no 1 program and the only reason i use Apple products as there are a lot cheaper alternatives but ST3 is not available on them.

peter

The autoplay icon in a playlist will always display the autoplay status of that song stored in the playlist. If you press the autoplay button during playback it will not affect the stored status and therefore not change the icon. Only the button will be changed to indicate the current status for this playback. I know this is not ideal but your suggestion is also not ideal because it would not reflect the stored state of the song in the playlist. You can always switch to queue view to see how it will actually be played.

Regarding the selection of the current song: the implementation is very complex in this area and I simply am not able to implement it the way you would like without breaking other aspects of playback planing and as this feature was not possible for songs from the songlist anyway, it is now at least consistent in playlists. In your case just select the song again once it has played. But to be honest, in my 30 years playing music on stage I can't remember ever playing the same song twice directly in succession because of a user request. Never ever. And if you know you want to play something multiple times beforehand you can just add the song multiple times to the playlist.

Damir

peter The autoplay icon in a playlist will always display the autoplay status of that song stored in the playlist. If you press the autoplay button during playback it will not affect the stored status and therefore not change the icon. Only the button will be changed to indicate the current status for this playback. I know this is not ideal but your suggestion is also not ideal because it would not reflect the stored state of the song in the playlist. You can always switch to queue view to see how it will actually be played.
I disagree with your logic because you are not looking at it from a musicians point of view you are looking at it from a computer programer view yes your logic is absolute but its not what an on stage performer requires.
I need to know what is going to happen that second while i am performing when i hit autoplay at the moment you a creating confusion as at one second i look at the now playing song and my brain tels me i am autoplaying but its not the case i should be looking at the autoplay actual button, on the other hand if you have autoplay all engaged as well and your song happens to be on an autoplay song thats disengaged you now have the opposite scenario where you cant trust the autoplay button you have to trust the grey arrow on the song row as your song will autoplay even though the autoplay button is saying its disabled.
I know this is tricky to understand but it is not user friendly.
As i said before what needs to happen is,
What ever the performer chooses to do with the autoplay button at that particular moment is what the view should reconfirm even though temporary it might be there for this one time.
In other words when i disable or enable autoplay i expect to see both the autoplay and the song arrows to be giving me the exact thing that is about to happen and i expect this to be exactly the same in SONG mode. At the moment nothing adds up you have two different modes operating differently and an autoplay system that is visually conflicting in a number of ways.
Auto play button should be GOD the autoplay ALL button should be JESUS meaning it should follow not lead.
Visually speaking when God says autoplay once or do not autoplay at all everything else follows the autoplay button apropriately switches the arrows of the now playing song switches and the request follows through no matter what pre programing of autoplay was put in place, once this command has executed it restores all previous settings the arrow of that song shows up again the next song is loaded and the show goes on as programmed untill GOD decides he wants it differently , now GOD is actually the performer.

Damir

peter Regarding the selection of the current song: the implementation is very complex in this area and I simply am not able to implement it the way you would like without breaking other aspects of playback planing and as this feature was not possible for songs from the songlist anyway, it is now at least consistent in playlists. In your case just select the song again once it has played. But to be honest, in my 30 years playing music on stage I can't remember ever playing the same song twice directly in succession because of a user request. Never ever. And if you know you want to play something multiple times beforehand you can just add the song multiple times to the playlist.
You are the expert in programing so if its too hard then so be it.
But in the 45 years ive played in my band we had the luxury of extending songs on the run as we were a live band so we didnt play the same song twice we just played the same song longer as required,
With ST3 looping is not present at the moment so the next best thing is autoplay or i should say autoreplay, and say you are rehearsing a song at home and you just want to loop the song so you can practice is another use , its not overly important but if it was there people would find a use for it and love the program more because it gives them the freedom to be creative.

peter

Damir At the moment nothing adds up you have two different modes operating differently and an autoplay system that is visually conflicting in a number of ways.

Actually it is very consistent. When you press the autoplay button in song mode, it will not be visible in the song list. In playlist view it is now exactly the same. When you hit the autoplay button during playback it will not change the list as it has no effect on the list.

If you want to see exactly how the queue is modified, open the queue view. Here you see all changes in the list.

And the way it works now is also consistent with how it worked before version 3.4.