• Beta
  • Open Beta Version 3.5.0

Hello Peter I’d like to raise the subject of pdf page numbering. At the moment from the lyrics view there is no indication as to whether a pdf is single or multi page and if the latter, which page you are on. I find this important myself but get over it by putting page numbering on the pdf itself (e.g. page 2 of 6) - then I know where I am! However for some other users this may not be as simple. If say they are reading charts prepared by someone else containing no page info, this might be an issue to them. What do you think? I do know that apps like UnrealBook and Unrealbook mobile provide this paging information and if this feature is easy to implement I suggest STAGETRAXX follows suit. Many thanks for listening.

    DickyDutch Sorry, can't do that as the app does not know where the text could be added to the document without overwriting something important. But that is exactly one of the uses for the annotation editor. If you miss page numbers, just scribble them into the PDF. Pro tip: Zoom into the document to add really small annotations.

    Personally I really don't care for page numbers but I need bar numbers in the sheets. So that in rehearsals I can say for example: let's repeat from bar 32. So all my sheets contain bar numbers at the beginning of each staff.

      Just pointing out , when loading songs, FROM ITUNES MUSIC LIBRARY, isnt that no longer itunes?or is it still something that some users can use on the new ST3?i thought itunes has gone forever available for ST2 users only.

      Create Lyrics Only File, perhaps PDF should be included to guide those first time users that want pdf only use and need to know where to go without reading instructions.

        Damir Just pointing out , when loading songs, FROM ITUNES MUSIC LIBRARY, isnt that no longer itunes?

        Of course it is still possible although not recommended as it will degrade audio quality. This is explained in the manual.

        Damir Create Lyrics Only File, perhaps PDF should be included to guide those first time users that want pdf only use and need to know where to go without reading instructions.

        PDF is not a song type. You can attach PDF documents to any existing song type and you don't need to decide whether a song should have a PDF or not when creating the song.

          peter sorry i thought itunes is no longer available that it has been renamed to MUSIC.

          PDF might not be a song type but its a way a person can run his show and perhaps needs better guidance of how to get there.
          Not all logic has to be exact to the letter of how it works, the point is to make it easy for pdf users to get to the spot they need so they can create pdf songs without reading the instruction manual.

            Damir sorry i thought itunes is no longer available that it has been renamed to MUSIC.

            Still available on Windows and all users are still familiar with the name. Apple Music on the other hand is mostly used for the streaming service which does not work with Stage Traxx. Therefore I stick to the name iTunes for the time being.

            SONG SEARCH, i found when i create a search criteria and end up with my search results i can only play one choice of my results and the search criteria is auto canceled, this is very frustrating, what is the point of the cancle button next to search if it auto cancels every time.
            I expect my search results to remain while i play various choices then when i am happy with the song version i want i then press cancle to clear the search results and get back to full library.
            At the moment you are assuming i will find my search in one go and want to play it immediately.This is very limiting and frustrating most times i just want to, find a group of results, listen to them, make a final choice, without having to enter a search criteria every time.

            Perhaps a single tap on the song just plays it without opening the lyrics window so you can easily sample your search results, and a double tap on the song actually plays the song and lyrics window pops up and you continue the show.
            This then allows us to easily browse the SONG library yet still gives us an easy way to grab one particular song immediately in to our performance.

              Damir Just make sure you don't open / close the full screen player when starting / stopping playback. Open the full screen player and search there or play the songs through the mini player and stay in the full screen song list. It will work as expected.

              If you have auto open full screen player active, there is nothing I can do about this issue.

              FILTER OR SEARCH SUGGESTION,
              Hi Peter, light bulb moment, we have four types of songs, MULTITRACK, STEREO FILES, LYRICS ONLY, PDFs, i definitely use stero and lyrics only and might have some multitracks, pdfs i am waiting to see end results, some people might use all and others pdfs only with stereo etc, my point is it would be really handy to be able to somehow select a search or filter selection to only view only one group type, so if you are dealing with pdfs you only have them in view to deal with, if you are working with multitracks you only have those files in SONG view,
              Most of us will have stero files no matter what, some for backing tracks some for background music, we might be wanting to work with our LYRICS ONLY songs, a simple selection perhaps in filter mode have these as permanent options.
              Ive just come up with this so perhaps you can think of a better way, basically giving us an easy way to only see the files we are dealing with at that time, since there are a lot of different files present in the SONG folder.

              PDF is not a song type! I thought I already explained that at least 2 times.

              But you can do all that what you describe with keywords. If in your view pdf is a song type you could even do that with keywords. Create these keywords and assign them to the song. Then use the existing filters.

                peter i get your way of thinking but you dont understand my, it takes a lot of time to be entering an id tag to every song so you can then seperate them.
                I am suggesting a simpler faster way of filtering so we dont have to enter data in to every file, this will not happen with 95% of users as it takes a lot of time, you already have tags on screen that identify Lyrics only, PDF Lyrics only, Multitrack cant that information that gets automatically placed on screen be used to auto filter to those file types.
                I have not had great experiance with filter option, example i created filter Midi With Drums but as i was entering this info months on end updating the files so i have a filter capability i accidentally created some files like this Midi With drums i have just wasted all those months of entering this information because the filter will only work on one or the other so i will not see all my songs, there goes my months of effort due to 1 capital letter change, this system is very labour intensive for little reward.
                I would be happier with a simpler filter to be able to see all the files i am interested in ,
                I understand you are using pdfs and inserting them to the lyrics only file but the end user sees this as an alternative file type option and would expect to just see these pdf lyrics only files as a simple filter option, at least lyrics only and pdfs , multitrack, stereo, files.
                Users dont need to know the nitty gritty stuff they just expect useful operation with simplicity.
                SONG folder is over crowded if you use a bit of everything, specially multitrack files, perhaps a filter on multitracks simply gives you all the multitrack folder files only, the PDF filter selects PDF folder content only, lyrics only i dont know perhaps uses the Lyrics only tag to filter out this perhaps having a folder system for all file types would help to create a simple filter system.
                I am just pointing out the existing system is very labour intensive and we all know most musicians are not the neatest tydiest and plan ahead types including me 🤗

                  Damir You define a keyword once and then select all songs you want and add this keyword to the selected songs in one go. Even if you enter the keyword a second time with different spelling it is most likely displayed in the keyword list directly beside each others. Easy to spot. And in your case where you assigned the wrong keyword, just filter by this keyword, select all songs, remove this keyword and add the correct one. Even with hundreds of songs, this takes less than 1 minute.

                    peter OK i need to try this, but thats not my point i was really talking about.
                    Its the clutter of SONG folder, heres another scenario, i use 10,000 stereo songs used for background music and perform live using 300 multi track songs x 6 track = 1,800 multi track files, i dont need to see the 10,000 stereo files but i really want to work with my multitrack files how do i quickly get rid of the stereo files in my song view.

                    The second requirement is i need to sample play the multitrack files to confirm it is the track i want to use in my multitrack song, how do i do that efficiantly? If i use search yes i can possibly narrow it down to the six tracks of the song, but if i hit play to sample the track i loose my search and if i have my lyrics window auto pop up in play it also appears, so now i have to bring this window down to access the song view re enter the search and hit my next track to sample and then go through this process every time, this does not work.
                    So search is not my answer, perhaps filter, no because i have to go through my dayly growing library and create a filter for every multitrack file before i can get results.
                    This would not be necessary if i could help it, my wish would be without any effort a simple filter option of four song types simply gets me only those files in SONG, how its done i dont know, but thats what i would expect to simply declutter the song view.
                    Having further filter capability for those prepared to put in the effort to greatly improve their workflow is great but not for most wham bam thank you mam users.

                    PDF is not a song type! I thought I already explained that at least 2 times.

                    You might be correct from designers point of view, but again from a users point of view this is a song type, it is a PDF song type using pdfs, Lyrics only type is a text file type song, a stereo song type is a standard stereo file type used in different ways, and Mltitrack is a stereo track x 6 type giving pro users to have on stage flexability.
                    They all reside in one place, a SONG folder that becomes very cluttered quickly and needs a simple way to declutter itself without introducing a time consuming method of doing this.
                    Thats the way i see it, now how to fix this in a simple way that works for the end user, is the question.
                    I suppose a simple solution is buy 4 ipads 🤪

                    You get search results you play the files to then hit edit to place them, simple why is this different to normal full screen window with lyrics screen.
                    Both search engines should work the same except this one allows you to hit EDIT to actually do something with your search result.

                      peter Ok that’s fine as I said this is not a problem for me personally. I was thinking more of those users migrating from the ‘paper world’ used to performing with paper manuscript/lead sheets where the total number of sheets and the current sheet are easy to visualise . In my opinion this is not quite as easy using pdfs in STAGETRAXX - but I guess those users will soon adapt! Anyway I’m very happy with how the pdf feature has turned out - it suits me fine. Many thanks.

                      Damir Both search engines should work the same except this one allows you to hit EDIT to actually do something with your search result.

                      Go to Settings -> User Interface and enable Allow Song Editing.

                        peter Song editing is already enabled, but i think you miss my point.
                        You search, you find, you want to listen to choose, but then you immediately loose your search results after one pre listen of song, i have multiple versions of same songs for different reasons, when i get these songs presented to me i would like to listen to all three versions before i make a choice what to do with the one i want.
                        You have made this impossible because you assume the first one i choose is what i want to play next, this is very limiting, specially if you use MULTITRACK, where you really need to be able to sample play before making choices.
                        I dont understand why you just dont allow one tap in Song to sample play a song and a double tap to immediately play that song as in a performance or perhaps the other way around if you think single tap might be reguired by more users, but give us an easy way to sample play in song mode and allow us to then use EDIT to do something with it.
                        I dont understand (yes i do understand but im just saying) why you have a standard cancel x in search and then another cancel on the outside of this box right next to it when i really need an EDIT function so i can do something with my search result.
                        I think my logic is very straight forward and am confused by your way of thinking am i missing the point?

                        Just to add to this, i just noticed when i type in the search and find a result if i then touch the song i want to listen to the keyboard is still assuming i want to use it and stays up on screen blocking my view to see my search results, this is bad, it needs to dissapear immediately as i touch the songs i want to sample, and reapear if i then touch in the search area again assuming i want to change my search info, this then becomes more user friendly.
                        Its these little things that make a big difference in ease of use.
                        It seems as though SEARCH hogs the program , it should be an addative compliment to the progam area like SONG and EDIT windows.
                        Oops just found a little bug.
                        In song hit edit, dont select anything and select colour change, no warning message appears like all the other options.

                        Ok to simply recap,
                        In SONG
                        You type in a search, you get multiple results, you have two options, single touch the keyboard dissapears and the song plays the search results remain allowing you to single touch all other songs to sample, once you have made a choice of songs you want there is an EDIT button on this same screen allowing you to proceed with what you need to do next with this choice.
                        The other option you had earlier is to double tap on this song which either plays this song immediately if you were in STOP mode or places this song as the NEXT song in the queue if a song is already playing.
                        Now this logic gives you smooth operation no matter what situation you are in, pre production or live performing.
                        I know you have put a lot of work in to this already but sometimes a different perspective from a person who has had a lifetime of wide experiance in the industry can hopefully help.

                        I have one large regret in life, i should have gotten more experiance in computer programing instead of a useless electronic technician degree.
                        Creating software is the same, its the early wise decisions that make a big difference in the end result.

                          Damir I see that many of the changes you suggest are geared towards your way of using Stage Traxx, however the app is first and foremost a performance tool and not for song editing or storage or any other way you use it away from the stage. Peter is not here to tailor an app specifically for your use.
                          I for one do not want the app overcomplicated with all the unnecessary additions that you would like to see, perhaps you could only report faults that need correcting?

                          New beta build 7506

                          As I am still working on the manual and there have been some last minute fixes, I figured I might just as well publish another release candidate.

                          Added

                          • Edit button for PDF files in big player view

                          Fixed

                          • Changes to playlist color not immediately visible
                          • Autoplay into lyrics only songs does stop playback