Open Beta Version 3.5.0

Damir

PDF basic FEEDBACK
When you use Song data and PDF document area, compared to TEXT editor it needs help.
Firstly it has no undo/redo but has a cancle which actually gets rid of your pdfs so if you use the pecil and make a mistake which is very common you expect an undo not a completely get rid of the pdf, if you then hit save by mistake you have just cleared your song, off you go to the begining of loading another pdf, now that points out another thing you cant easily load another pdf from this area which does not make it efficient you have to go to song and use the plus process, this is wasting time specially when you did not mean to get rid of the file in the first place.

So why would you go here? If you wanted to hand write over the PDF and thats it no other use,
Att least a LOAD new pdf in this area would give it two reasons to go there.And perhaps an editor with undo and if possible the ability to use the keyboard to insert typed text over the pdf, otherwise there is really no point to go there unless you need to quick scribble on page.

UPDATE! just noticed the CLEAR issue is only on ipad pro , and is working as expected on iphone11 max

Two suggestions,
1
why not stick to undo as in text editor to maintain consistancy, one way or the other but the same in all.

2
Song detail
Song information
PDF document heading is not consistant with Edit Text
Why not call it Edit PDF, specially when thats all you can do with it there anyway.

Quick suggestion, perhaps a slide to left gives you two options DELETE and LOAD
i would also give this load capability next to SAVE in the in the actual pdf editor, to give the user very fast work flow choices since there is not much more the user can do there but scribble.

MORE FINDING
i just realized the CLEAR on ipad with single page pdf works as expected, the file i was testing on had 3 pages, and when i hit CLEAR after scribbling all 3 pages went blank, so this issue might be related to multi page pdfs only. I have not tested it yet by creating another multi page pdf loading it then editing it then hitting clear, i will try this soon but perhaps keep this in mind when trying to recreate this issue.

Example
After hitting CLEAR

DickyDutch

Damir Damir I don’t seeing the same issues as you on my iPad. If I open the pdf editor I am able to mark it up with 3 sizes of pen, with a choice of colours, and erase individual annotations with the eraser tool. Pressing Clear erases all mark ups, Cancel does not save the edits just made and Save does what it says. Pressing cancel does not delete the pdf file.

peter

Damir just noticed the x clear time does not reset the time to zero and i believe its not working in other time setting functions like START time STOP Time possibly others if any.

Pressing X clears the entry field. If you hide the keyboard time will be reset to 0:00 for duration and start and the song duration for stop time. Just tried and works fine.

Damir Firstly it has no undo/redo but has a cancle which actually gets rid of your pdfs so if you use the pecil and make a mistake which is very common you expect an undo not a completely get rid of the pdf, if you then hit save by mistake you have just cleared your song

I have really no idea what you did to see this behavior. Cancel does exactly nothing and there is no way to delete the pdf from within the editor. Instead of Undo you have the eraser which is much more flexible.

I work 100% with pdfs in my own band and scribbling notes into charts is very important.

Clear does remove all your annotations. The PDF remains the same (without annotations). Maybe your pdf generator only generates PDF files with annotations and no acutal contents.

Damir

DickyDutch perhaps Peter has a point my multi page test PDF might not be a normal pdf multipage perhaps my PDF alows you to edit it, while your pdfs are locked so the CLEAR function does not affect your actual file , while my pdf allows the CLEAR function to actually clear my scribble and the actual original pdf content.

Any PDF Experts out there that canconfirm this theory?

Damir

peter
Sorry Peter i dont know much about PDF format all i am reporting is what is happening.
I managed to create a 3 page pdf i loaded it went to edit it by writing on it which all worked as i hit clear all three pages went blank and the only way to get them back is to cancle or exit and get back again.
This is not the case with single page tests ive done. And the iphone diference is unconfirmed now since i did not use the same 3 page pdf.

I am fine with functions i am just pointing out inconsistancies comparing to other editors, you use undo in other areas here you use clear , keeping consistant keeps the software streamlined.

Example - Edit Lyrics then you have PDF document,
This really should be Edit PDF, to maintain the same naming logic as Edit Lyrics.

Time scrol works in lyrics only, yet it does not it PDFs, the screen does not move in pdfs it would be handy to have this in pdfs as well so the user has the choice, 0 time means full manual control and is a default, the two systems should run exactly the same except you have a choose of the medium you use that best suits you, if you need notation and quick ability to scribble you use PDF if you need simple lyrics only you have the other option which still gives you more power if you introduce chords you can key change on the run and perhaps have a time run need, both systems have great capabilities but need careful implementation so to remain consistant and streamlined to use.
You have easy to copy and paste in the lyrics editor, yet you have no easy load and replace in the pdf editor.

These are just simple observations that are easily noticed by us the user, but not so easy to keep a track of when creating a beast of a program.

I used PDF expert app to create the multi page test pdf i will do more tests to see if i can work out this CLEAR issue.

peter

Damir I managed to create a 3 page pdf i loaded it went to edit it by writing on it which all worked as i hit clear all three pages went blank and the only way to get them back is to cancle or exit and get back again.

Seems like you created a pdf file that consists only of annotations. In that case you need to be carefull in the Stage Traxx editor as there is no way to distinguish an annotation made in Stage Traxx from an annotation made somewhere else. PDF annotations are a standard which has the advantage that annotations created in Stage Traxx will be displayed in any PDF viewer no matter which platform.

Your single page document has most likely been generated in another way than the 3 page document.

Damir This really should be Edit PDF, to maintain the same naming logic as Edit Lyrics.

No because this is also the place to load a pdf and delete a pdf. It is not only used to edit a pdf document like the lyrics editor.

Damir

peter ahhaa i seee i have just realized how to load a file.
At first i didnt know you could load a file in this area as i could not see a load function, but what i didnt realize i have to delete the file first so that i can access the load function, OK, well that is not obvious why not have obvious commands slide to left gives you clear options, LOAD simply loads a file over the existing file and DELETE simply deletes the pdf , why have a feature hidden behind another feature making you do twice the work and no clarity to what you need to do if you simply want to LOAD a file, it seems confusing and innoficient.
As i said earlier not realizing you could load a file in this area since there was no load anywhere, why not have a load function next to SAVE and next to DELETE in the left slide option, making it very obvious to what you can do, again not needing a mind reading coarse or manual instructions and fiddling around.

Damir

peter No because this is also the place to load a pdf and delete a pdf. It is not only used to edit a pdf document like the lyrics editor.

I disagree , PDF document, really means nothing, it does nothing to suggest you can edit your pdf or load or delete there.
Edit pdf says something or at least PDF Editor , states that you can do something there like edit and everyone knows part of any edit system load, save, are standard functions available there.

I would actually prefer this.

LYRICS EDITOR
PDF EDITOR

Damir

PDF CLEAR update, i can confirm it is the type of saved PDF that determines how this function operates, you need to save your pdf in this format so the clear does not get rid of your pdf data as well as your scribbles. GOOD TO KNOW before you create hundreds of pdfs.

peter

Damir Hm, why don't you edit your documents in Pages or Word and just export them as PDF? You seem to be using a PDF editor to create your documents from scratch. I have never seen anyone doing this. PDF editors are usually only used to add a bit of annotations to documents.

PDF has not been designed to be an editable document format. It is an interchange format. See here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PDF

If you only need formatted text, create your documents in Word or Pages. If you have music sheets use something like Sibelius, Finale or Musescore. This will ensure that your document will stay editable. Only export PDF to use in other apps like Stage Traxx but never use PDF as the master format.

Damir

peter thanks Peter i will look at all your suggestions, i have tried word on ipad but i believe it is a subscription app , and my no one rule is never use subscription apps, ok netflix is the only one but as a general thing all my apps are once off purchases so if you know of a good word replacement let me know Pages i will try asp.

DickyDutch i used word years ago when ipads werent around on my imac now since i use my ipad to virtually do everything on apart from complex audio creation, i have been using Notepad as its just powerfull enough to manipulate lyrics with chords above, i dont use word on ipad as it is a prescription app to get full benefits, unfortunately Notepad is not PDF friendly.
I find for what i need which is lyrics with chords above cut and paste is the fastest way to end up with a finished product, and because i can change key and all chords update on the run it is more pwerful than PDF. PDF is great if you need to mark up a page afterwards but i normally dont as i do a lot of my prep work at home , i love the TEMPO the most as this is really great to be able to manipulate on the run and it works perfect, changing pitch is not something i use greatly live as i have already done the prep but every so often my voice gets tired and i choose a song that just pushes me to the edge so a quick pitch shift saves the day, love it.
Hopefully i will find a good PDF Program that will work for me, but i need to experiment to see which system is faster to use and what benefits are more advantageous for me, some things i can not do without.It would be great to be able to time select in PDFs , i normally dont want to manually chase audio sync, but when going fully live i need a lyrics system that gives me absolute freedom and quick access to any points in my song by a simple foot switch or screen switch.
I can see ST3 the only app you need if performing live its getting there and i love it.
Its the only app i would buy another ipad for just to have it as a full backup, fortunately my iphone 11 is just as powerful and a great backup where it would save the day if needed.

DickyDutch

In support of what Peter has posted I prepare my lyrics sheets in ‘Word’ which are my masters. I use a personalised standard template so they all look and feel similar. I can then either copy and paste the text into STAGETRAXX lyrics editor or create pdfs for lyrics only songs. Being able to mark up these pdfs on the fly (when say rehearsing where e.g. you may find that perhaps the lyrics are slightly wrong or a different arrangement in preferred) is very useful. In slower time I then go back and update the word master and reload to STAGETRAXX. I don’t usually time code lyrics until the very end when I’m totally happy with the arrangement and chord positioning etc. This works well for me.

peter

Damir so if you know of a good word replacement let me know Pages i will try asp

Go with Pages it is really great. Although I mostly use it on the Mac and not on the iPad. In my opinion Word is only necessary when you need to be compatible to other Word users. Everyone else can use Pages or something like OpenOffice.

Hshevitz Not much call for the PDF feature for me at this time, but it seems to work okay, but it would more useful for me if there was a way to use at least the auto scrolling with it.

Autoscrolling is already possible for PDF files. Please take a look at the first posting in this thread on how to use it.

Hshevitz

Hi all! There is so much dialog going on that it's hard to follow all the details, so I'll probably be the "lite" user in this.

The "Coarse tuning" feature works for me! Cool!

I'm really able to use the "Lyrics" type of song now as it lets me set the duration and then by using plain text I can either implement scrolling or use the internal time stamp functionality while playing back in the "Edit Lyrics" section. I think that will work well for me.

Not much call for the PDF feature for me at this time, but it seems to work okay, but it would more useful for me if there was a way to use at least the auto scrolling with it.

That's all from me today

Damir

Hshevitz communication is the key in creating good software

Damir

peter just checked Pages and yes it is a much better option for PDFs i have added it to my arsenal, thanks for that and for the link to PDF info, great help to know more about PDF which is a very pwerfull tool if using photos, video etc i always wondered how these things were done.

Hshevitz

peter Thanks, I'll check it out and confirm from my end!

Hshevitz

peter I did check it out and it seems (correct me if I'm wrong) but for a basic user I would like to see the actual auto scrolling work with the scrolling speed buttons or a less cumbersome way to set time stamps based on the contents of the PDF. Just sayin!

Damir

Autoscrolling is already possible for PDF files. Please take a look at the first posting in this thread on how to use it.

I read it but dont understand it, is it as simple as Lyrics only, you just select a time and it just scrolls to end of PDFs, if so, it does not seem to work, i have tried entering a time, the display bar moves correctly but the pdf does not move on screen to represent the time setting, it just jumps to the next song when it reaches the end.
I expect it to work the same as Lyrics Only if its something different its then just too hard to use.

peter

Damir I read it but dont understand it, is it as simple as Lyrics only, you just select a time and it just scrolls to end of PDFs, if so, it does not seem to work

Works fine, write [pdf@00:10.00: page1.5] and it will scroll to the middle of page 1 at time 0:10.

Hshevitz I did check it out and it seems (correct me if I'm wrong) but for a basic user I would like to see the actual auto scrolling work with the scrolling speed buttons

This will not work for anyone who is using pdf sheets and not just simple text because sheets are not read in a linear fashion from top to bottom but you also need to jump back on repeat signs. Therefore automatic scrolling without timecodes like in text based lyrics is not active for PDF songs.

Hshevitz or a less cumbersome way to set time stamps based on the contents of the PDF

If you have any concrete suggestions please tell me. In my opinion the current approach is really quick to setup and works reliably. Keep in mind, that with PDF files you don't scroll as much as with text based lyrics.

Damir In SONG, If you double tap on a LYRICS ONLY OR PDF song without a time setting the lyrics dispay window does not open automatically as expected if set that way in settings.

Right, I will take a look at it. Not sure though if this is possible as the setting is called "Open lyrics on play" and you can not play a lyrics only song without a time set.

EDIT: I checked and it will not work. A double tap triggers play. And play on a lyrics only song without a time will advance to the next song. So even if I enable the open lyrics function for play this type of song you will just see the lyrics of the next song. So either you add a time for all your lyrics only songs or you just tap on the song title in the player to open lyrics.

I don't want a delete pdf button in the pdf editor. And a redo for clear is not needed as you already have a cancel button just beside it.

Damir

Hshevitz totaly agree i love ease simplicity consistancy and speed not the drug.
Anything that stresses my brain cells is regarded as poor software design.

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