A couple of feature suggestions

greiswig · December 10, 2018, 08:24:52 AM

1, 2, and 3 are probably easy. 4, not so much.

1. Default auto-scroll pre-roll: just like having a defaulted auto-scroll duration.
2. Allow for setting pre-roll and auto-scroll duration on the web UI - I'm not actually sure what the "Duration" parameter on the web UI does, or how (if?) it interacts with the auto-scroll on the device. So maybe consolidating down to a single set of parameters (auto-scroll pre-roll & auto-scroll duration) used consistently everywhere would be better. Ideally, they could be overridden on the device, so individuals in the band could adjust as needed without affecting others.
3. If the latter part of item 2 could be done, then by using the terms consistently between web app and iPad, the actual times could be displayed consistently also.

Now...dreaming here:

4. Speech recognition is getting very good. True, in a noisy environment like a band it might be tricky, but it would be very cool if the app could listen for when the first line starts, and use that as an auto-scroll trigger. Done perfectly, it could actually be used to trigger paging or scroll pace automatically. This would allow for greater automatic flexibility of intro lengths, solos, etc.

arlo · December 10, 2018, 09:24:26 AM

1) Are you finding that to get the desired results, you are entering the same pre-roll value for most of your songs? Adding default values to use for the manual calculations seems inherently contradictory, and I'm afraid would make the setup options a lot more confusing, with little benefit.

2) Duration on the website is the same as Duration in the apps; it is used for set list length calculations, as well as auto-scrolling if Settings > General Settings > Auto-Scroll > Calculate Auto-Scroll Duration is set to Manual. The Auto-Scroll Pre-Roll and Auto-Scroll Duration settings aren't available on the website because auto-scrolling itself isn't available on the website, and you would typically only want to change these settings when you can view the results, which would be in the app.

3) The terms are consistent. Duration, Auto-Scroll Pre-Roll and Auto-Scroll Duration are three different settings, and only Duration is available in the website.

4) In my experience using Siri for simple things like playing a song, it works about half the time, in a quiet environment where I am carefully annunciating. I would want a feature to work at least 99% of the time before I used it on stage. How about you?

greiswig · December 10, 2018, 02:14:49 PM

Quote from: arlo on December 10, 2018, 09:24:26 AM
1) Are you finding that to get the desired results, you are entering the same pre-roll value for most of your songs? Adding default values to use for the manual calculations seems inherently contradictory, and I'm afraid would make the setup options a lot more confusing, with little benefit.

2) Duration on the website is the same as Duration in the apps; it is used for set list length calculations, as well as auto-scrolling if Settings > General Settings > Auto-Scroll > Calculate Auto-Scroll Duration is set to Manual. The Auto-Scroll Pre-Roll and Auto-Scroll Duration settings aren't available on the website because auto-scrolling itself isn't available on the website, and you would typically only want to change these settings when you can view the results, which would be in the app.

3) The terms are consistent. Duration, Auto-Scroll Pre-Roll and Auto-Scroll Duration are three different settings, and only Duration is available in the website.

4) In my experience using Siri for simple things like playing a song, it works about half the time, in a quiet environment where I am carefully annunciating. I would want a feature to work at least 99% of the time before I used it on stage. How about you?

1. Yes, as a default about 15 seconds before scrolling starts is about right. Certainly better than 0 seconds if the lyrics or important notes are at the very top of the page.

2. I think I understand what you're saying, but if so I still think it is confusing. If it were me, I'd have a setting for the default value for each. Let's say I set default at 0:15 for auto-scroll delay, and 3:00 for auto-scroll duration. Then, every time I fire up a new song on any device, if I went to those parameters I should see those values defaulted there. I can overwrite them if I need to, and I probably will. As it is, you allow one parameter to default, and the other not to. If you did it as I describe, there is no need to maintain different parameters (Duration and Auto-scroll duration) and it is less confusing that way.

If it is really important for people to know the exact length of a set based on adding up the song lengths, I guess keep that one parameter, but have clearer labels.

As for not having all on all devices...I still don't see why not. It is simply more consistent to have all parameters available to edit on all devices. I can edit lyrics on the web site or lyrics on the iPad. Why not these other parameters? It's not as though the web site is short on UI real estate compared to the iPad. If those edits are only going to apply to the local device, you can say so or provide a checkbox saying so ("Apply only to this device"). That latter item would present some synch challenges, though.

arlo · December 10, 2018, 08:38:41 PM

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If you did it as I describe, there is no need to maintain different parameters (Duration and Auto-scroll duration)

No, Duration and Auto-Scroll Duration are different things if you elect to use manual auto-scroll calculations.

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As for not having all on all devices...I still don't see why not. It is simply more consistent to have all parameters available to edit on all devices. I can edit lyrics on the web site or lyrics on the iPad. Why not these other parameters?

It wouldn't hurt to include those settings on the website, but they're more useful in the app and prioritization is critical when you're one guy developing for three platforms.

greiswig · December 11, 2018, 08:12:52 AM

Quote from: arlo on December 10, 2018, 08:38:41 PM
No, Duration and Auto-Scroll Duration are different things if you elect to use manual auto-scroll calculations.

I'm a Software Usability Designer by profession and education, so forgive me for getting into this more than you may want.

I think the point that I was trying to make is that I'm not sure they NEED to be separate, and it may create more confusion if they are. That confusion gets added to if (as I gather is the case if you have a default song length set) the Auto-scroll duration is left blank. It actually is using the default song length, right? It would be helpful if it said so. Then, too, it would be clear when and how you were overriding it.

Basically, I think you are thinking of manual and automatic as completely separate. I'm saying that the fact that you have to enter Duration for song length means that it isn't automatic anyway, it's just a default. Making it more explicit, and making overriding that default more explicit and clear might be a good idea.

arlo · December 11, 2018, 11:23:34 AM

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I think the point that I was trying to make is that I'm not sure they NEED to be separate

I am sure they need to be separate. Let's say you play a song that consists of three minutes with vocals followed by three minutes of instrumental jamming. You would set the Auto-Scroll Duration to three minutes so your lyrics reach the end at the right time, and set the Duration to six minutes so your set list length is calculated correctly. Besides this clear-cut example, there are cases where you want to tweak the auto-scrolling more subtly, without affecting the set list length calculation.

Leaving auto-scrolling set to Automatic means this distinction is hidden and the app simply uses the same Duration setting for both functions, while changing auto-scrolling to Manual reveals the separate Auto-Scroll Duration and Auto-Scroll Pre-Roll settings. Besides allowing you adjust the auto-scrolling separately from the set list length calculation, these let you control the ratio of pre-roll to auto-scroll time, hence the Automatic/Manual terminology.

As a convenience, any song you don't set these for will fall back to the Automatic calculation based on the song duration. So if the automatic calculation works for most songs but you have that one song with the long instrumental jam, you only have to enter manual values for that one song. I usually try to implement features in a cascading way like this, where you can get basic functionality with minimal setup, but then you can dig into increasingly obscure settings to get increasingly more control.

BTW here is the auto-scroll tutorial if you haven't seen it:

http://www.bandhelper.com/tutorials/autoscrolling.html

greiswig · December 11, 2018, 12:31:28 PM

I take your point, Arlo. And I may be a pretty atypical user.

I don't really care about using calculations for set list length. I know that, with banter between, I need about 4 minutes a song. If my set is up in an hour, I've got a watch on my left arm that I can keep an eye on or even set an alarm on. I don't really have a use for that calculation, especially when solos may extend way beyond what they did in rehearsal, or may be cut altogether if the keyboard player isn't on the scene.

And I have yet to have a case where I did NOT have to manually set up scroll length and pause before scroll, so the "Duration" parameter being the only one I can tweak on the web site was confusing me, especially since it didn't autofill the other duration parameter by default.