Follow Actions from more than one user

[oybed]

Hi
We are just getting started with BandHelper, and so far it fits well for our use with the many great features. One thing we haven't quite figured out yet, is how a person/device can receive Actions from more than one user?

The use case we have is that the keyboard player is the one to change songs (and all other band members follows this action), but the drummer also needs to follow the singers actions during a song - for example document scroll, etc. Since the drummer already follows the actions of the keyboard player for song selection, it doesn't seem possible for him to also follow the singer's action. Is this correct, and is there a solution for this?

Using auto-scroll or otherwise timed option for switching songs, etc. isn't an option for us at the moment.

Thank you.

[arlo]

That's correct, each device can only follow one device with live sharing. Have you tried the singer following the keyboard player and the drummer following the singer? I don't know offhand if the keyboard player's song selections would transmit through the singer's device to the drummer; I'd have to try it myself to be sure.

[oybed]

Thanks for confirming. Yes, we tried the "chain" - keyboard => singer => drummer - and that didn't work from what we found ... seems that the actions received at the singers device aren't re-transmitted.

[arlo]

I just checked that on my end, too. A following device will not send actions because it's possible to have two devices following each other and that would create an infinite loop. I could add a setting that would allow this, and you'd just have to avoid turning that on if you have devices following each other -- just like MIDI Thru. Devices connected in a chain would be fine. In that setup, any action received by or triggered on one device would be sent to all the devices further down the chain. So in your case, everyone would get the song changes sent by the keyboard player at position 1, and everyone but the keyboard player would get the document scrolling sent by the singer at position 2. Would that solve it?

Actually this would be more like a tree than a chain: the singer would connect to the keyboard player and everyone else would connect to either the keyboard player (if they only care about song selections) or the singer (if they want to also follow the singer's actions). Each device would still only follow one other device, but they would not all have to follow the same device.

[oybed]

Yes, what you outline sounds great and I believe would meet our needs perfectly. If such a feature can be added, we'd be happy to assist with any testing or early trials needed.

[arlo]

Okay, that's tentatively on my list for the next update.

[arlo]

The new app version released today includes Settings > Live Sharing > Rebroadcast Received Actions. If you turn this on, any live sharing messages received by your device will be sent back out to any devices following yours. The IP address of the originating device is included in each message and will be ignored if received by the device that sent it, so an infinite loop won't occur.

In your case, the singer would have to turn on this new setting. Then the singer would follow the keyboard player and the drummer would follow the singer. Everyone else could follow either the keyboard player or the singer depending on if they want to share the singer's scroll actions.

[oybed]

This is awesome. Unfortunately I missed this notification, so haven't tried this new feature yet, but we will give it a try next week. Thank you for getting this done!