SLM 4.0 - List Layout questions

[Jeff]

I've been using SLM since 2012 and have loved it (Thanks!). I love that you can now modify layout views to your liking, although I'd suggest having something like "List Only Classic" so it would be less of a shock to people upgrading (just a thought).

My purpose for using the app is just for having lyrics ready on stage as well as putting together set lists with band members and getting an idea on how long each set will be so we can move things around to fit with our desired stage set times.  I use them in PDF documents so that I can format them to perfectly fit without scrolling (and I use a black background on all the documents).

Okay, I modified the list layout to use the following settings:
Title Size 50%, Enabled: Document button, Artist, Key, Duration

A few questions:

• After opening a song, I can't seem to figure out how to swipe to the next song like I could do in SLM 3.x. Did I miss a setting or is this feature missing? If it's missing, can you add it back in (or add it as a toggle setting "Swipe for next/previous song")? It took me a while to figure out that I have to touch the center of the document (to go back a screen), find the next document to open (when I'm interacting with the audience, I don't always remember where I left off, so I have to pause and think now to find the doc ), then open the next/previous doc. Often I just need to swipe through songs and it worked well in SLM 3 (it's fast and easy). Hopefully it's just a setting I'm missing.
• When viewing documents, it opens to full size as expected like SLM 3, but unlike SLM 3 it adds a margin all the way around (especially a thick one at the bottom).  I spent a lot of time editing all of my documents to make sure they have zero margin so that when viewing them in SLM they take up the full space.  I could not find an option anywhere to disable this weird shaped margin. How can I do that?  If it's not currently an option, can you make it one in an update (or just remove the margin)?  The easiest way to visually replicate this issue is to use a document with a black background, set the theme to white, then go to a show and open the doc. You'll see a weird shaped white background.
• Currently when editing the title size, it won't let me go smaller than 50%. Can this be addressed in a future update? True, if people are stupid enough to choose title size 5% they likely won't be able to read it, but can we have that option anyway?  I'm probably going to go down to 30% myself if it's offered so that I can see more songs in a set at a time (helpful for when people make requests).
• This may be a bug. Not sure. When in list view (portrait, iPad 5) and I click on a document, it shows full screen as expected. If I accidentally shrink it down too much, it comes right back to full size as expected (same as SLM 3). However, if I accidentally single-click the right side it auto-zooms in. Okay, maybe this is an intended feature.  Not sure.  So I try to pinch it too small (so it will auto-correct to full size), but instead it just shrinks down to a very tiny unreadable document.  Was this also an intended feature (giving the user the ability to choose how they want to zoom?). It does fix itself when I click on the right-center again.  However sometimes it acts like it goes back to the normal size, but entire paragraphs disappear and things I had colored grey (notes or key changes written in the PDF) go to the default white of the rest of the text in the PDF. I have to then back out of the document and re-open to fix it.
• Another bug I found was while playing with SLM 4.0 on the iPhone (iPhone 4s). I was in the songs list (portrait), looked at a document, clicked on the right-side (hoping to scroll to the next song like SLM 3 did) and got the lyrics field instead (forgot I once had text in that field for some songs before I switched to document attachments). I clicked right again and got the document. Did this a few times and it went back and forth. Tried to click the back button on the top left and it had to go through all the choices I made (apparently doc view, then lyrics view over and over). Then all over a sudden both sets of lyrics (from the document and the lyrics field) overlapped and it was a jumble. Clicked back until I got back to the list view and all was well again.
• On the iPad (portrait - iPad 5) I went to settings --> Appearance -->and changed the theme to light theme. I then went to shows, clicked on a show, and the app locked up for several minutes before it opened into the list view. I then changed it back to dark and it worked fine for a while, except that it would not longer let me choose any layouts anymore - giving me an error saying that I had to be in song view or something (ugh). Then a minute later I tried to open another show and it locked up again. I waited 3 or 4 minutes, got frustrated, and force-crashed the app.  After opening the app again, the speed seemed to return and I was allowed to use different layout views again.  I guess the tip I got from there was to never change the theme

[Jeff]

If in "List Only" layout (portrait) there is no divider bar (I like it this way).  However, if you click edit (which brings up the divider bar for the edit options), then click back, the divider bar stays.  Currently you have to click back (click "shows" in top left), then re-open the show to fix it.

[arlo]

I've been using SLM since 2012 and have loved it (Thanks!). I love that you can now modify layout views to your liking, although I'd suggest having something like "List Only Classic" so it would be less of a shock to people upgrading (just a thought).

How would "List Only Classic" differ from the existing "List Only" layout? I tried to match the most popular layouts in version 3 with the default layouts in version 4. The problem is that even in the old version, there were so many different layout options that it was difficult to capture all the possibilities. But since the layouts are all customizable now, in theory you should be able to get exactly what you want, perhaps with some tweaking. This is why I've been recommending not installing the app right before a gig, in case you need to make some adjustments to get your preferred workflow.

1) In the song layout, you can swipe horizontally to change songs. This gesture isn't available when viewing a full-screen document. I should be able to restore that in the next update.

2) Can you post a screen shot?

3) I'll add this to my wish list.

4) A double-tap will auto-zoom a document. I've never seen a case of a single-tap doing that. A single-tap on the right third of a document should show the next document, if multiple documents are attached to the song, or do nothing if this is the only document attached to the song.

5) Tapping the right hotspot to move between attached documents (or lyrics) is intentional. Having to go back through all the previous selections is a bug and will be fixed in the next update. I think this problem only occurs in the Songs list, not in the show view.

6) I haven't seen these problems and nothing here sounds like it's related to the themes. The speed of opening the show view is more likely related to the number of recordings on your device, although the longest I've seen is about 10 seconds, not 3-4 minutes. If that persists, please contact me directly and I'll give you instructions for capturing and sending a console log. To change layouts, you do have to be in the show view with a song selected.

[Jeff]

Thanks for the quick response.

1) If you could add that feature back in, it would make my day!

2) See photo attached.

3) Thanks

4) I can recreate this 100% of the time. Open a show (portrait view on ipad 5), open the document, click on the right side pane (vertically in the middle). It auto-zooms and everything goes awry from there when you try to pinch and expand.

6) I can recreate this bug 100% of the time.  I have never recorded anything in the app before.  I do have probably 150 songs in the DB, but I wouldn't say that is crazy (but of course could be related).  I have most of them added to every show - where about 40-50 are used in the gig and the remaining active ones are put in a set called "extras" (usually for requests or if we need to change-up based on the crowd response).  But I wouldn't say these lists are long and have always worked fine.  Actually they still work fine in SLM 4.  But... if I change the theme, then go to a show, I can no longer change the layout and I get that error.  This happens every time I try it now (so its easy to recreate). A force-crash of the app fixes it (and I have to because the app itself gets slow and I'm guessing there are other errors if I try to go into other screens - speculation of course).  When I come back into the app after force-crashing it, everything works fine (no matter what theme I'm in).  So it's not the worst bug in the world (how often do you need change the theme?).  I personally plan to stick to the dark theme.  I just thought you might want to know about the bug.  I'll be happy to create a new console log while the issue is happening and send it to you if you like off-list.

7) Did you see my other item I posted? It's pretty low-priority since it has a simple work-around and likely isn't used too often, but I thought you might want to know about it.

[arlo]

1. Done: http://www.arlomedia.com/apps/setlistmaker/support/release_notes.html

2. What happens if you use the Dark color theme? It seems like that's what you'd want, if you've created documents with dark backgrounds. If that's not a solution, then how did you open this document -- by tapping it to make it full-screen, or by setting up a layout that presents that document at this size?

4. I tried this and I'm not seeing any unusual behavior when I tap the right side of the document. Could you post a video?

6. I think you have mentioned two different issues here. One is the message that layouts are only available in the show view. To get past this, you must select a show and then select a song. The other is the app slowing down or hanging. I suggested that this might be related to the number of songs in your iTunes music library; that's the only thing I've seen that really slows down the loading of a song list; but not at the scale you're describing. So yes, please send a console log and email me if you need instructions.

7. Thanks, I missed that. I'll add that to my to do list.

[Jeff]

@GuyM, you should probably create a new thread/post otherwise your numbered questions don't correspond with our previous points (thus causing confusion).

[Jeff]

1. Done: http://www.arlomedia.com/apps/setlistmaker/support/release_notes.html

Awesome! Just made my day

2. What happens if you use the Dark color theme? It seems like that's what you'd want, if you've created documents with dark backgrounds.

It still adds the margin.  Yes the margin is black, but that's not the point unfortunately because I'm losing space (I just used the white theme so you could "see" the margin in the screenshot). I know it sounds picky, but when we're on stage looking at lyrics and/or notes in a document, real estate is essential and losing some of it makes it that less readable compared to SLM 3. The iPad screen is small enough, but even holding the iPhone for these needed moments will just make it that much harder now.

If that's not a solution, then how did you open this document -- by tapping it to make it full-screen, or by setting up a layout that presents that document at this size?

All I did was open the document to full screen.  It does this with white or black theme. I just used the white theme in that example so that you could "see" the margin in the screenshot.

---

As for the other items, I'll see if I can get some time tonight or as soon as possible to put those together for you.

[arlo]

All I did was open the document to full screen.  It does this with white or black theme. I just used the white theme in that example so that you could "see" the margin in the screenshot.

Well what's happening here is that the document is opening at the largest size that it can display one single page. If the document were a little taller to fill the full height of the screen, you would end up seeing the top 1/2" or so of the next page ... not very useful. So it just restricts itself to one full page at a time.

[Jeff]

Well what's happening here is that the document is opening at the largest size that it can display one single page. If the document were a little taller to fill the full height of the screen, you would end up seeing the top 1/2" or so of the next page ... not very useful. So it just restricts itself to one full page at a time.

Aha.  Yeah, that explains the larger margin at the bottom (scale the document size up until you have to stop so the whole document fits on the page).

But what about the fixed width on the other sides (in this case the left, top, and right in the photo I provided).  Couldn't those be removed?  It seems like there is a "forced minimum margin size".  btw, I checked my older iPad which still has SLM 3 and it also had this fixed margin, so I guess it's nothing new.  If what I'm guessing about the fixed minimum margin is true, can we have the ability to remove the fixed margin with maybe a toggle for those of us wanting to use all available space (feature request )?

[arlo]

Do you mean the approximately 1/8" of space on the left and right? Unfortunately that's a part of the iOS framework for rendering documents, and I can't remove it. FWIW the margins included in your document are probably larger -- typically 1" or 1 1/4" for documents created in Word. In that case you can pinch-zoom your document and Set List Maker will remember your zoom level. That will give you more effective size improvement than removing those iOS-enforced margins would.

[Jeff]

Do you mean the approximately 1/8" of space on the left and right? Unfortunately that's a part of the iOS framework for rendering documents, and I can't remove it.

Oh okay.  Thanks for the info, it's good to know the limitations are from iOS (always discovering something new).  And thanks for taking the time to assist us with fixes and feature requests.  It's much appreciated.

FWIW the margins included in your document are probably larger -- typically 1" or 1 1/4" for documents created in Word.

Trust me, there is absolutely zero margin on these documents. It is possible to do in word with PDFs, it's just not straight forward on how to do it (but it is easy once you know how).  I wrote a tutorial a couple years ago and sent it to you in an email in case you wanted to post it on the website for anyone looking for tips and tricks.  If anything thinks it would be useful, I'd be happy to post it on the forums.

[arlo]

Oh yeah, I remember that. Feel free to post it in a new thread.

[arlo]

I just submitted version 4.0.2, which lets you reduce the song list text all the way down to 20%:

http://www.arlomedia.com/apps/setlistmaker/support/release_notes.html

[arlo]

If in "List Only" layout (portrait) there is no divider bar (I like it this way).  However, if you click edit (which brings up the divider bar for the edit options), then click back, the divider bar stays.  Currently you have to click back (click "shows" in top left), then re-open the show to fix it.

Version 4.0.2 should also take care of this issue.