If you use document formats other than PDFApple has announced that it is dropping support for its original document viewing framework in December 2020, leaving a newer framework that only displays PDFs. If you are using Word, RTF, Pages, Keynote or PowerPoint files in BandHelper, you should start thinking about converting those files to PDFs. Here's a step-by-step:
- Go to the Repertoire > Documents page of the website, click Reset in the Filters box to show all your documents, and click Export at the bottom of the page to download all your documents as a zip file.
- From the downloaded files, remove any documents that are already in a supported format (PDF, JPG or TXT).
- Convert the remaining files to PDFs. You can use this free, online tool. Just drag your documents to the web page, click Convert, and click Download. (You should probably start with a small number of documents at a time and progress to larger batches if it works well.)
- When you have PDF versions of your documents, put them all into a folder with no subfolders and zip the folder. Then click the Batch Import button at the top of the Repertoire > Documents and select the zip file. Do not select Add New Songs. Your new PDF documents will upload and replace the old formats.
- Annotations and other metadata will be preserved. You only need to do this once for your account; individual users don't need to do it.
- You should keep the original files that you converted to PDFs. To edit your documents in the future, you will need to edit these original files, then export the updated file as a PDF and upload the PDF to your account. You can replace individual files on the Repertoire > Documents > Edit pages of the website.
Alternatively, you can copy and paste the contents of those files directly into the Lyrics field of your songs. Pros and cons of this approach are listed here:
http://www.bandhelper.com/tutorials/compare_lyrics_documents.htmlIf you want to try the new document viewerWhile implementing the new document framework, I also implemented new frameworks for displaying photos and videos. After some initial hiccups, these new frameworks are working well, and you can switch to them for testing or regular use by turning off Help > Utilities > Use Old Document Viewer. The new viewer offers these advantages:
- Faster document display on iOS 11+
- More accurate paging through multi-page documents on iOS 11+
- Ability to save a zoom level for photos
- More reliable video display and control
- Ability to play a video on the main screen and an external screen simultaneously with the document-only external setting
Differences and disadvantages are:
- Pagination in a 2-column display moves two pages at a time (e.g., instead of changing from pages 1-2 to 2-3, it changes from pages 1-2 to 3-4)
- Saving a zoom position with the 2-column display is not supported, because it zooms both columns together
- Documents will have a gray border on iOS 10 and earlier
You can ask general questions here, but if you see any problems using the new viewer, please submit a help ticket.
Update Sept. 20, 2020: The app versions released today turn on the new document viewer for everyone by default. If you still need to use the old viewer because you have not converted to PDFs or because you are seeing a problem with the new viewer, you may switch back by turning on Help > Utilities > Use Old Document Viewer. However, if you are still using old file formats, remember to update your files by December; and if you are experiencing a problem, please contact us so we can address it.
Update March 23, 2021: The app versions released today remove the old document viewer, so there is no longer a way to view the old file formats in the app. None of the app stores allow downgrading to older app versions. You will need to convert these documents to PDFs or use the built-in Lyrics field as described above.