What would be really great....

[Daddyg]

Greetings!
I’ve been an SLM user for many years now…so many, I can’t even remember when I started using it, but probably close to the 10 years it’s been offered.  It freed me from those ridiculous notebooks I used to carry around.   I’ve played with so many groups, and so many projects that it was untenable.  I’ve got 11 databases now in SLM, and have retired 2 of them, so a total of 13.  I refer to most of them at least once every couple month, and 3-4 of them weekly.  I truly love this software.

Working with multiple databases, there are times I wish I could manage them with more sophisticated tools.  Being able to simultaneously search, see & compare multiple databases would lessen all the back & forth one needs to do between databases.  Seeing all stored documents with their database links would also help to allow better management, reduce dups, and tidy things up.  Having the ability to see when databases & songs were created, when documents were uploaded, and generally having a timestamp function would help when searching and remembering where things are.  Being able to assign a “default” layout for multiple databases in one fell swoop would be wonderful.   I could go on ... but once SLM reaches a certain stage, not having more "global" tools to be able to manage multiple databases becomes difficult and really time consuming.   I certainly may be an outlier, but I've got to guess that there are many users out there dealing with multiple databases that overlap that run into the same issues I do. 

I know that SLM is to a great degree has become almost legacy.  I’ve researched BandHelper a few times but simply don’t need many of its features.  With all the folks I play with, only one has used a tablet!  I’d guess a database tool could/would work on both SLM & BH, but I could be wrong.  It would definitely move the program(s) to an entirely different level of sophistication and be a godsend to have that functionality.  As an add on app, I’d be more than willing to pay good money for something like this.

You’ve done a great job, Arlo and I applaud the fruits of your efforts.  I’m sure you get many of these “suggestions”.   This one’s offered in the spirit of making SLM even better for long term users. Thanks for listening.

[arlo]

I think BandHelper addresses a lot of this. In Set List Maker, databases are completely separate, and you can copy songs and layouts between them but can't share the same items between multiple databases. In BandHelper, an account can have multiple projects, and items can be assigned to multiple projects. So you could have one copy of a song or layout that is shared across as many projects as you need. (Or you can still make copies of items and assign each copy just to one project.)

From the BandHelper website, you can quickly switch between projects on a page like the Songs list by clicking the project selector in the top toolbar, to compare the songs currently assigned to each project, and you can batch-assign items to projects (or batch-remove them).

Finally, the BandHelper website has a Find Duplicates function that will find items with the same name, show you their details for comparison and let you pick which one to keep.

This is one of the fundamental differences in how the apps were built, so I don't foresee these as features that would be added to Set List Maker. But if you migrate to BandHelper, you'll have everything you had in Set List Maker plus these additional management capabilities.

[Daddyg]

Thanks much for the response, Arlo.  I appreciate the insight. 

Yes, it does sound like BH gives me the functionality I need.  I thought I had, but I’ll have to review its feature set more thoroughly.  It’s a bit daunting to contemplate making the conversion, but I understand it’s fairly seamless.   I’ll have to study up and wait for an appropriate time.

Thanks much