After contacting Amazon again, I was able to get the Kindle Fire approved for download on the Amazon App Store. If any of you Kindle Fire users have been waiting, go get it now!

As a side note, things are progressing on the next update nicely. I’m overhauling a lot of code, and trying to improve performance/responsiveness. The list of things included on this next update is pretty large, so I may break it up into two parts so that people don’t have to wait quite as long for the features they need. I’m also thinking about starting up a forum on the site so that MobileSheets users can find information easily, and communicate with each other. Let me know if this interests any of you.

Mike

Hello all,

Progress through January has been much slower than I had hoped due to my day job requiring a significant amount of overtime. For those that aren’t aware, I am the sole developer working on this app, and only in my limited free time. I have a huge number of features that are being added for the next update, but I still have a long way to go before everything is ready. Annotations (the feature that everyone seems to want the most) is not currently planned for this next update, as it’s going to be a huge undertaking by itself. I’m hoping to have annotations done by the end of February, assuming I can actually find free time to work. Here is a list of some of the things I’m trying to add/fix for the next update:

- The ability to reorder, duplicate, remove pages in songs using PDF documents or images.
- The instrument field will be replaced with a custom field that can contain any data you want. The entries from this field will be selectable in a dropdown box on the main library screen.
- The difficulty field will be replaced by a key field, so that songs can be sorted by key
- The ability to add notes to songs and setlists will be added (not music notes, just textual notes to hold information)
- Performance improvements for load times, and fixes for crashes at startup due to low memory
- The ability to add songs to collections will be added. This will allow you to filter the library screen based on collection, but still use the song/artist/album/setlist filtering like normal. Collection management will also be added to the companion app
- Options to define single finger swipe (turn page, skip song) and double tap (turn 2 pages, skip song, goto start/end of song) behavior
- Batch import of files based upon file list or directory structure. More information will be provided on this, but it should make it much easier to add a massive amount of files at once.
- Night/day functionality
- Ability to specify URL for audio track. You can currently do this on the companion app, but not the tablet.
- Multiple audio tracks per song.
- Ability to copy existing an setlist
- Ability to copy song in companion app
- Ability to copy files to internal/external storage when importing songs on the tablet, as well as option to delete original file after copy
- Several additions to help with adding songs to setlists in setlist editor
- Ability to select private application files for songs (allows multiple songs to share one pdf that has already been added to the tablet through the companion app, for example)
- Load by bookmark view – Separate screen that allows you to view all bookmarks from all songs, and load any one you choose
- Better support for password protected PDFs
- Ability to restore files from a backup into only internal storage
- Ability to import pictures taken with the camera into internal storage.
- The ability to select audio only, audio and visual, or visual only for the metronome. This should make the metronome usable on tablets with poor audio performance.
- Ice Cream Sandwich support to hide the status bar completely

Many users have provided suggestions, and identified bugs, so there is a growing list of things I haven’t listed here that will get addressed for the next update. The sooner I stop sleeping, the sooner I can get it all done I appreciate everyone’s patience – I hope the updates make the wait worthwhile!

Hey all,

MobileSheets version 1.9 has been released and is full of some great bug fixes and enhancements. The following changes were made:

- Numerous fixes and improvements for PDF rendering. Text should be a little sharper now.
- Rotated PDF pages are handled correctly now.
- Large and complex PDF documents should no longer display blank pages or crash the app
- Fixed bug where reordering the songs in a setlist changed the songs in the setlist
- Added pedal “debounce” feature to eliminate multiple pedal presses at once (one pedal command is accepted every two seconds)
- Added new scroll and turn pedal mode. You can scroll up or down by pressing the left/right pedal. If you press the pedal before the end of the page, scrolling will stop. If you press the pedal again when the beginning or end of the page is reached, it will turn the page.
- Library list position restored after edits and deletes
- The skip-to-letter action (the alphabet list on the right side of the library screen) is now instantaneous, and always jumps to the right position.
- Added skip-to-letter list to the setlist screen, making it easier to navigate a large song list.
- Fixed various layout issues. Metronome window is now inside a scrollview, so you can just scroll the contents up if you have a small screen.
- Added support for ES File Explorer while selecting audio tracks. ES File Explorer doesn’t return title or artist information, so a metadata retriever is used on tablets running 2.3.3 or greater. For tablets running 2.3 or lower, only the file name is used.
- Added ability to specify image background color as black or white in the settings. Images with transparent backgrounds should show up better with a white background.
- Fixed several potential crashes on tablets that do not seem to load libraries correctly at startup. Please continue to send the error reports for weird issues like these, as it really helps me out. I have no way of reproducing these errors myself.

One question I would like to ask you all is this: if you are using the tablet in landscape mode, and you press to go back to the previous page, would you like the previous page to be automatically scrolled all the way to the bottom, or leave it at the top like it is now? I will go with whatever most people want. As a side note, I will finally be updating the manual for MobileSheets tonight to reflect all of these changes.

MobileSheets Companion App v1.1.4 was released with some nice bug fixes and enhancements as well. The following things were changed:

- Added support for dragging multiple pdf files into the companion app at once. A new editor window is display for each file.
- Fixed bug where songs with zoom levels would crash when you go to edit them
- Multiple attempts are made to connect to the tablet now before giving up now. The retry count is displayed.
- Fixed bug where the Companion App would crash if you try to edit bookmarks with no files added
- Initial focus is now set to the Title textbox upon creating or editing a song
- Added ability to reorder the songs in a setlist by dragging and dropping. Only one song can be dragged and reordered at a time. This should still be much faster than reordering on the tablet.

I have heard reports that the companion app crashes on Windows XP and Vista. I have not had a chance yet to test myself on XP, and I don’t have a machine with Vista, so please let me know if the app is continuing to crash, or if I have inadvertently fixed some of the problems with this latest release.

As you may have noticed in the title, I have created a twitter account for MobileSheets. You can check it out here. I will be posting all news updates there, as well as notifications of any important changes, so feel free to follow. I also am thinking about creating a forum for the site so that users can ask questions, submit reports, and share information a little easier. Let me know if that would interest any of you.

Mike

Just wanted to give everyone a quick update on where things are at. I am working as fast as I can to push out the next update which is going to fix issues including:

- Some PDFs do not correctly render all pages. You may see pages that are just blank.
- Several layout issues, such as the metronome start button being inaccessible on some tablets
- Companion App crashes, and a few bugs
- Companion App connectivity – currently fails after two attempts to make a connection to the tablet. A retry message will now be displayed, and it will try additional times to connect.
- Support for ES File Explorer – selecting an audio track using this currently fails
- After editing or removing song, position in current list is lost on the library screen. This will be fixed so that the displayed position is restored.
- Setlist songs cannot be reordered on the companion app.
- Companion app does not allow multiple PDF to be dragged – This will be changed so a separate window will be opened for each pdf file that was dragged.
- Images with a transparent background are not visible due to the black background. An option will be added to change the background to black/white.
- PDFs that are rotated do not correctly display (they display sideways in portrait mode). This will be fixed.

There will be a handful of other small fixes included in the release as well. After that release goes out, I will begin work on a follow-up update to add the following:

- The instrument field will be replaced with a custom field that can contain any data you want. The entries from this field will be selectable in a dropdown box on the main library screen.
- The difficulty field will be replaced by a key field, so that songs can be sorted by key
- The ability to add notes to songs and setlists will be added (not music notes, just textual notes to hold information)
- The ability to add songs to collections will be added. This will allow you to filter the library screen based on collection, but still use the song/artist/album/setlist filtering like normal. Collection management will also be added to the companion app
- Options to define single finger swipe (turn page, skip song) and double tap (turn 2 pages, skip song, goto start/end of song) behavior
- Batch import of files based upon file list or directory structure. More information will be provided on this, but it should make it much easier to add a massive amount of files at once.
- Night/day functionality
- Ability to specify URL for audio track. You can currently do this on the companion app, but not the tablet.
- Multiple audio tracks per song.
- Ability to copy existing setlist
- Ability to copy song in companion app
- Several additions to help with adding songs to setlists in setlist editor
- Ability to select private application files for songs (allows multiple songs to share one pdf that has already been added to the tablet through the companion app, for example)
- Load by bookmark view – Separate screen that allows you to view all bookmarks from all songs, and load any one you choose
- Pedal “debounce” feature to eliminate changing more than one page per couple seconds.
- Better support for password protected PDFs
- Ability to restore files from a backup into only internal storage
- Ability to import pictures taken with the camera into internal storage.

The next update after that will have the following features:

- Annotation functionality
- Support for .txt files. This will be represented as a single page that can be scrolled vertically in portrait or landscape. For long lyrics, this allows auto-scrolling without needing page turns. Additional options to control auto-scrolling will be added as well.
- Ability to crop images. This is easier to use than zoom, as you can cut off different amounts of margin from each side.
- New snippet feature that makes a copy of a song and allows you to define different start/end pages. Great for quickly splitting up a pdf in an existing song.

Unfortunately, due to all of the work that needs to be done, the annotation functionality will not be done before the end of the month. I hope this isn’t problematic for any users. I hope everyone is happy with the app though – I’m working as fast as I can to get everyone the features they need.

Mike

First off, I have fixed a problem where SlideME users with tablets running Honeycomb or greater could not pass the license check. I have also released the companion app version 1.1.3 with the following changes:

- Fixed various issues with using Removable Storage
- Fixed issue with songs that have Lead Sheets or Other selected as the source type
- Fixed issue with companion app not setting default zoom for songs, resulting in some songs failing to render without first adjusting the zoom
- Fixed problem where selections aren’t properly set when a song is first edited. The storage location for the edited song should be correctly selected (if found).

Thanks everyone for sending me the bug reports. It really helps me take care of the problems faster.

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday. MobileSheets v1.8 has been released with the following changes:

- Rewrote communication with Companion App – much more stable and reliable
- Fixed backup/restore issues. Backing up to PC works much better now.
- Added double-tap to turn two pages
- The Song Editor now tries to auto-fill the song title based on the first file name added if the title is blank (the same way the companion app does)
- Added two finger pan of displayed image, double tap center to reset. The pan amount is not currently being saved, but this will most likely be added in an upcoming update. It seems like something that should be optional though, not automatic – hoping for user feedback here.
- If you fling with two fingers, it will skip to the next song in the playlist. Takes a little bit to get the hang of, but can work well once mastered.
- Global Zoom is now saved per song automatically
- Added better removable SD card support – you must enter the path now in the options
- Fixed problem with setlists where same page is shown twice
- Improved tap detection
- Fixed bugs submitted in error reports

I have submitted this version to all three markets, but the changes may not show up on Amazon for at least a week. I apologize to Amazon users for the delay, but they have a lengthy review process for all updates.

MobileSheets Companion v1.1.2 has been released with the following changes

- Added the ability to view the contents of a backup file and extract any song’s images. Check it out under the File menu
- Added an about dialog under the Help menu to show the current version of the software
- Rewrote all the communication code with the tablet
- Fixed default selection of storage location
- Added text to show that an image is being transferred in the edit dialog

All in all, it’s a pretty big update. I hope everyone is happy with the changes. I will try to update the Help document as soon as I can to reflect all the recent changes. I am also trying to improve and update the website as time allows. I will keep rolling out feature updates as I can, so please keep sending me your requests. Have a great new year everyone!

A number of issues have been identified by users that still remain. These include:

- If a PDF with only one page is at the beginning of a setlist, turning the page to the second song won’t appear to change the image.
- Changing the ordering of songs on the Setlist editor works, but the setlist has to be deselected, then reselected in order for the changes to appear.
- The tap detection on the edge of the screens was modified and has made it harder to tap the edges to turn pages without bringing up the overlay.
- Some PDFs apparently cause crashes or white pages to be displayed (can anyone send me a problematic PDF please?)
- Multiple instances of the same artist/album appear

There are also some Companion App fixes that will be made:

- The default storage location option is not working properly
- The external storage and removable storage detection is clumsy and sometimes doesn’t show up

I also forgot to mention that the changes to the PDF rendering may have affected zoom levels set for songs. I apologize for the inconvenience, as these will have to be manually adjusted. I am working on adding a feature to save the global zoom level per song, and to apply one page’s zoom level to all pages in a song.

If anyone experiences any problems, please let me know. I am aiming to release an update to fix these issues in a day or two. After that, there will be one more update with minor enhancements that users have requested before annotations are introduced in mid-January.

Version 1.7 of MobileSheets has been released! This fixes the following issues:

- The internal PDF implementation was completely reworked. PDF files now load as fast as images! There is also additional support for extensions such as annotations.
- Various application not responding (ANR) timeouts
- Crashes from the song editor
- Crashes from MobileSheetsFree when you try to load the Backup or Restore features
- Problems with setlists of multiple pdfs (pages don’t advance as expected)
- A few crashes related to 2.2 support (The application would crash after loading the help dialogs on 2.2)
- Unreliable backup file sizes (meaning it didn’t complete successfully)
- Layout problems in landscape mode on tablets such as the Arnova 10” that is 9”/5” (the sliding window is partially blocked by the bars at the bottom).
- Problems with the fullscreen ad playing in the background
- All of the errors submitted by users have been fixed (thank you all!)
- Various layout mistakes have been fixed as well
- Fixed crash related to using the alphabetic seek on tablets running Gingerbread or older.

MobileSheets Companion v1.1.1 has been released with the following fixes:

- Fixed crash that could occur when editing songs created with an older version
- The companion app should auto-update correctly now. If it does not, please let me know.
- The Backup Dialog now shows the number of KB remaining in the transfer

One thing that should be noted is that the Companion app is still using the older PDF implementation internally. This means that PDF’s that are converted to images may not contain things like annotations. This will be addressed for the next release. Hopefully there shouldn’t really be a reason to convert to images anymore though. I hope everyone enjoys the changes. Happy Holidays!

While I was not able to release the update tonight as planned due to some technical issues, progress is looking great for the next update. The biggest news is that the PDF rendering and loading speed is on par with standard images now, so everyone will have the freedom to use whichever format works best for them without any drawbacks. I also have an HP Touchpad in my possession now, so a large number of fixes are going to be released to address issues I have found while using Gingerbread. If all goes well, the update will be released tomorrow night.

I just wanted to let everyone know that I’m working very hard on improving the speed of the PDF loading and rendering. I am hoping to include some significant changes to the PDF rendering code in this next release that should alleviate a lot of issues for people. The target date for the release is now Saturday. Keep an eye out for the update Saturday night!