MobileSheets Forums

I am looking to have two libraries for different Groups  and looking to be able to switch between them without going through settings every time. any ideas/ advise

I'm going to be adding an option soon to switch libraries directly from the library screen. There is no alternative at the moment unless you want to have a single library and use Collections to filter the two sub-libraries.

Mike

(09-13-2023, 10:06 AM)Zubersoft Wrote: [ -> ]I'm going to be adding an option soon to switch libraries directly from the library screen. There is no alternative at the moment unless you want to have a single library and use Collections to filter the two sub-libraries.

Mike

Mike
As I'm very new to this software, still getting to understand how it all works.  I have two libraries of Tunes with a lot of the same tune but in different keys etc. Ido not want to mix them, therefore I thought using two libraries with own databases. If I use 1 library but have two collections with their own databases ,that would be fine  or  can I import  the tunes for each group directly into separate collections but they are held in a library database? 
My understanding was that I had to import into 1 database then select tunes  for each collection individually which would be a lot of work as I have some 600+ tunes between 2 groups.  Incidentally I am migrating from Piascore so a lot of work for me to make this change.

Drew

You can select collections (and other metadata) during the import into one library. So it is possible that you in the first round you import all the tunes you want and assign it to one collection and in the second go the others and assign them to another one. No individual assignments afterwards necessary. And that would be all in one database/library.

You could also create a library for each collection but you would need to switch between libraries which need to be loaded and equal a new start of the app. (But Mike is going to improve that as well). For now I think it should be sufficient for you to use one library/database with assigning the collection for the imported files.

Thank you for that,  am not sure if I quite understand that, but I will give it a try . 

As it sounds, the way I think I want to use it, I have two Groups with Tunes, Songs and Harmony. 
Therefore I assume that for group A  I import all the tunes into library and create a  "A-tunes" collection then import songs into library, repeat and creating a "A-songs" collection then similar for "A-Harmony" ending up with three collections for group A. Then I repeat the process with group B doing exactly the same process.

Drew

If the songs are in files on a different computer, how about renaming the files to show the group and category?

e.g.
Copy all "songs" for group A into a new SongsA folder
Copy all "tunes" for group A into a new TunesA folder
Copy all "harmonys" for group A into a new HarmonysA folder
Note: using copy rather than working on your original files

Rename all files in songsA to include -AS as a postfix to the name  e.g.ABC.pdf becomes ABC-AS.pdf or ABC-A-S.pdf
For TunesA, use -AT and for Harmonies use -AH
All files now have unique names
Import each folder (putting it into the correct collection as part of the import)

Repeat for group B songs using BS, BT and BH

There are probably other ways of doing it but this means that all files end up with unique names, are in the correct collections and you have a single library.

Google "rename files in directory postfix prefix" for ways to rename with a postfix
One advantage of this method is that you do all the major work without involving MobileSheets - i.e. you won't muck up anything already in MS.

Cheers
Geoff

Create the collections first. Open the respective collection, then import your song files. If you import from an open collection the imported songs are automatically added to that collection.
You might try some settings in the "Import Settings" window. "Guess Title From Filename" does what the name says. If you set the checkbox "Load song editor after import" the "Import Settings" window is opened after a successful import for further edits. "Automatically crop pages" is very helpful for importing PDFs or images.
Just play around a bit and check what is useful for your specific needs

Mike, Geoff and Itsme

Thank you for the advise, it has been a lot of help.  
I was able to import using the following method.
I already had the tunes stored in Google Drive for each groups with the 3 named folders .
I created the same named collections for each group.
I then Imported/Batch Import 
set up the file filter
selected the Collection I wanted to import to
Selected folders to import from at top
selected the same folder in Google Drive that I wanted to import from
press Start, at top, and it worked fine.
Just repeated that for each groups collections
Now all stored correctly in each collection and using just the single database.

Still a lot to learn but at least first hurdle overcome.

Drew