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Musical icons in MSP
#1
Mike,

recently I discovered that symbols/icons/emojis can nicely increase the readability of the library.
Much better than text they identify a song, say, as one that can be played with a specific second instrument (harmonica, banjo, piano, e-guitar, uke, violin, depending on whether one has the required company...). 
Another example: songs that have a backing track as audio file (There's this fantastic website www.karaoke-version.com - don't let the name put you off - where you can compose the backing track individually per instrument, try Bowie's "Life on Mars?"). Anyway, I marked 72 songs in my 1900 songs library with the standard android emoji for a tape (probably a video tape...) and added the field "Collections" to the title format. Anywhere in the library, as well as when a song is open, I now SEE that the song has a brilliant backing track associated. In the "past" I handled this through a setlist, with the drawback of not having the "backing track info" outside of the setlist. 
Having a bluetooth speaker built into the guitar (check out "acoustajam"), to play along a backing track spontaneously is always an option now, no external speakers or preparation required.
One more example why adding a symbol to the title format can be useful: the "needs work" tag. I replaced the "needs work" setlist with a wrench emoji in the Collections field, and since Collections is part of the Title Format, the info on whether a song requires attention is always visible. See also the library screenshot.
Now, the standard emojis include an e-guitar, a piano symbol, violin, mic, musical notes, all of which I am using. 
Would it be possible for you to include additional symbols in MSP? 
In the absence of a ukulele symbol I chose the palm tree, but haven't found anything that could stand for banjo and harmonica. 
A collection of musical instruments would be fantastic.

Cheers
Ben


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#2
How did you apply those icons?
first language: German
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#3
They're standard Unicode symbols.
Johan
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#4
They're not part of the song name ("Title") as this would limit the filtering options and general handling.
I use the "Collection" field (though it can be any other field, too of course).
All (currently seven) values of the Collection field are icons from the emoji keyboard area.
By appending "Collections" to "Title", in the ""Song Title Formatting" Settings, these icons are shown along with the title.
They provide information in the library that wasn't there before, and I definitely prefer icons over text in this case as text would add undesired "complexity".
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#5
I don't think I can easily support adding additional symbols. The text entry is all provided by whatever keyboard you have installed on your device. Whatever emojis are available is determined by that keyboard. The way those emojis are displayed is completely dependent upon the OS (I'm not sure how they are going to show up on the Windows 10 version, for example). You could go look for a different keyboard to install off Google Play that may provide additional emojis.

If it's all based upon unicode symbols, then you should be able to see what's available by looking at lists like this one: http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/...s/list.htm

I saw the palm tree in that list, but no banjo. You are probably going to be limited by what unicode supports. I even looked through this larger list and only found the following symbols related to instruments: http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/...o/list.htm

U+1F3B5 MUSICAL NOTE ? view
U+1F3B6 MULTIPLE MUSICAL NOTES ? view
U+1F3B7 SAXOPHONE ? view
U+1F3B8 GUITAR ? view
U+1F3B9 MUSICAL KEYBOARD ? view
U+1F3BA TRUMPET ? view
U+1F3BB VIOLIN ? view
U+1F3BC MUSICAL SCORE ? view
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#6
Thanks for checking, Mike. I will try your tip with the additional keyboard, from Google Play.
It would have to be bitmaps I assume if MSP was to offer/display a range of musical symbols.
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#7
Initially I was wondering what I wasn't getting. But indeed it depends what keyboard you are using Hacker's KB and Swap for instance offer no emojis. Another one I tested, Chroma KB offers a nice collection of emojis/icons and probably other keyboards too. Maybe I'll use that for organizing somehow. Thanks for the hint.
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