10.4: Buttons

Buttons can do a lot, and with forScore 10.4 they can now do even more. There are two completely new button types as well as some expanded functionality for a few of the existing ones.

The new “Seek Audio” button type lets you change the playback position of the current audio track, whether it’s playing or paused, and the “Open Link” type allows you to activate a predefined URL with a single tap. That URL can be a standard web address, or it can also be one of the new forScore-specific links that we discussed a few weeks back.

When you’re using the “Play/Pause Audio” button, you can now specify the playback position to use when starting playing. If the audio track is playing, tapping the button will pause it, and when you tap it again it’ll start playing from the time you supplied. If you don’t supply this information, tapping the button resumes playback from the currently paused position.

Finally, the Navigation button type now sports a “Go To…” option. This lets you specify an item to open when you tap on the button. You can choose an item from your library or from a specific setlist to also queue up the rest of the items in that setlist. Once you’ve picked an item, you can also choose to specify a page number. (You can’t set a page number without choosing an item first—if you want to go to a different page of the current score then Links are a better tool for the job.)

Buttons are easy to set up and virtually effortless to use, so the next time you find yourself doing the same task over and over again at a certain point in a score, consider using a button to simplify it.