2.6 Arrives

We’re happy to announce the immediate availability of forScore 2.6, a huge update bringing great new features and important fixes. Here are a few of the highlights from today’s update:

First off, we wanted to solve a problem that’s been bugging us since many popular iPad-compatible page turners came to the market. Technically, page turners are very similar to keyboards, so when the iPad detects that one is connected, it assumes that you’re using a Bluetooth or wired keyboard and hides the virtual on-screen version. Normally that’s a great feature, but for people who are using page turners it means that searching, browsing, and editing metadata are all off-limits while using one of these devices. Well, we’ve managed to find a way of using both at the same time, and we’ve added an option in the settings panel to force the virtual keyboard to appear no matter which external device is connected. We think this is an important change, and one that our competitors are still scratching their heads over.

Next, we made an important change to forScore’s bookmarking feature. One request we got very often was to allow bookmarks to overlap. We’ve done this in 2.6, but with a caveat—since one page can potentially be a part of multiple bookmarks, the app no longer inherits bookmark information automatically. If you want to use a bookmark and all of its related metadata (audio track binding, zoom, etc.) then you’ll first have to select it from the main menu or from the bookmarks menu itself. We’ve also got other features coming soon that depend on this behavior, so while it was a difficult choice to make, we think it’ll be the right one ultimately.

We’ve also taken some time to consider how we can improve overall workflow. To that end, we’ve added a centralized search panel to the app that lets you find scores, composers, genres, keywords, actions, and setlists in seconds. More importantly, you now get to choose which gesture you’d like to use to open it: a two-finger tap, or a tap & hold gesture. Both of these are configurable to a number of different tasks through the settings panel, so you can find the combination that’s right for you.

We’re not stopping there, though—version 2.7 is already in the works and brings just a few (but very important) features that we’ve been working to get right since we started last April. Thanks to everyone for your support, and for your feedback. We couldn’t do it without either!