Drag and Drop: Services

When we started working with Drag and Drop ahead of iOS 11’s release, we took a big step back and identified virtually every way we could think of that these new gestures could be used in interesting and helpful ways throughout our app. The Services panel was no exception, and with a little bit of polishing we came up with a set of interactions that really help you work faster.

The first one was simple, allowing you to rearrange accounts in the main list of services with one easy gesture (just like rearranging items in many places throughout the app).

The next interaction—the one we were most excited about crafting—helps you move items between folders. By necessity, this took a lot of extra steps in the past: tap edit, select an item, tap the move icon, then navigate to the directory you want to move the item to and finally tap “Move” to finish the process. With drag and drop, you just tap and hold to pick up an item, tap additional items to add them to your drag stack, then drop them onto a folder to move those files into it or use your other fingers to navigate into and out of folders and drop the files into the right place.

Finally, we added the ability to upload scores, setlists, backups, and audio files by dragging them into the Services panel. This was an obvious thing to implement but it was a little more complicated because scores and setlists can be uploaded in several different formats. We could have just defaulted to the most common format for each, but we decided to provide a prompt instead so you can choose which one you need every time you drop files. Sometimes making things as streamlined as possible means knowing when to add a step.

Drag and Drop: Images

We ended our last Feature of the Week by highlighting the ability to copy drawn annotations off of a page using the Selection tool and share them with other apps as an image. That’s perhaps not the most common use-case for musicians, but it gives you a hint of some of the really interesting ways you can work with images using iOS 11’s Drag and Drop gestures.

For years, the stamp creator has allowed you to access any images stored in the app’s Documents directory and place them on the canvas for further manipulation (if needed) before saving them as a new custom stamp. That process requires users to add their images using iTunes’ file sharing panel, leaving a pile of images within the app that either go unused or that you’d need to manually delete later when you’re done creating your stamps.

With Drag and Drop, though, there’s no need to save files anywhere—skip the whole process and just drag an image from any app that supports it directly onto the stamp creator’s canvas to place it there. Standard apps like Safari are fully supported, so it’s incredibly easy to find a shape you need online, drag it over, and tap save.

Stamps are really designed to be reusable, though, and sometimes you only need a specific type of marking in one particular case. Or, you may need to use something that’s bigger than the Stamp tool’s maximum size. For that, drag an image from any compatible app directly onto the page. forScore enters annotation mode (if you’re not already using it) and places a copy of the image over your score with adjustment handles so you can resize and reposition it as needed. When you’re done, simply tap outside of the image to finish placing it.

So whether you’re stocking up on reusable symbols or accommodating a special case, forScore’s image support with Drag and Drop is sure to make the whole process incredibly quick and easy.

Drag and Drop: Sharing

Last week we saw how easy it is to use Drag and Drop to import files from other apps, and today we’ll see how it works the other way: when you copy files in forScore to other apps on your device.

You can drag any of your scores out from the main menu, setlist menu, or the search panel into any PDF-compatible app to send a copy of the original file (without annotations) to that app. If you need to send an annotated PDF or a 4SC file, continue using the standard sharing functions you’re used to.

You can also drag tracks out of the audio file picker, recordings browser, media box, or the metadata panel. Copy CSV files and forScore backups out of the Indexes and Backups panels, respectively. In each of these cases you can drag the associated file or files out to any other app that’s compatible with that particular file type. A new copy is sent to the other app, so your forScore library remains unchanged.

We’ll be talking more about annotations and images in a future post, but we can’t resist pointing out one last thing. While annotating, select some of your drawn annotations with the Selection tool, then tap and hold the highlighted area and drag it away to create a snapshot of that zone. Then just drop the resulting image into any image-compatible app. That’s just part of the story, though, so be sure to check back next week when we explore the rest.

Drag and Drop: Importing

There are many ways that Drag and Drop helps you work within forScore, but on iPad the gestures don’t just stop there—they also allow you to drag items from one app into another, and today we’ll be looking at all of the ways that can help you with your musical workflow.

Lots of apps allow you to drag files out of them and into any other app that supports that particular file type. The best example is iOS 11’s new Files app, but it’s hardly the only one. Drag a compatible file from one of these apps and drop it into forScore to import it. Under the hood, this works similarly to iOS’ long-standing sharing functions, but with a simpler experience and one big improvement: you can drag multiple files into forScore at once (the old “open in” method only supports one file at a time).

So what can you drag in, and where can you drop it? PDF files, of course, are an obvious one—drag them onto the page to import them and open the last one–and you can do the same with 4SC or text files. You can also drag them into the main menu to import them without opening them, if you prefer. Drag items into the main setlist menu to import the items and create a new setlist with them, drag them onto a setlist to import them and add them to the end of that list, or drop them right into a setlist to import them and then add them to that setlist at that specific point.

It doesn’t stop there, though, because you can also import 4SS, 4SB, and CSV files by dragging them into the setlist menu, the backups panel, and the indexes list (respectively). You can even work with audio files by dragging them into the audio file picker, the recordings list, or right into the audio tab of the metadata panel to import them and associate them with the current score.

These gestures work with Split View and Slide Over, so you can move content between apps with just one easy gesture. Or, if you prefer, you can close apps and open others while still dragging content with one of your fingers and drop the file or files where you need to once it’s on screen. It’s an incredibly powerful way of working and blurs the lines between apps in a way that really puts you in charge of your content.

Drag and Drop: Setlists

Our series on Drag and Drop continues today with Setlists, which are perhaps the best example of how these new interactions can speed up your workflow.

As we discussed last week, you can drag one or more items out of most of forScore’s menus, the search panel, and even out of the main view’s central title bar display. Once you’ve done that, you can drop those items into the main Setlist menu to create a new setlist with them, or you can drop them onto an existing setlist to add them to the bottom of that list. If you tap to navigate into a particular setlist, you can drop your items at a specific point to add them between the other items already in your list. And since the Setlist menu acts as both a drag source and a drop target, you can even drag one or more items from one setlist and copy them to another setlist or create a brand new setlist with them.

Drag and Drop also really helps when it comes to organizing your setlists: when you’re viewing a setlist in Manual sort order, use these gestures to reorder items in the list. Just tap and hold any one item, drag upward or downward, and let go when it’s in the right spot. There’s no need to use Edit mode (though you still can if you prefer to), just use these gestures at any time. The same goes for rearranging setlists in the main Setlist menu; drag them up or down to reorder them, or drag them into and out of folders.

If you use Setlists, creating and reordering them can be something you do frequently. These gestures open up a slew of new ways to work, so it just takes a little bit of exploration to find the methods that feel most intuitive and helpful to you.