forScore’s audio file picker—available from within the Metadata panel’s Audio tab—lets you view and manage audio tracks you’ve imported into your library and allows you to link them to any of your scores or bookmarks, giving you automatic queueing and easier playback control. When you create a recording, however, things work a little differently.
Recordings are automatically linked to the current score or bookmark the moment they’re created. They’re only available to that same piece, and they’re deleted once you remove them from that piece. If you open the audio file picker while viewing that same score or bookmark you’ll see it listed at the top under “recordings,” but as soon as you navigate to any other piece it’ll disappear.
If you prefer to work with recordings just as you would with imported audio files, just swipe from right to left over the recording in the audio file picker and choose “unlink.” You’ll still be able to access the recording and control playback from the piece you created it with, but you’ll also be able to add it to other scores or bookmarks in your library and, if you remove it from any one piece, the file will remain in your library instead of being deleted.
Seal’s new album of jazz standards is out today, and PBS has just released a video of his performance of “Luck Be A Lady” at Vibrato Jazz Grill in Los Angeles. His big band includes the inimitable Alan Steinberger, complete with his iPad and forScore. The video includes a few snippets of him using our app, and it’s always a pleasure to see it in use (you can even catch a page turn just after the 5-minute mark—effortless compared to an earlier moment where one of his paper-based colleagues struggles).
When we started this series over two-and-a-half years ago (has it really been that long?), we picked one of our favorite features, Quick Peek. Built into most of forScore’s menus, it’s an easy way to preview a score before opening it by tapping and holding the item until the preview appears. Tap the thumbnail image to open the score or bookmark, or tap the + button in the bottom right-hand corner to open it in a new tab.
A few things were changed in iOS 11, though, and that tap and hold gesture is now used by iOS for Drag and Drop, so we had to come up with a new way of invoking this helpful feature. Now, instead of tapping and holding the item with one finger, do the same thing with two fingers instead.
Since that’s not the most obvious gesture (these days all the good ones are taken), we added a second way to preview your items. Just as you’ve always been able to swipe from right to left over a table cell to show the “delete” action, forScore 10.3 features a similar “peek” action on the other side that you’ll see when swiping from left to right. You can use a short swipe to show this item and then tap it to see the preview, or you can just swipe all the way across the cell to invoke Quick Peek with one quick motion.
Times change, conventions evolve, but have no fear—Quick Peek hasn’t gone anywhere. We use it all the time and, judging by how many people wrote to us to ask us about this change, so do you!
Two kinds of controls, links and buttons, provide a lot of power and flexibility in how you work with your scores. The Links feature, which allows you to easily handle repeats, is one of forScore’s oldest and most beloved features. Buttons, which were added later, look similar but can do all sorts of things like start and stop an audio track, send MIDI commands, or control the metronome.
If you’ve used either of these features before, you may have found that their control size isn’t exactly to your liking. Whether you find them a little too small or bigger than you’d prefer, with forScore 10.3 you can adjust their diameter by choosing from four options in the Accessibility section of forScore’s settings panel (in the “Link/Button size” submenu).
These controls are incredibly handy and powerful, and we don’t want a lack of usability to stand in the way of everything they can help you do. If you ever found them too hard to tap, tweak this setting and give them another shot.
In addition to this morning’s big wave of updates to all of our iPhone-compatible apps, today we’re also proud to announce the immediate availability of forScore 10.3.4. That version number may make it sound like just another minor update with bug fixes and design tweaks, and while it’s got plenty of those, it also includes a great new feature: MIDI file playback.
Just like with audio tracks, forScore now allows you to import, link, and play back MIDI files. Since these kinds of files don’t actually contain any audio, just a digital representation of notes, they can support fine-grained speed adjustments without any degradation in quality. Support for these files is also included with this morning’s forScore mini 3.3.4 update.
As always, forScore 10.3.4 is available today as a free update for all of our existing customers, so be sure to check it out!
