Metronome

The Pitch and Tuner utilities can also be found in this panel.

Modes

With forScore’s metronome, you can use several different methods to keep time. In Audible mode, you’ll hear a tick at regular intervals, based on the beats per minute (BPM) that you set. With the Visible metronome, a black border pulses around the edges of your score, allowing you to keep time visually while still being able to see the entire page. If you like, you can use the Both option to both see and hear the metronome simultaneously.

BPM and Time Signature

For each score in your library, forScore saves a unique BPM value and time signature that’s automatically used every time you return. Just tap either value to change it with the number keypad. You can also adjust the current score’s BPM by rotating the wheel, using the + and – buttons, or by tapping twice in the center of the screen.

Channels

If you’re using headphones or a line out, an icon at the top of the panel controls which channel(s) the audio plays through. Tap to toggle between left, right, and both channels.

Count In

Use the “Count In” feature to automatically turn off the metronome after a certain number of measures.

Autoturn

For scores with sequential pages, forScore’s metronome can also turn the pages for you automatically. To use autoturn, follow these three steps:

• For each page of your score, enter in the number of beats on that page or type in the number of measures and the app will do the math for you. If you’re on the first page of your score, consider adding a few extra beats as a lead-in.

• Tap the autoturn button to turn it on (if it isn’t already)
• Start the metronome by selecting Audible, Visible, or Both

Once the metronome counts up to the number you’ve specified, the page will turn automatically.

If you’re viewing your score in landscape mode, forScore will also scroll down when it reaches half of that number. (If you have 64 beats on a page, it’ll scroll to the bottom of the page at 32 beats.)

Turn the metronome off at any point to reset the autoturn count.

Menus

Drag the menu downward to show the search bar and narrow down the list based on your query. Tap the filter icon on the right-hand side of the search bar to only show items in the current list that match one or more rules that you define.

When you’re not viewing a page of music, the most common type of view you’ll be working in with forScore is a menu, or a list of items. You’ll learn about specific menus later in this guide, but there are a few important concepts that apply equally to most of the menus found in the app’s main window:

Layout

Menus usually feature a navigation bar along the top. This bar includes a title as well as edit, add, and back buttons (when appropriate). On iPhones or in other cases where space is limited, some of these buttons may appear in a toolbar along the bottom of the menu instead.

Below the navigation bar, you’ll see a series of buttons that alter the content or sort order of the list below it. While you’re editing a list, this bar may also show available actions, and it may scroll left and right if needed to display all of the options.

Most menus also include a search bar hidden between the navigation bar and the sort bar—drag the list downward to access it. When you’re done searching, or when you scroll down, the search bar slides back under the control bar and hides out of sight until you need it again.

Menus may also include an index down the right-hand side which allows you to move quickly through longer lists. Tap or drag your finger up and down over it to jump to a particular spot or first letter (if the list is sorted alphabetically).

Working With Lists

To open an item, just tap on it. If you’re viewing a list of scores, you can swipe from left to right over an item and tap the glasses icon to preview it. Tap the thumbnail image of the page to open it, tap the + button in the lower right-hand corner to open it in a new tab, or tap outside of it to close the preview. To delete or share an item, swipe your finger across it from right to left and tap one of the actions that appear.

You may also see a button or symbol off to the right-hand side of each item. A light gray arrow or chevron symbol indicates that selecting the row will display an additional list of items, such as selecting a composer to see all of their scores. A circular colored button lets you edit an item, while tapping anywhere else in that row opens the item instead.

One of the most important items in a menu is the edit button in the navigation bar or toolbar. While in edit mode, you can tap to check or uncheck multiple items in the list and then use the options along the top of the list to work with those files in a number of different ways. These options can vary, but usually include the ability to select or de-select all items and delete or share them.

Tip: contextual menus combine most of these functions into one easy interaction. Just tap and hold an item to see its preview, tap it to open it, tap one of the available actions instead, or drag it away to use Drag and Drop gestures. Learn more in the Contextual Menus section of this guide.

Sidebar

On the Mac, forScore uses a sidebar to present many of its menus. It uses one of two styles: overlay or tile (tap the Sidebar button in the toolbar along the bottom of the menu to switch between these modes). Overlay dims the page and only allows you to access the menu—tap the dimmed area to dismiss it. In tiled mode, you can work with menus and the main view at the same time. Note that when the window is too small to use tiled mode, it switches back into overlay mode automatically. This sidebar layout is also optionally available via Display Options on compatible iPad models (those that support Stage Manager).

Basics

Tap the sides (blue areas) to turn the page, tap the center (yellow area) to show and hide the controls, and tap and hold anywhere on the page to annotate

When space permits, you may see two additional items in the title bar; tap and hold either of these icons to change their function or to disable them if you prefer

Welcome to forScore! Here are a few quick things you should know before you get started.

Turning Pages

Turn the page with two basic kinds of gestures: swipes and taps. Swipe left or right across the screen like flipping through pages in a book, or simply tap either side of the screen once. When using a trackpad or mouse, click the sides of the page or scroll to turn pages.

Landscape

To get a better view of your score, turn your device sideways: the page will fill up the screen’s width and extend downward if necessary. Swipe or tap to scroll from top to bottom and between pages, or drag the page up and down with your finger.

Controls

To help you get the best view of your music, forScore’s controls are hidden by default. A quick, single tap or click in the middle of the page reveals these controls:

This bar along the top of the screen gives you access to six important items (in blue): scores, bookmarks, and setlists on the left, and search, audio utilities, and the tools menu on the right. These items are discussed in greater detail throughout this guide.

The darker area in the middle of the toolbar displays the current item’s title, composer, and gives you quick access to commonly used tools and functions. The gear icon on the left shows the Display Options overlay (learn more below), and the ellipsis icon on the right presents a menu that includes additional options related to the piece of music you’re currently viewing.

Seek Bar

Along the bottom of the page, a slider control allows you to quickly preview and jump to any page in the current score. If you’ve added bookmarks to your score, the name of the bookmark hovers above the white dot as you scroll or drag it across the screen.

Zoom

Place two fingers on the screen (or trackpad) and move them farther apart to zoom in, or closer together to zoom out. Double-tap while zoomed in to return to the normal size, and double-tap while zoomed out to show additional display options.

Display Options

Double tap the center of the page or tap the gear icon in the title bar to show the Display Options overlay which gives you quick access to window-specific options including presentation, layout, and page turning functions or behaviors.

Display modes let you control how your music is presented: standard mode uses a common 3:4 aspect ratio to ensure the page looks the same on every device, best fit mode gives you a better view but may clip some annotations, and zoomed mode makes the page as big as possible but may clip the left and right edges of your music. When you’re viewing a single page in landscape orientation, choose between the default scrolling behavior and a best fit mode that shrinks the page to fit on the screen.

This overlay also gives you quick access to half page turns (in portrait orientation), two-up mode (in landscape orientation), visual effects like Sepia, and page turning modes like performance mode, Reflow, Face Gestures, and more. If an external display is connected, this overlay also shows additional options related to video output.

Search

The “Search” section of forScore’s Settings panel allows you to adjust the number of recent items shown, which kinds of results are shown (and in which order), and lets you enable or disable PDF text searching when creating bookmarks.

When you’re looking for something specific, the Search panel is the fastest way to find it. Unlike the search bar in many of forScore’s menus, which only allows you to narrow down the list of items displayed within that menu, the Search panel draws from many different sources.

Type in a phrase and you’ll see any scores, bookmarks, or setlists whose title contains that text, as well as any category names (composers, genres, tags, or labels), and actions (like “annotate,” “share,” or “settings”).

Tap a score or bookmark to open it, select a setlist to view it in the Setlist menu, and tap any metadata category to open it in the Score menu. If you choose the wrong thing, just reopen the search panel—the text you enter in is preserved if you return within a short amount of time.

Recent Items

When you open Search (before you’ve entered any text into the search bar) you’ll see the scores and bookmarks you’ve viewed most recently. By default, forScore shows the last five items you opened, but this can be customized in the Search section of forScore’s settings panel. Below that, you’ll see all of the scores and bookmarks in the current library. Once you start typing, recent items disappear and you’ll see only relevant search results instead.

Text Annotations and Notes

Not only can you find scores and bookmarks by their title or metadata, but you can also find individual pages whose text annotations or page notes contain the text you’ve entered in. Each result will show the score or bookmark’s name, the page number your text was found on, and a sample of the text with your highlighted result in context (so you can be sure you’ve got the right spot).

PDF Document Text

If the PDF document that you’re currently viewing is text-based instead of image-based, forScore can look for instances of your search query within the contents of the file itself. Like text annotations and page notes, results are shown with the title of the score, the page number, and your search text with surrounding text to provide some context.

Settings

The Search submenu in forScore’s settings panel allows you to customize the search experience to better suit your needs. Specify how many (if any) recent items you want to see when you first open the search panel, enable or disable certain kinds of results and reorder them so that some of them appear higher in the list than others. You can also use this panel to enable or disable automatic PDF text searching in the Bookmarks menu.

Scores

By default, forScore sorts Composers alphabetically by last name. If you prefer, you can change this in the app’s settings panel to sort by first name instead.

The score menu organizes your files by Composers, Genres, Tags, and Labels. These lists are generated dynamically based on each score’s metadata, so they only show values currently in use by one or more items in a library.

Tap any of these entries to see all of the scores that fall within that category. A single score may be visible in several different lists, so long as it matches the corresponding category or setlist. (For example, a score with the composer “Bach” and the genre “Baroque” will be listed under both categories.) Most submenus can be sorted by date added, rating, difficulty, reference, key, time, or alphabetically by title.

Tip: The “All Scores” item lists everything—if you haven’t set up any categories or prefer not to use them, just tap on it. The menu reopens to the last submenu you were viewing, so unless you tap the back button you’ll automatically return to this list each time.

Libraries

Tap the “Library” button in the top left-hand corner of the root menu to create and work with entirely separate collections of music (i.e. for different bands). When you’re working with a different library, this button’s title changes to reflect your current selection.

Find & Filter

Drag or scroll downward to reveal a search bar that lets you quickly find a particular category or item in the list below it. In submenus, the filter icon on the left-hand side of the search bar lets you narrow down your results even further by cross-referencing categories using advanced rules (i.e. only show items that include or exclude specific categories or setlists).

Tip: forScore scans for new files periodically. If you’ve just added something that’s not showing up, drag or scroll down even farther until you see the refresh symbol, then let go to update the listing.

Metadata

The circled info button off to the right-hand side of each score opens the metadata editor, which you can read more about in the Metadata section of this guide.

Managing Files

Swipe your finger across a score or bookmark in the menu from right to left to delete or share it, or from left to right to preview it. You can also tap the “Edit” button to select one or more items in the list and work with them in different ways, depending on the context. Use the “Import” button to add files from other apps or using your favorite cloud storage service.

Merging Files

If you have pages of a score in individual PDFs or several different sections that you’d like to combine and play through continuously, tap the “Edit” button and select two or more files in the order that they should be combined. Then, use the “Merge” option to provide a title to create a new PDF file in your library.

Cloning

Cloning allows you to duplicate a score without using up any more of your device’s free storage. As long as the two copies are identical, they’ll only take up the space of one. Clones work just like any other file on your device, so you can share them or annotate each one uniquely and add it to its own setlist. If you ever want to permanently edit one of the copies (using forScore’s Rearrange tool, for instance) iOS separates the underlying data automatically so there’s nothing else you need to do.