As we discussed a few weeks ago, iOS 11 includes some changes that allow multiple apps to access and edit the same documents without duplicating them first. With forScore 10.4 and forScore mini 3.4 we added support for this functionality, and understanding how it all fits together can take a little bit of practice. Whether you’re bouncing between apps or taking advantage of the iPad’s multitasking modes, keeping track of your files takes more work.
Fortunately, there’s another way: iOS allows apps to provide some of their functionality through something called an ‘action extension.’ An action extension might be included with a translation app, for instance—instead of requiring you to copy and paste text between apps, the extension can show you a translated version of a webpage right from within the web browser you’re already using. Action extensions are contextual, so when you share content using an app, the extensions available to you will depend on the type of content you’re working with. In forScore, you can share PDF files, so PDF-focused action extensions might appear in the standard iOS sharing interface.
We include three of these action extensions with one of our other apps, Badger, and they allow you to quickly view the embedded metadata, table of contents, or annotations within a PDF file. Some action extensions offer editing capabilities, so when an extension is dismissed forScore checks to see if it has provided a new version of your document—if it has, you’ll be asked if you want to overwrite the original file with the new copy or not. Badger’s extensions work this way, and other extensions can easily be updated to offer the same kind of functionality.
When serious editing is required, opening your documents in other apps is still the best way, but when you just want to check to see what information already exists or make quick edits, action extensions can offer a much more streamlined experience. As always, you’re free to use whichever one works for your situation.
From globalization and industry to speakers that can turn on your lights, automation is a big word with a lot of different applications and meanings. In short, it describes how people take one or more unchanging tasks and create a system that does it for us, either repeatedly or on command.
For instance, often times you’ll want to get to a specific page of a specific score in your forScore library. First, you’ll need to open the file—either by browsing for it through forScore’s menus, or by searching for it—and then tap forward or use the page selector at the bottom of the screen to navigate to the correct page. With forScore 10.4, you can now create shortcuts that do both tasks for you at once, and they use a familiar mechanism: URLs.
Any time you share a link with a friend, open a bookmark in your web browser, or click on a tracking number in an email, you’re using a URL. While URLs most often reference content on the internet, they also have other uses. Instead of the usual “http” or “https” prefix, a link might start with “mailto” and open a new email draft addressed to the person indicated in the URL. These prefixes are called Schemes and help your device understand how to handle different types of URLs.
With our latest big updates, forScore now declares its own custom scheme (“forscore”) and can handle these specially-formatted links, allowing you to navigate to specific content or a location in the Services panel with one easy tap. This support is provided across the entire system, so any app that displays tappable links, including Apple’s own Safari, Notes, and Mail apps, can send the URL on to forScore so it can respond no matter where it comes from.
You can ask for a specific score, bookmark, page, or setlist, and you can combine these parameters to achieve different results. For instance, tapping forscore://open?setlist=Summer finds the setlist called “Summer” if it exists in your forScore library, and opens to the first item in the list (using the setlist’s current sort order). If you know the Summer setlist includes a piece called “June”, you can open the setlist to that specific piece using forscore://open?setlist=Summer&score=June and forScore will do just that.
Those are just a few examples, but there’s a lot more you can do with forScore 10.4 and automation. For a full list of parameters and formatting requirements, be sure to check out this page.
As we discussed a few years back, PDF files often contain embedded metadata that helps you get more information about them beyond just what’s visible on their pages. These metadata fields give you some context regarding the file, including things like who created it, what it’s about, and whether or not it’s password-protected. Unlike forScore’s metadata fields, which are far more detailed and specific to music, PDF metadata is more generic and written into the file itself so no matter which device or operating system you use to view it, that information is always there.
Since version 1.6, forScore has had the ability to read and adopt some of this information for use within its own fields. Title, Author, and Subject can be interpreted as a score’s title, composer(s), and genre(s). To convey extra information, we used specially-formatted keywords (such as “forScore-rating:5” or “forScore-difficulty:3”).
Over time, we added new metadata fields to forScore like duration and key, but there was no way for forScore to store or read these values from PDF files. With forScore 10.4 we knew we wanted to add support for these types of data, but we also wanted to take the opportunity to rethink how we store them and what they’re called—to formalize them and make them more universal. A keyword called “forScore-duration:92” might work fine for us, but it doesn’t exactly help you when you’re using other apps.
With forScore 10.4, these special keywords have been updated and expanded to reflect many of the common pieces of information musicians need to know about their scores. We think this new approach could become a de facto standard, so we put together a page that explains the rules and usage of PDF metadata in the context of sheet music. You can learn more about it here, and if you use another app (like a musical composition app) that creates PDF files and you think they could benefit from this information, pass it along!
The existence of this column should be proof enough that forScore is a rich app, full of features that span just part of the impressive diversity of musicians, instruments, and styles out there. While many features are essential for many people, virtually no one is completely familiar with them all.
That’s why we included some additional inline descriptions of certain tools with forScore 10.4 and forScore mini 3.4. Whether you’re encountering a feature for the first time or you’ve just forgotten how to use it, this text gives you a hint and a little bit of direction to get started.
In many cases, these descriptions are immediately visible on screen (as with the Cue connection prompt and the Devices panel). Other times, a standard system info button—a circle with a lowercase “i” within it—can be found in the bottom right-hand corner of a panel (as with Darkroom, Links, and Buttons). Tap these buttons to learn more about that tool if needed.
It can be hard to toe the line between displaying as much helpful information as possible and filling an interface with distracting clutter. Balancing the needs of newcomers and experienced professionals all at the same time is something we’ve done for eight years so far, perhaps to varying success, but we think these hints fit right in and are appropriate for each situation.
One of forScore’s most powerful features is the Rearrange panel that allows musicians to reorder, duplicate, insert, rotate, and remove pages of their PDFs to fix structural issues or create a new layout to better handle repeats. In previous versions of forScore Bookmarks and Links had to be removed when saving a rearranged file, but with version 10.4 that’s no longer necessary.
Any links whose source and target pages haven’t been removed are now preserved and adjusted to account for your new layout. If a link’s target page has been duplicated, the first copy is used. Bookmarks are also preserved when rearranging, whenever possible: as long as the start and end pages still exist in your new layout, and as long as they haven’t been inverted (a bookmark can’t start on page 5 and end on page 3), they’re now updated to account for your changes.
Whether you’re doing major reconstruction or inserting a missing page, you no longer have to sacrifice the work you’ve done to create links and bookmarks.