Hi, I’m Justin, and I make forScore (more on that in a moment). Thanks to ongoing controversy at Twitter, a decent number of forScore users have started migrating over to other services. I’ve sparingly maintained a forScore account on Twitter for some time, and I just started one on Mastodon. I plan to experiment a bit, but you can generally expect the same thing from either account: it mostly serves to get the word out about the biggest news and updates concerning forScore and its sibling apps and isn’t regularly monitored for responses or equipped to handle support requests. If you prefer, you can also use this site’s RSS feed to see all news posts.
So that’s the update, but let’s back up a bit—who is this fellow and what happened to the rest of the company? Due to a number of important but boring reasons, I started using the royal “we” to voice all forScore communications. It was a necessary decision back in 2010, and it’s a hard habit to break. But the truth is that I created forScore and have been its sole developer ever since. I also handle pretty much every aspect of running the business and making apps except for support, which I entrust to my partner Isaac.
Moving to a new social network gives me an opportunity to revisit how I approach talking about myself and about my work, so I’m trying to be more singular and authentic going forward. If you’re interested in learning more about me personally and don’t mind unvarnished opinions, feel free to follow me at mastodon.social/@ambulephabus (I don’t expect to be on Twitter for the foreseeable future). Just know that I won’t be ‘on the clock’ in that personal arena and will not be engaging in topics or questions that cross the line into business.
I just want to say, personally, thank you for your support over the years. Your passion has kept me going all this time and I sincerely appreciate it. I look forward to becoming a stronger part of this community very soon.
Apple’s major OS upgrade cycle wraps up next week with the release of iPadOS 16.1 and macOS 13, so we’re getting ready with a few updates of our own. forScore 13.1.5 brings important updates and minor improvements to iOS and iPadOS, and brings all of the great upgrades in 13.1 to the Mac so you can enjoy them across all of your devices.
We’ve also updated some of our smaller Mac apps to get them ready for macOS 13 Ventura: free updates to Cue, TuneWave, and Pitch, Please! are all available now so be sure to install them to keep everything running smoothly.
Just over a week ago now Apple released iOS 16 and we introduced forScore 13.1, the biggest update we’ve ever done. We’re so grateful for your patience and feedback while we work to address the bugs that slipped through. We always test our updates as much as we can but going from less than a hundred testers to over a hundred thousand users in an instant is always bound to uncover things we just didn’t see on our own.
There’s a tough balance to strike between fixing every bug as quickly as we can and releasing too many updates in a row, but sometimes we just have to push through. It has been an exhausting week (especially for an app built and maintained by a single developer) but we’re happy with the progress we’re making. Right now we’re aware of a performance issue affecting people with a very high number of files and we’ve added some diagnostics capabilities to 13.1.3 to help us identify and resolve it. So expect a 13.1.4 relatively soon, and then things should quiet down until iPadOS 16 comes out in a few weeks.
There’s one last thing we’d like to point out for those who aren’t aware: although automatic app updates are enabled by default, they’re optional. If you require a near-constant level of stability and even a few days of bugs can severely impact you in professional or educational terms you should turn this feature off and update when you’re ready. You’ve got some control over how this process works and you should use it if you need to.
Thanks once again to our incredible audience, your continuing support and enthusiasm are what drives forScore forward.
Today we’re happy to announce the release of forScore 13.1 for iOS and iPadOS—a huge update that’s been in the works for almost a year. Nearly all of it has been completely rewritten to ensure that it makes the most of today’s hardware and OS features and that it can take full advantage of everything Apple offers going forward.
This update is fully optimized for today’s release of iOS 16, and is ready to shine on iPadOS 16 when that’s released next month. It introduces big upgrades to forScore’s multi-window capabilities and it unlocks new capabilities on devices that support Stage Manager—the most dramatic change to multitasking in years. Many of these changes will also be included in forScore 13.1 for Mac, coming next month alongside the release of macOS 13.
Thanks as always to our beta testers, and to all of you for continuing to support forScore and allowing us to keep providing significant free updates like this.
Available now for iPad and iPhone
September 11, 2022
Uncategorized
Multi-window support is a natural part of using a Mac but still a relatively new addition to iPad. Windows give you the freedom to multitask with ease, letting you switch from one context to another without losing your work or having to remember what you were just viewing.
Note: multi-window support is only available on macOS and iPadOS. Specific instructions for opening or closing windows can depend on your operating system and version—please consult Apple’s documentation for complete details.
Primary Window
forScore’s main interface always appears first. It offers the complete forScore experience, all features described in this guide, and can be used on its own without any additional windows.
Secondary Windows
While forScore’s primary window gives you complete access to all of the app’s features, secondary windows offer a more modern, streamlined interface built using functionality that wasn’t available when forScore was first built. Secondary windows are designed to take full advantage of these features—things like Contextual Menus—and offer a unique experience designed around them. In most cases, secondary windows mimic the core forScore experience and conform to your preferred settings; they work as similarly to the primary window as possible while offering most of the app’s best functionality.
Secondary windows combine forScore’s many different windows and panels into a single hierarchy, with a sidebar, menu, and page view all in one. Swipe inward from the left side of the screen or press the sidebar button in the top left-hand corner of the screen to access these views.
Sidebar & Search:
The sidebar gives you a high-level view of your library and the integrated search function offers instant access to almost anything (just like the primary window’s global search function).
Menus:
Menus are presented to the right of the sidebar—their lists can be sorted and their contents can be edited in similar ways as the primary window using the icons in the navigation bar at the top of the menu or with swipe actions and contextual menus. Menus also feature a search bar that lets you filter the contents of the list below it.
Page View:
The page view supports similar gestures as the primary window (swipe or tap to turn pages and tap the center of the screen to show or hide the navigation bar and seek bar). Use the buttons in the navigation bar to edit or share the current score and to access the Display Options interface where you can adjust layout, page turning behavior, sepia mode, performance mode, face gestures, and more.
External Windows
Much like the older “tv output” setting originally offered for the earliest iPads that didn’t support screen mirroring, external windows show a copy of the current score in a presentation-friendly way so you can show a page to students, an audience, or to multiple performers. This type of window is created when toggling the “external display” option in the Display Options interface, shown at all times on macOS and also on iPads whenever an external display is available.
