Filters

There have always been two layers to forScore’s menu system: categories and attributes. You assign metadata to your scores like composers, genres, tags, or labels, and those values give you the ability to broadly browse your library. You can tap on any one of these to see the related scores, and sort them by fine-grained attributes like title, date added, rating, difficulty, key, duration.

For most of its history, forScore has used this system to make browsing simple—pick a category, sort its contents, and find your score. With version 10.1, though, that’s just the beginning. We introduced Filters, a way of combining categories with advanced rules to get far more specific about what you want to see. You can use them in most score menus by dragging the list down until you see the search bar at the top. Tap the circled Filters icon on the left-hand side to get started.

The Filters interface features two sections: the top section shows any active filters and lets you create new ones, and the lower section shows your ten most recent filters for quick and easy reuse. Tap the + button to create a new filter, and then tap to select one or more categories. At the bottom of the panel, you’ll see the current rule matching option (“equals” or “not” if you’ve selected one category, and “any” or “all” if you’ve selected multiple categories). When you’re done, tap the “x” button in the top right-hand corner and continue adding as many filters as you like. Finally, tap “Done” to return to the score menu and you’ll see that your list has been refined to show only the results that match your filters.

With this new feature, you can cross-reference categories and hone in on exactly what you’re looking for. Choose a composer to see all of their works, for instance, then add a filter to narrow the list down to just the piano songs. It’s a powerful and flexible new tool that’s bound to save you time when you find yourself needing it.