Mail of the month - February - Book import, Time signature, Song editor

Posted by . on Friday, February 02, 2018
I just imported one of my large PDF files (Django Fakebook) and now I have 242 songs called "fakebook_django (###)".  How do I get all 242 named?

I have an index file with the names and page numbers.  With unrealbook (my old app), I would load that index file in and it would use that to index/name all the songs. What can I do about that here in Fakebook Pro?

Without the ability to mass edit the names, its not helpful for large PDFs.

Please have a look at http://skrivarna.com/p/fakebook.html (this is the same landing page that you get to through the app when selecting Add new songs - Download from Internet).
There you'll find some useful info about the PDFB scripts that Fakebook uses to download and index PDF song collections. The Django book is one of the PDFs that has an index there.

I purchased Fakebook Pro to use on an old Samsung Galaxy 10.1 tablet, hoping to find a use for this old device.  To my surprise, Fakebook Pro is working well on this device.  But I have one challenge: I gig with a few separate ensembles.  Most of the music we play from is multi-page, so I've settled on loading individual PDF songs as play lists.  This works great because each individual song is listed in the playlists, and I can quickly switch songs.  I need to maintain separate databases for the different ensembles, and I am having difficulty maintaining these separate databases on this ancient tablet.  Is there a way to maintain these databases on my computer then transfer them to my tablet for use?

I haven't heard of anyone wanting completely separate databases for different gigs before, personally I just create one "band playlist" for each group and then create setlists based on these.
However, if you want to do this, you can always export the database using the backup function, preferably to some cloud storage. Rename the exported file to separate the different ensembles. Import, again using the backup-restore function.

When I import a pdf that contains four pages of a single song, each page is created as a separate song in the database and a playlist is created that groups the pages.  Is there any way to create a multi-page song or, alternatively, a way to add the song playlist to another playlist?

The next major update (3.0, to be released May 1st) will "collapse" multi-page page songs so that they are easier to handle.

Does the time signature impact functionality?

No, not at this point. But it is stored in the database if it is included in the imported file format and might be useful in the future.

I find the cursor position is not always correct (it is blinking on the left, but characters are added on the right) and sometimes I have to hit backspace 5 or 6 times before it actually does something. I can get through it, but it is painful.

I know, this is kind of a sore point... It is on the to-do list as well. The cursor problem is actually a very strange (but known) bug in the Android framework. It always occur on the creation/first edit and when adding lines. Try to add a few empty lines, close the editor, re-open it and it should be fine. Trying to figure out a workaround for an upcoming release.

I just installed Fakebook Pro on a new Chromebook Plus. It seems to work well except that when I try to "add new songs" by "download from the internet," it opens http://www.skrivarna.com/p/fakebook.html and doesn't show a path to the sites I need. I would like to be able to download from Google Drive but I can't seem to get there. Thank you for any help you can provide.

To get your files stored on cloud drives, check under "Add new songs - Import files" instead. You can also browse to any site from the Fakebook landing page you noted.

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