[banjogit]

Hello to everyone,

we use the Android-version of Mobilesheets in our band. We have organized our songs into setlists and synchronize all our devices using the "Connect Tablets" function. This means that one of us declares himself as the master, and all other clients connect to him via WiFi. Everything works perfectly so far, except for one detail that I don't understand:

The master enters a setlist and selects a song. This song now also appears on the other client's screen. If the master browses further to the next song, the client's screen also browse further and shows the corresponding song.

Now the problem:
If one of the clients accidentally leaves a song and thus switches back to the library, he's out of sync. He won't see any further song-browsing of the master. In this case the master has to leave the song / setlist by himself and has to go back to it. Now the client will be back in sync and see the desired song.

What are we doing wrong?

Thanks for any help
-banjogit-

[Zubersoft]

You aren't doing anything wrong - if one of the clients returns to the library screen, the user of that device should swipe right-to-left or tap the right-arrow icon in the floating toolbar at the bottom right corner to go back to viewing the score. 

Mike

[banjogit]

That's it !!!  
Thank you so much, Mike. 
Great support and great app anyway ;-)

[banjogit]

Me again - 

But this won't work anymore when the client opens another song by himself. In this case your methods lead him back to his song, and not to the master's song. 
Got any help for this?

[Zubersoft]

Why is the client opening another song by themselves? I'm a little confused about the sequence of events here where that is going to happen. If they do that, they would need to manually go and load whatever the leader device loaded and get back on the same page as the other devices. If they force themselves to get out of sync with the leader, then I'm not sure what you are suggesting should happen.

Mike

[banjogit]

Well, if the client exits a song and calls up another by himself the connection to the master is still there, isn't it? I would expect that with the master swiping  to the next song, this song would appear on the client's screen, regardless of what the client did before (as long as he did not disconnect from the master).
I admit that it is unlikely that this will happen, but it could occur.

[Zubersoft]

If a client loads another song, then he no longer has the same setlist loaded as the master tablet. If the master tablet is just turning through pages in the setlist, that's not going to cause the client device to reload the entire setlist (as that's not how it's designed to work). I still think a user would have to go out of their way to load another song in that scenario, so I'm not sure it's worth trying to address theoreticals unless it's a problem that is frequently occurring. That user could enable performance mode making it very hard for them to leave the current setlist on accident, so that would be my advice.

Mike

[banjogit]

Had a gig today with a 4-piece band. The lead singer was our mobilesheets master. Nobody left the current song nor switched to another. So everything's fine with this guys ;-)

[Zubersoft]

Glad to hear that!

Mike

[BogdanV]

On stage, everyone is stressed out to a certain degree and people do stupid stuff. That's why the client tablets should be 100% under master control as long as they're connected to the master. When the master switches to the next song in the setlist, all client tablets should switch to the same view, regardless of where in the application they are and what they have loaded.

[Zubersoft]

There are times when the software should certainly take precautions to stop people from creating problems for themselves (even if its the users' fault). However, this is one time where I think there needs to be a certain level of expectation from users. Not having them load random songs or setlists from their library when they are performing is a reasonable expectation in my opinion. I can't think of a scenario where it would make sense for them to be doing that in the middle of a performance. They shouldn't even be touching their tablet in the middle of a performance if the leader tablet is in control. "People doing stupid stuff" is not a reason for me to try to add this code when it could cause problems for other users in scenarios where they do want to be able to do that. If people disagree, I'm happy to hear arguments for/against making changes to force followers to always be viewing what the master is doing and prevent them from even going back to the library screen or loading songs/setlists outside what the master is loading. It would basically lock down parts of the app then.

Mike

[banjogit]

On stage, everyone is stressed out to a certain degree and people do stupid stuff. That's why the client tablets should be 100% under master control as long as they're connected to the master. When the master switches to the next song in the setlist, all client tablets should switch to the same view, regardless of where in the application they are and what they have loaded.

I totally agree!
There should be a way to put the app into such a state. Just compare it to the autopilot function in a cockpit.
The problem mentioned represents a safety risk on stage that must be prevented - if desired.

[banjogit]

I'm just noticing that in case the client calls up a different setlist instead of the original one, it also gets swiped.
For example: The master calls up setlist A and swipes through. The client leaves this setlist (for whatever reason—stress on stage, etc.) and accidentally calls up setlist B. In this case, swiping works again, but both see completely different songs (the master sees the songs from setlist A, the client sees the songs from setlist B). That shouldn't happen either!

[banjogit]

Please delete!

[otnt]

On stage, everyone is stressed out to a certain degree and people do stupid stuff. That's why the client tablets should be 100% under master control as long as they're connected to the master. When the master switches to the next song in the setlist, all client tablets should switch to the same view, regardless of where in the application they are and what they have loaded.

I'm one of the "leaders" and I want my followers have their freedom to look at other pages/pieces or to browse the library so they can choose what they would like to play at the gigs. 
If the follower touch their screen it can prevent master's command to load up the piece/song. 
So I always make sure to wait until they are not touching the screens. 

Your proposal would need perhaps a dictator mode instead of a leader mode.
I doubt I would ever use it.