"Always Overwrite" Option During Import

[derekm]

When importing html files (songs or setlists), the option should exist to overwrite existing.

We use and love iRP to manage charts for our monthly themed jams, writing and updating 40-50 charts every month, and distributing updated setlists among dozens of musicians regularly. Four or five of us update independent charts, that we upload into Dropbox, and one of us maintains a setlist for each show and distributes that back out. During rehearsals, we often tweak the charts (notes, repeats, endings, sometimes corrections) and re-distribute. Musicians in the group mostly use iRP itself instead of PDFs as we often adjust keys for a rehearsal, or even for a show.

Our iRP libraries end up FULL of duplicate version of the same songs, which have to be manually cleaned up.

A simple "overwrite" option during import would make this much simpler. If the default option was a global preference that would also be fantastic - people who write charts would likely leave that off (e.g. compare what someone else did on a chart and verify it), while people who only receive the files/setlists would always want it to default on.

 

[pdxdjazz]

Thanks for sharing the effective way you are using iRp!
The most heart-wrenching reports we receive here are folks that accidentally/inadvertently loose content.
Imagine spending a day (or more) working with a singer tweaking charts for an up coming show and, well, ….you can imagine the rest of the story.
Failing to frequently make and store a backup, accidentally *deleting* instead of “removing” a playlist and making unanticipated “fat-finger” errors on small screen devices etc. all have caused (and probably will in future cause) some heartache.

I suspect that the introduction of *features* that automatically destruct charts may have a lengthy period of evaluation and thought.

In the meantime, I’d consider the following:
1. Any chart that will be used as a jam session chart should be marked with an alphabetical “code” appended to the end of the title. eg. All Of Me z - Gerald Marks . If the code were longer and unique, a quick library search would list all of the “jam session” charts in your library.
2. As charts are imported into each app, the app scans for a duplicate title and if a duplicate exists, the app automatically appends a number during import. If no duplicate is present, no number is added. When a user views the list of charts with that title in their library’s song list the one with the highest number is the most current one they have imported. Note: their number may be different someone else’s number who has imported more or fewer versions of that chart.
3. I can certainly see an issue for folks that wish to save previous playlists that may now contain song versions that have been superseded.
4. It would be quick and easy to delete from your library all older versions of a song (they’re the ones with lower numbers) but they would also disappear from all older playlists.

Sounds like your shared Dropbox should have a folder whose only job is to be keeper of the most current, total master song list.

Maybe it’s a job for A.I.

Others may have ideas as well.
)BOB

 

[derekm]

Thanks for the response!

If the previous version went into the trash, that would handle the "oops I shouldn't have overwritten" scenario. I've used that before when I accidentally deleted something. But also I've only messed that up when I've found 10 versions of the song in my library, and accidentally deleted the one I wanted to keep. Ironic?

1. While your suggestion for us to manually handle versioning might make it easier to answer which ones are the most recent, it still requires manual cleanup, which is particularly a pain for people who are not ever editing charts. The folks who are regularly editing can handle that already, but I'm bringing this up for the dozen or so folks only using iRP in "read-only" mode. They only need the latest thing I send them.
2. I understand how the renaming happens - the approach works for folks who aggressively manage their libraries like I do, but for folks who just want to show up to practice, download the latest setlist html file and get moving, they have dozens of setlists for each show and similarly for each song. They never need to edit.
3. I've been using iRP for about two years and like to keep old setlists around as a reference of what we do for that one show two years ago (we do a lot of recurring themes), but if I import a new version of the chart for a new show, I usually delete the older one and rename the imported one without the extra number(s). Then it's gone from the old setlist. Overwriting would prevent that - or a merge feature, but this isn't much of a pain point for me.
4. Cleaning up existing duplicates is not quick and easy. My iRP library kicked off 2 years ago with an export of another's library that had over 9000 songs in it, and 80% of those were duplicates with numbers attached to the end. I clean that up anytime I build a new setlist and search for older charts in the library, but if I wanted to clean up this entire library it would take me days.
5. Coordinating a central Dropbox library is an idea I've had, but it would not help with this problem. Anytime any musician loads up a setlist for a jam, when we've made any modifications to the chart (dynamics, different ending, instrumentation notes for who is doing a solo, etc) they get a new version. That's the problem I'm pointing out.

All they would need is an overwrite option to make management of this MUCH easier for recipients. Default to off, put older versions in the trash (with a similar version number appended for older version in the trash). Could do a Mac Finder / Windows Explorer thing and ask each time a decision needs to be made with an "overwrite all" and "duplicate all" or something.

Now a different approach, would be to allow for cloud sync (similar to what I enjoy across my iCloud devices) over Dropbox/Google Drive, maybe even at a setlist level, and that would just let us sync changes without having to manage over import/export and versioning. But I imagine this would be a lot more work. But the iCloud sync is the only saving grace here between me editing on my Macbook and having all of that sync to my iPad without me having to deal with export/import and a bunch of number things all the time.

 

[pdxdjazz]

Thanks for the discussion.
Ok, so you make a “new” version and “clean up the title” removing any auto-appended numbers for your newest playlist.
When that is imported by another user, (who has saved playlists that include that title) their app will add a number.

Your “read only” folks just need the latest (dated) playlist. Whatever else is also in their app shouldn’t be of concern.

I understand your frustration. My primary device is an iPad mini, my secondary is an android cellphone which I update before gigs (in case the magic-smoke should escape from my iPad…)

“Near-duplicate charts” has been an on-going issue for discussion.

How to delete song from playlist

How do I delete a song from a playlist without it going to the trash?

forums.irealpro.com

)BOB

 

[CyrilleB]

Overwriting songs could be a nice option but it would be complicated to implement it.
Let's say you have a song where the key has been set differently in several playlists. If you overwrite it, the key of the songs that was set in each playlist would be overwritten as well, which is not a good thing.