i Gig Book

Hello Phil!

There are two features that would be a big boost to my productivity and I would think many others would enjoy too. But maybe there’s a way to already do them that I can’t find?

1) Ranking indexed books so that search places songs found in “better” books on top.

A related discussion happened years back:

viewtopic.php?t=2011

and I agree with what was said there. But my request is a bit different. The idea is this. A lot of different books have the same song. But there are some books that have almost invariably better material than others. I’d like those ranked higher. Eg, if I search ipanema, I get 14 hits. But I know that the version in Real Book 6th edition is always going to be nicer than, say, the one in The Book, in my opinion. So I always want that one on top. I would only take a hit from The Book if it did not appear in another book I have. So I want that hit lower.

Also, I always want the “gray” hits for appearances in indexes for books I don’t own to appear at the bottom. I want to know they’re out there. If I see that book enough, maybe I’ll decide to buy it, especially if that’s the only hit in my results. But since I don’t own it, I want them last in search results.

I agree with the others who want songs to group and sort alphabetically, since partial matches will return multiple completely different songs. This goal doesn’t conflict with what I’m requesting; instead it coordinates. The primary sort should be by song name since it’s most important to first make sure iGigBook has found the song that you are seeking. But the secondary sort could be by preferred volume, so hits in your favorite books can sort to the top within that song name.

Does this make sense? Thoughts?

2) Searching indexed and unindexed books at once.

I have songs in two places, as per the iGigBook design: in the indexed books, and under My Scores. For any given song, it’s not decisive which “side” I want to search on. Often I have copies of the same songs that are in real books from private sources, or even from my own notation efforts, in My Songs. Furthermore, I often have to make use of more than one copy of a song, since one may have better chords and the other may show the bass line, just as one example. So I always have to search in two places to find all the copies (or even just the right one) I want to see. So as per the other thread, what I want is a one stop shop to see all the matches at once.

You even have a “my scores” switch that supports something like this under set manager, though not quite the same. You just have to change “either or” to a union of the two sets.

What do you think?

Thanks,

Dave

Here's what will boost your productivity:

Remove the indexes where you don't have the PDF files.

If you have a PDF you normally use, meaning it has the best versions you want, search from the song list of that particular index. When you do that you get the results from your preferred book but if the song isn't in that book you get search results from other books.

The Song Search and the My Scores Search are on the same level a simple tap takes you from one to the other. There's no real world time advantage from what I can see having used the app for 10 years in a wide variety of gigging situations.

Thanks for your reply.

Phil Smith wrote: ↑Wed Sep 02, 2020 7:44 pm Here's what will boost your productivity:

Remove the indexes where you don't have the PDF files.

But then, for songs I don’t have, I don’t know what books have them. Other friends often have those books. I can add back the indexes and search but that’s a lot more work. Not a boost in productivity.

If you have a PDF you normally use, meaning it has the best versions you want, search from song list of that particular index. When you do that you get the results from your preferred book but if the song isn't in that book you get search results from other books.

Okay thanks. That’s a step in the right direction. It effectively lets you rank a single book as best. But then effectively treats my other ~15 books all equally. And since there’s no one volume that has even 1/4 or the songs out there, it’s usefulness is therefore significantly limited.

The Song Search and the My Scores Search are on the same level a simple tap takes you from one to the other. There's no real world time advantage from what I can see having used the for 10 years in a wide variety of gigging situations.

Again, it carves my world of songs into two partitions, which affects every single search I perform, both in prep and live. This is the single greatest inefficiency that I experience in what is otherwise a very useful app. And like I said, you already effectively implemented almost exactly the right feature in Set Manager.

One-stop search. It was pioneered by google, and every major OS now supports it. I know you have paid upgrades for other features. I would pay for this

That’s my two cents.

Thanks again!