Organizing your library
A library stays useful as long as you can find things in it. Folders, sorting, and search are what keep it that way.
Songs, setlists, and dividers
Your library holds three kinds of entry.
- Songs are your songsheets, with lyrics and chords.
- Setlists are ordered lists of songs for a rehearsal or a gig.
- Dividers are the entries that are not songs, like a welcome or a break.
Songs and dividers go in folders, setlists do not. Setlists and Dividers have guides of their own, this one is about the library as a whole.
Folders
Folders keep the library tidy. A folder holds songs and dividers, and it is one level deep, so a folder never holds another folder. Typical uses are one folder per band, per project, or per season.
Folders are optional. A song does not have to live in one, and songs that do not are grouped under No folder.
The dropdown above the song list filters the library. All songs shows everything, a folder shows only what is in it, and No folder shows the songs that belong to none. Your choice is remembered between sessions, and searching never moves it.
You create a folder wherever you pick one. The folder picker on the Add song, Edit song and import screens has a Create new folder entry, so a new folder is one step rather than a detour into the library. To rename one, open the folder filter and use the edit icon next to its name.
Folder names have to be unique. If a name is taken, the app says so before it saves.
Deleting a folder deletes everything in it. Every song and every divider inside the folder is permanently deleted along with it, and they disappear from every setlist that used them. To keep a song, move it to another folder or to No folder first. The confirmation dialog spells this out, and there is no undo.
How the library is sorted
The library is sorted alphabetically by title, and there is no way to reorder it by hand. That is deliberate. A library is for finding a song, so it stays predictable, and the running order of a set belongs to a setlist instead.
Moving a song to another folder
Open the song, choose Edit, and pick a different folder. The same works for a divider. The song keeps everything else, including its place in any setlist it is part of.
Dragging a song onto a folder does not work. Drag and drop only exists between the library and a setlist.
Duplicating a song
Duplicating gives you a fully independent second copy, which is how you keep one song for two bands or projects. See Duplicating a song in the Adding songs guide.
Deleting a song
Deleting a song is permanent, and it removes the song from every setlist that used it. Those setlists keep all their other entries and renumber themselves.
Deleting a divider works the same way. Deleting a setlist is different: every song in it stays in your library. See Setlists.
Search
The search field above the song list filters the whole library as you type, and it looks a lot further than the title. It finds songs by title, artist, and lyrics, and by the other details stored in them such as subtitle, composer, album, or comments. Dividers are found by their title and their text. Every result shows you where it matched, and typos in a title or an artist are forgiven.
Key, original key, tempo, and time signature are not searchable. Read a song's key from the badge in the song header instead.
Search always covers the whole library, not just the folder you are filtered to. Results from elsewhere appear under In other folders, each naming its own folder, and your folder filter stays where you put it.
Searching from the keyboard
The search field is the fastest way to build a set, and you never have to leave it.
| Keys | Action |
|---|---|
| Down arrow, Up arrow | Move the highlight through the results |
| Enter | Open the highlighted result |
| Shift and Enter | Add the highlighted result to the current setlist without opening it |
| Escape | Clear the field |
Cmd or Ctrl with Enter does the same as Shift and Enter. After either one the cursor is back in the search field with your query selected, so you type the next title straight away and the set builds itself without the mouse.
Next steps
- Setlists covers building and running an order of service.
- Dividers explains the non-song moments of a set.
- Adding songs covers every way to get a song in.