Documents

The documents list is displayed when tapping the hamburger menu button in the top left corner of the ScaleMaster window. Every document is listed with title, bpm and scale indicators as well as an icon of the document's instrument. A small orange dot may appear left of the document's title to indicate that it has an embedded recording.

ScaleMaster offers several methods to save, send and retrieve the exercises you create. These are the common file options many iOS apps offer with the exception of iTunes File Sharing. We called it iTunes for short in the sharing window, because that is where all your iOS app files are administered.

 

Editing

The Edit button in the document list's top left corner next to the word Exercises toggles the general Edit mode. You can tell by the red minus signs appearing next to each title that you are in edit mode. It allows you to delete documents from the list as well as editing their titles. If the keyboard doesn't show automatically when entering Edit mode, tap a document title to show it as well as the text cursor. Now you are ready to type in your composition's new title. To conclude editing tap the Edit button - its title changed to "Done" - again or tap the return key on the keyboard.

 

Attachments

ScaleMaster supports 2 methods for file embedding - Message and Mail. To embed a file simply call up the sharing window (as seen above) in any document you wish to share and then tap the corresponding button. With either method a window will pop up with the song already embedded as file in the message text. These attachments are extremely small in size, so there is no overhead in sending them. On receipt tapping the file icon will automatically import that song into ScaleMaster. The app does not interrupt your work-flow in these instances by opening the new song right away. It is just added to the list of documents.

 

Air Drop

AirDrop is supported only on recent iPads (iPad 4th generation and higher) and Macs. It is however an extremely handy way of sharing files especially with friends. The advantage of AirDrop is that there is no need to use messaging apps to share files.

 

iTunes File Sharing

File Sharing has been around for a while and still is the favorite method of backing up and administered files for many. What it refers to specifically is sending files to your Mac's iTunes app as well as retrieving them from there. You can add a song to the iTunes app from ScaleMaster by tapping the iTunes button (see the image above) in any document. It is then immediately added and can be viewed in iTunes. You can drag the song onto the desktop and save it anywhere. It is also possible to add songs you may have received in an email or otherwise to iTunes directly. That song will then become available on your iPad and can be imported as described in the next section.

 

Importing from iTunes File Sharing

ScaleMaster always keeps track of what files might be available in your iTunes app. If it doesn't see any documents there then tapping the plus sign (+) in the right top corner of your document window will add a new song and that's that. If ScaleMaster however detects songs in your iTunes app it displays a secondary window as shown above. Here you have the option of either just adding a new composition (top) or copy an existing song from your iTunes app.

Tapping "Copy from iTunes" will then extend the first window into a list of all documents found in your iTunes app. You can now select either of these titles and it will be added to the list. ScaleMaster will not automatically open the new song, since you only imported it.

 

Duplicate Titles

When dealing with documents there is of course he possibility of duplicate file names. Typically apps will offer an overwrite dialog in these instances allowing a choice of replacing the existing file or canceling the import. ScaleMaster handles things a bit differently. It will import any song you select and rename it in cases of naming conflicts. If such a conflict exists ScaleMaster appends numbers to the newly imported file. Thus if you import a song named "Steps" and such a song already exists in your list, the imported song will be renamed to "Steps 1".

 

Summary

File sharing is a feature often overlooked yet incredibly powerful, because it brings documents created on the iPad to the Mac. Of course most iPads are backed up in the cloud, but having important docs on the Mac as well is great for file security.