Troubleshooting

OnSong Console works by setting up your iOS device as a web server on the local network. That means that OnSong is acting as a website that only you can access. This allows access to OnSong Console to be safe and fast since there is no information transmitted over the Internet. However, there are a few issues that you may experience. Below are some common issues and ways to resolve them.

Why can't I access OnSong Console on my device without a premium subscription?

OnSong Console has always been a premium feature that is made available in addition to the base package of OnSong. In 2018, OnSong Console was rolled into the OnSong Premium set of features and is now only available as a subscription unlock with many other new features. If you had purchased OnSong as an add-on, you can still unlock the feature if you have since reinstalled OnSong. To do this, go into the Utilities Menu by tapping on the gear icon in the Menubar and choose Account. Make sure you are not signed into an OnSong account and Sign Out at the bottom if you are. You can then see an Add-Ons row that you can tap to view add-ons. Tap on the Restore Past Purchases button to unlock OnSong Console.

Why doesn't the Console website appear in the web browser?

When you first enable OnSong Console from within OnSong, you are displayed a web address, usually in the form of http://nnn.nnn.nnn.nnn This is called an IP address which is like a phone number which other computers on the local network can use to call and communicate with your device running OnSong. This number is only accessible by devices that are connected to your personal computer network and not to any other remote computers unless your network is configured to do so which is very unlikely. Make sure that you type in this web address exactly as it appears on the OnSong Console screen. If you type in this web address and omit the "http://" portion, your computer may try to search for this number instead or append an "https://" in front of the web address, causing the website to load.

Keep in mind that the OnSong app is running the web server software that creates this website. That means if you shut down OnSong or the device is put to sleep or falls asleep, the Console will no longer be available. While OnSong and OnSong Console are designed to keep your device awake when in use, you will want to ensure that you have not inadvertently caused the device to go to sleep.

My Console acted up in the web browser or disconnected. What can I do?

Sometimes things may change while you already have the Console open in the web browser. If the website is typed correctly, you may want to try force-refreshing the web page. To do this, press the SHIFT key on your keyboard and then tap on the refresh button in the web browser next to the location/URL bar. This will reload the web page from the server and usually fixes many issues.

Why am I seeing a network error when access the Console from a web browser?

If you're still having trouble, the likely cause is that OnSong has to be set up on your specific network. For instance, when you change computer networks, OnSong needs to start up the web server to run OnSong Console on that specific set of IP addresses. To ensure this, try to disable and reenable the Console from within the OnSong Console screen within OnSong and use the displayed web address to access, ensuring you are typing it correctly. If you are still having trouble, it is likely caused by how the computer network security is configured. For instance, your network may not allow a web server to be started. Web servers run on port 80 which is a port with special privileges. If this is the case, you may need to contact a network administrator to allow the web server to be used on the network. Another method is to switch to use a port by importing a settings file. This setting will run the Console web site on port 5076. Higher port numbers are usually not restricted in the same way. You would just have to append that port number to the end of the web address like this: http://nnn.nnn.nnn.nnn:5076. If you'd like to do this, please contact support.

Is there a way I can save this web address and use it multiple times?

Yes and no. One quirk with local computer networks is that most are designed to automatically assign new devices IP addresses and not every network is the same. This means that you will likely have a different IP address on one network and then a completely different IP address on another network. While most network routers will attempt to give each device the same IP address they were assigned before, but there is no guarantee that will happen unless you configure your router to reserve IP addresses for specific devices. Of course that is a more advanced networking topic than we have time to delve into here and how to do that differs with each router. Look up DHCP Reservations in your network router user manual for more details.

If you are looking to save the web address for future use and are using a Mac computer, you can tap on the web address within the OnSong Console screen in OnSong to toggle to a local domain name. This will display like http://my-computers-name.local instead of the IP address. Computers that are compatible with multicast DNS such as Macs can use this web address instead to access OnSong Console. This web address stays consistent as long as you don't change the name of your device even if the underlying IP address changes.

Why do I get a security warning when accessing the console website?

OnSong Console operates by making your iOS/IPadOS device a web server on the local network. Because of this, it is not possible to use SSL or TLS encryption for communication. This is because certificates for encrypted communication are provided by an Internet authority to ensure that the information being transmitted is coming from the legitimate owner of a domain name. Since the OnSong Console is not running on the world-wide web with a registered domain name, this sort of certificate is not available. While we could possibly self-sign a generated certificate, that often causes issues with most web browsers. Besides, the information being transmitted is not sensitive in nature and is only transmitted over the local network and never over the Internet. If you would like to secure the connection between your OnSong device and the devices accessing the content, please use a private network and do not use on a public access point. Also, this OnSong Connect API built into OnSong features a basic whitelist permissions system that requires confirmation to access any information transmitted over the network.

Why can't I seem to get console to activate on my device?

In iOS/iPadOS 14, Apple has added additional safeguards to prevent apps from using the local network unknowingly to the user. OnSong has always used the local networking on the device to enable wireless sharing, but now you may need to agree to this access when prompted by iOS/iPadOS. If you have not agreed to this at the prompt, OnSong will not be able to start the web server that Console uses. You can enable this access by opening the Settings app from your device's Home Screen, choosing OnSong on the left under Applications, and then turn on the switch next to Local Network Access.

What's the difference between OnSong Console and OnSong Console for Mac?

OnSong Console is built into OnSong and is unlocked view a previously-purchased add-on, or through an OnSong Premium subscription. OnSong Console for Mac was a separate purchase that has since been deprecated and not longer functions on newer versions of MacOS. Because of that, you will need to use the web-based OnSong Console instead. Please contact support so we can help get you using the latest version of OnSong Console.

Add Book

This palette allows you to simply set the name of the book to create. Type a name and click Create Book. You can then select the book from the sidebar to view the Song List in order to add new or existing songs to the book.

If you do not specify a name for the book and create it, no book will be added to your library.

Add Set

Use this palette to create new sets in your library. Simply enter a date or an optional title.

To select a date, either type it in the field or tap on the calendar icon to open a date picker. If you do not select a date, the current date is used. If you do not type a title, the full date will appear as the title of the set in your library.

To create the set, click on Create Set.

Chords

The chords palette provides tools for changing how chords appear in the chord chart. This affects both transposition, appearance, and chord diagrams.

Style

Typically chord charts use alphabetic characters to define chords. OnSong can convert alphabetic chords into numeric ones to better suit musicians that play using a number system. The selected style is highlighted. Choose from one of the following chord styles:

• Alphabet uses letters A-G with sharps and flats to indicate precisely what chord should be played. If using different chord localizations, this may also include an H. Default.
• Nashville uses a decimal numbering system which indicates the chord number based on the root chord of the key. In addition, this method uses symbols for different chord variations.
• Roman uses upper and lowercase Roman numerals for chords. Major chords are represented in uppercase while minor chords are lowercase. Symbols are also used to indicate different modes such as a minus symbol for minor.
• Solfege uses do, re, mi, fa, so, la, ti, do instead of numbers. Symbols are used to indicate different modes such as a minus for minor.

Transpose

Use this slider to transpose the song to any key. The key of C is placed on the far left and the key of Cb is on the far right. You can use the arrow keys to make fine-tune adjustments the key you would like to pick.

The power icon on the right turns transposition on and off. If turned off, and if no capo is applied, then no transposition is performed. This will display chords just as they appear in the Song Editor.

Capo

This slider allows you to apply a capo to the song. Slide from 0 to 11. This will modulate the chords of the song down to maintain the key of the song when a capo is applied. You can change the direction of this modulation in Settings » Display Settings » Song Formatting » Capo » Capo Modulates

You can turn the application of the capo on and off using the power icon on the right side. This allows you to maintain a capo and determine if you want to apply it or not depending on the instrument you are playing.

Diagrams

This section of the chords palette is used to toggle the chord diagram display on and off. Use the slider to adjust how many diagrams appear across the page. You can select a number between 4 and 10. Use the power icon on the right to toggle the visibility of chord diagrams on and off.

You can change how and where chord diagram appear in Settings » Display Settings » Song Formatting » Chord Diagrams.

Diagram Position

The diagram position chooser lets you determine where diagrams and drawn on the page. You can choose from:

• None turns off chord diagrams. Default.
• Below draws diagrams under the song content.
• Above draws diagrams above the song content directly below the title and metadata.
• Within draws chord diagrams in place of chords within the lyrics.

Instrument

This section allows you to select the instrument to use when displaying chords. The selected instrument is highlighted. Choose a different instrument to have the chord diagrams change to the selected instrument.

Transposing Instrument

If you are playing an instrument that does not play at concert pitch, you can adjust the chords that appear throughout the song to adjust for those instruments. Options include:

• Off used for concert pitch and most stringed or percussion instruments like piano.
• B-flat used for B-flat instruments such as trumpet, clarinet, bass clarinet, and soprano and tenor saxophones.
• E-flat used for E-flat tuned instruments such as soprano clarinet, or alto and baritone saxophones.
• F used for F tuned instruments such as French and English horns.
• G used for alto flute.

Note: Making changes in this palette does not affect the song content but is applied in addition to the original song.

Import Files

This palette allows you to import one or more files at once into OnSong. Click on the Select files... button to open a file chooser window. Browse and select a file to import. Use the shift, command and control keys on your keyboard to select more than one file to import.

When you are all done, click on the Choose button in the window. Console will automatically upload and import those files into your library and show you the import status below the Select files... button. You can then close the palette to continue editing.

Please note that OnSong will only permit Supported File Formats to be imported into your OnSong library.

Insert

The insert palette is used to insert chords, line formatting, and section labels into a song. Position the text cursor where you would like to insert chords or on the line where you'd like to apply line formatting.

Chords

As you write new chords in the text editor, they will appear here. Position the text cursor where you would like to insert the chord and then click on a button to insert the chord in that location. Position of the cursor differs for each chord format:

• Bracketed Chords requires the cursor to be placed within lyrics where you would like the chord to be played.
• Chords Over Lyrics requires the cursor to be placed above lyrics and positioned above lyrics using spaces.

Font Style

Click on a color to insert color codes at the front of the line. You can also toggle the bold and italic buttons to insert those line formatting codes as well.

Highlighting

Click on a color to add highlighting line formatting code to the front of the line. The white option will remove the code.

Labels

Common section labels appear in this section. Tap on one to name the current section.

Metadata

The metadata palette automatically updates its fields as you select songs in the Song List. Change the contents of the fields to have OnSong update the metadata section of your song. This palette includes these fields:

Song Title

The title of the song.

Artist

The name of the artist or the byline to output under the song title.

Number

A number used to lookup the song in numbered music collections like hymnals.

Keywords

Keywords or topics to enter for the song. This is used in the By Topic tab in the Songs Menu.

Key

This sets the key of the song. If the key had been already set and there are chords in the song, this will also rewrite the chords of the song into that key.

You can also change the mode of the key to minor by clicking on the "m" button on the right side. The song contents are not rewritten when toggling between major and minor keys.

Capo

Sets the recommended capo level for the song.

Tempo

Set the tempo using this slider. Remember that you can click on the arrows to the left and right of the sliders to fine-tune adjust the values.

Time Signature

Click on a button that represents the time signature of the song to be written in the metadata section. If you do not want a time signature outputted, click on a selected time signature again to remove it. If the time signature you need is not in the list, congratulations on your rhythmic genius. Because of your skills, you'll just need to write the time signature yourself.

Duration

This is the time duration of the song. Set this to a default to enable autoscrolling with the approximate speed. This can be expressed as hh:mm:ss or numeric seconds.

Flow

This is the flow of the song used to arrange the parts of the song into a top-down fashion. Please see Flow for more details.

Copyright

This is the copyright line of the music. This will appear at the bottom of chord charts as well as in lyrics projection.

CCLI Song

This is the unique identifier for registering the song with CCLI SongSelect reporting. This will appear at the bottom of the chord chart on screen as well as at the bottom of lyrics projection.

Restrictions

These are a list of restrictions that are used to limit what recipients of the song can do with it. Please see Restrictions for a list of possible options.

New Song

This palette allows you to create a new song for editing in the Song Editor where you can type lyrics, chords and then save to your library on the device.

To create a song, type in an optional title and artist name and then select either Create OnSong or Create ChordPro from the buttons below. This will create the template song in the Song Editor and open the Metadata Palette for you to custom the song content.

Style

The style palette is used to change the way the chord chart looks in the Song Viewer. Use this to change the font, size, visibility, and color of different parts of the chord chart.

Font

This section contains toggle buttons that allow you to choose the typeface in which your chord chart should appear. Press the font button to make a change. The current font selection is highlighted.

Title

This slider allows you to the change the size and visibility of the title of the song. Slide to the left or right to decrease or increase the font size. The point size of the font is displayed as you adjust. You can also click on the arrow buttons to the left and right to fine-tune adjust the amount. Tap on the power icon on the right to toggle visibility of the title on and off.

Metadata

This slider allows you to the change the size and visibility of metadata of the song. This includes the artist name, key, capo, tempo, and time signature.

Slide to the left or right to decrease or increase the font size. The point size of the font is displayed as you adjust. You can also click on the arrow buttons to the left and right to fine-tune adjust the amount. Tap on the power icon on the right to toggle visibility of metadata on and off.

Section Labels

This slider allows you to change the size and visibility of section labels which are used to display a label for the upcoming lyrics and chords such as "Chorus" and "Verse".

Slide to the left or right to decrease or increase the font size. The point size of the font is displayed as you adjust. You can also click on the arrow buttons to the left and right to fine-tune adjust the amount. Tap on the power icon on the right to toggle visibility of section labels on and off.

Lyrics

This slider allows you to the change the size and visibility lyrics in the song. Lyrics comprise all content in the song other than chords such as musical instruction, section labels, etc.

Slide to the left or right to decrease or increase the font size. The point size of the font is displayed as you adjust. You can also click on the arrow buttons to the left and right to fine-tune adjust the amount. Tap on the power icon on the right to toggle visibility of lyrics on and off.

Chords

This slider allows you to the change the size and visibility of chords that appear above or within lyrics. Chords are detected in the song or have been surrounded with square brackets.

Slide to the left or right to decrease or increase the font size. The point size of the font is displayed as you adjust. You can also click on the arrow buttons to the left and right to fine-tune adjust the amount. Tap on the power icon on the right to toggle visibility of chords on and off.

Line Spacing

This slider is used to adjust the spacing between text in the chord chart. Slide to the left or right to decrease or increase the line spacing. You can use the arrow buttons to the left and right to fine-tune adjust the amount.

Chord Highlight

You can choose the highlight chords in your chord chart using this color picker. Click on the color of the highlight you desire. It will display under the chord in 50% opacity, just like a highlighter. Choosing the white color option removes the highlight.

Chord Color

This section allows you to change the color of the chords as well as their appearance. Click on a color in the color picker to change the color of the chord text. Choosing black uses the default text color which is black or white depending on the selected low light mode.

You can also toggle italic and bold appearance on and off for the chords as needed for extra visibility.

Text Tools

The text tools palette is used to perform operations on the text content of the song. This can help you change text quickly or switch and fix chord formatting.

Search and Replace

This section of the text tools palette is used to search and replace text in the Song Editor. This is useful for replacing words or chords when using bracketed chords. For instance, you can change all instances of [A4] to [Asus4].

To use, type the search value in the first field and the replace value in the second field. Then press the Perform Search/Replace button to perform the operation.

Chord Format

This section includes toggle buttons that allow you to switch between the two supported formats. If there are any square brackets located in the song content, the Bracketed Chords button is selected. Otherwise the Chords Over Lyrics button is selected. Press the opposite button to reformat the text content into the desired chord format.

It is useful to switch the bracketed chords when splitting or combining lines. This is because the chords will travel with the lyrics in this case. You can then switch to chords over lyrics if you would like to position chords in a more visual manner.

Fix Spaces

This section provides a single-use tool for correcting issues that may occur when converting text from a word processor. You may find that chords are pushed to the right and beyond the lyrics they used to reside over. This is due to variable-width fonts that require many more space characters to align chords above lyrics.

Press the Fix Alignment Spaces button to have chords detected and the space between the chords reduced by a specific amount. This usually will align the chords very close to their original positions when viewed in a word processor or printed. From there you can more easily adjust the chord positions.

Add Menu

You can use this menu to add songs, books, and sets to your library. In addition, if the menu appears when selecting an item in the sidebar, you can also delete that item. The following actions are available.

Add Song

The add song menu item reveals two ways in which you can add songs to your library.

• Add New will open the New Song Palette where you can set a song title, artist, and create the OnSong or ChordPro format in the song editor.
• Import Files will open the Import Files Palette where you can select one or more files to be imported into your library.

Add Book

Selecting this option will open the Add Book Palette to enter a name and create the book.

Add Set

Selecting this option will open the Add Set Palette to enter an optional set title and date for the set to create a new one.

Delete

Selecting the delete option (where available) will delete the selected book or set from the library after a prompt. This option is not available when selecting the + button at the bottom of the sidebar.

Add Menu

Add songs in the Song List can perform different actions. For instance, you may want to write a new song, or import files from your computer. Additionally you may want to add songs to a set that are already in your library.

New Song

This option will open the New Song Palette where you can set a song title, artist, and create the OnSong or ChordPro format in the song editor.

Existing Songs

If you are viewing a book or a set, this option is available. Selecting this option will open a slightly different interface depending on your current selection.

• Books will open the Add Songs to Book interface for selecting songs to place in the book from your library.
• Sets will open the Add Songs to Set interface for selection songs to place into your set from your library.

Import Files

This option will open the Import Files Palette where you can select one or more files to be imported into your library.

Download Menu

When you click on the down arrow next to the download toolbar button, you can choose one of the following formats to download to your computer.

• Adobe PDF
• ChordPro
• HTML
• OnSong
• OpenSong
• Text File

Note: This uses the host device to generate the content so you will be prompted to save any changes prior to the file being generated.

Title Bar

The title bar appears at the top of the screen and provides for basic window management and content navigation.

From right to left, it includes:

Window Management

On the left side are the standard three OS X buttons for closing, minimizing and maximizing the window. Closing the window does not close down the application. To close down the application, you need to close it from the Menubar. Minimizing the window will minimize into the OS X dock. Maximizing the window will take the application full screen in OS X. To make the window the size of the current display, press the OPTION key when clicking on this button.

Navigator

The navigator is used to switch between devices, books and sets.

Save Button

The save button highlights once changes are made to the selected song. Tapping on the save button will send changes to the selected device to save those changes.

Pane Controls

The three buttons on the right are used to toggle the visibility of each of the application's panes. The position of these buttons corresponds with the song list, song editor and song viewer accordingly. You can click on the button to hide the pane and then click again to show it.

Note: You can also adjust the size of each pane by dragging the divider between the panes.

Menu

The Mac version of OnSong contains a menu at the top of the screen that gives you access to application wide actions. Let's take a look at each menu and what's available.

OnSong

This is the default application specific menu available to all Mac applications.

File

This menu provides common import/export features as well as print and a way to close the app.

Edit

The edit menu gives you actions that can perform on text.

Format

The format menu gives you tools for formatting text.

View

The view menu can be used to show and hide user interface components.

Window

The window menu lets you enabled and disabled windows such as Lyrics Projection and Stage Monitor mode as well as other typical window functions.

Share

The share menu lets you share the current set or collection in various ways.

App Menu

The application menu is named after the app and has the following options.

About OnSong

This shows the name of the app as well as the version.

Preferences...

Certain user preferences are available here but you can adjust full OnSong settings in the app.

Services

This displays a list of services installed on the operating system.

Hide OnSong

This is used to hide the application and place it in the dock.

Hide Others

This will hide all other applications except for OnSong.

Show All

This will show all application windows.

Quit OnSong

Use this to quit the application.

Edit Menu

The edit menu provides common features for editing text.

Edit Song

This option will open the song editor for the currently viewed song.

Undo/Redo

These options enable when you are editing a song allowing you to undo and redo changes you've made.

Cut

This option allows you to cut text, removing it from the text field and placing it into the pasteboard.

Copy

This option allows you to copy text, retaining it in the text field while placing it into the pasteboard.

Paste

This option will insert or replace the current selection with the formatted value in the pasteboard.

Paste and Match Style

This option will insert or replace the current selection with the value in the pasteboard, using any styles of the surrounding text.

Delete

This option will delete the selected text from the text field.

Select All

This option will select all text in the text field.

File Menu

The file menu gives you fast access to create and import new songs.

New Song

This option will either open the Template Chooser to pick a song template to create a new song, or open the Song Editor with a blank song if no templates are available.

Add Songs

This option will open the Add Songs screen where you can choose how you'd like to import songs.

Import...

This option will open the macOS file chooser where your an select one or more files to import.

Library

This option contains child menu options that let you backup and restore your library.

• Backup Library will create a backup file of the current library and then open the Save File Dialog to choose where to save the backup file.
• Restore Library will open the Open File Dialog so you can choose an OnSong backup file to restore to the current library.

Print

Opens the print preview screen where you can make adjustments to how OnSong prints the selected songs.

Close

Use this to close the app.

Open Dialog

On the Mac, you can open files using the built-in native file open dialog. This lets you choose common locations in the Favorite section on the left. You can then move around using the path selector at the top, view your files in different ways, and generally navigate to the folders and files you'd like to open.

When more than one file can be selected, you can hold down the SHIFT or CMD buttons on your keyboard to select multiple files. When you've selected the file, either click on the Open button or double-click on the single file to select. Tap Cancel to close the dialog.

Save Dialog

This screen appears when OnSong needs to save a file to a location on the Mac. You can click on the pull down to choose a different location, or expand the chooser by tapping on the down button next to the pulldown. Additionally, you can change the name of the file (but not the file extension) here as well. Click on the Save button to save the file, or click on the Cancel button to close the dialog.

Format Menu

The format menu provides tools for formatting text. Many of these options are not available currently in the app.

Bigger

This option will increase the size of the font in the song viewer.

Smaller

This option will decrease the size of the font in the song viewer.

Share Menu

The share menu gives you quick access to sharing options for the currently selected set or song.

Email

This option will open the Email screen with the currently selected song or set ready to be emailed with the default file format attachments.

Export

This option will open the Export screen with the currently selected song or set ready to be exported to the default location.

View Menu

The view menu provides options to view content in the active window. Some options are currently unavailable.

Find Song

This option will open the Quick Pick screen to search your library and load the song into the song viewer.

Enter Full Screen

This option is available to the active window and will automatically make the screen take up the whole screen and hide the window chrome and controls.

Window Menu

The window menu provides options for managing windows in the app.

Main Window

This is the main OnSong screen that contains the song viewer and the main user interface. You can tap to toggle this window on and off. You can drag and resize the window into the main screen or external screens. OnSong will retain the window size, position, screen, and fullscreen status.

Lyrics Projection

This option toggles the lyrics projection window. You can drag and resize the window into the main screen or external screens. OnSong will retain the window size, position, screen, and fullscreen status.

Stage Monitor

This option toggles the lyrics projection window. You can drag and resize the window into the main screen or external screens. OnSong will retain the window size, position, screen, and fullscreen status.

Minimize

This option will minimize the currently selected window into the dock.

Zoom

This option will cause the window to take up all available space on the current screen. You can choose this option again to go back to the original window size.

Tile Window to Left/Right Side of Screen

This option causes the window to be sized to fit in half of the screen and moved to the left or right side accordingly.

Move to Screen

This option will appear when more than one screen is available, allowing you to move the selected window to different screens without dragging and dropping it there.

Bring All to Front

This option will take all windows that have been placed under other applications to the foreground.

Double Tap

Many users choose to control OnSong using foot pedals. In most cases, that's two pedals on the floor to keep things simple. But what if you need to do more with less? Double Tap unlocks additional functions by simply pressing the same foot pedal twice.

Double Tap works with every type of trigger in OnSong including foot pedal presses, screen taps, MIDI input, and sticky notes. This means you can double your control.

To use Double Tap, you first need to be an OnSong Premium member. This gives you access to all the premium features. Next, assign an action to a trigger as you normally would. At the bottom of the Actions Menu, tap on the Double Tap tab to assign an different action. That's it! You can now tap once with the original action, and tap twice for another action.

When you assign a double tap action, the single tap action will incur a slight delay of a few milliseconds in order to determine if a single tap or a double tap was intended. Do not use Double Tap if you intend to use a time-sensitive action on the single tap.

Multiple Actions

Simply put, actions let you control OnSong from a physical or external trigger. For instance, pressing a foot pedal can perform a single action. While Double Tap lets you double the utility of a single pedal, you may still want even more control for more sophisticated setups.

The Multiple action is available in the Actions Menu and allows you program a single trigger (pedal, tap, MIDI input, etc) to perform different actions each time the same trigger is activated.

Multiple Actions is a premium feature and requires an OnSong Premium membership.

Importing

Coming soon...

Making Adjustments

As you're getting started scanning pages, there are a few controls on the side or bottom of the screen you can use to make a great scan from the beginning.

Flash

The first option is to enable flash when taking the photograph for the scan. The default option is auto which determines if flash should be used by evaluating lighting conditions. You can also tap on this to turn flash on or off.

Color Mode

This option lets you choose the color mode to use when taking the scan. By the default, the scanner will take the picture using full color. You can choose from the following options:

• Color is a full color scan and is useful for showing high-contrast text along with colors. This may sacrifice accurate color reproduction for better legibility of text.
• Grayscale is used for documents that are printing with black, but may have various levels of shading.
• Black & White is used for text-only documents and may result in higher contrast and become easier to convert into text-based documents using optical character recognition.
• Photo is used for scanning photographs and will result in the use of more accurate color, but is not good for scanning textual documents.

Shutter Mode

The document scanner will automatically take a picture when it detects a rectangle and determines that a good scan can be made. You can enable Manual shutter mode which will require you to take the picture using the button on the screen instead.

Page Editor

Tapping on a thumbnail of a page displays the editing toolbar where you can access a number of tools including:

Crop

This tool loads the photo that was taken and displays the selection as a rectangle shape. You can use tap and drag on the four corners to better crop the page as well as make corrections for perspective distortion. During this process, you may also opt to try again by tapping on the Retake button. Keep in mind that the document scanner cannot adjust for curvature in the pages, only perspective correction.

Color Mode

Tap on the color mode button to choose from a different color mode including:

• Color is a full color scan and is useful for showing high-contrast text along with colors. This may sacrifice accurate color reproduction for better legibility of text.
• Grayscale is used for documents that are printing with black, but may have various levels of shading.
• Black & White is used for text-only documents and may result in higher contrast and become easier to convert into text-based documents using optical character recognition.
• Photo is used for scanning photographs and will result in the use of more accurate color, but is not good for scanning textual documents.

Rotate

Use this tool to rotate the scan into the proper orientation. Tapping on this tool shows you the cropped and perspective-corrected scan and lets you rotate it by 90 degrees.

Delete

If you've accidentally scanned a page you don't want, just tap on the trash can icon to delete the page.

Reviewing Pages

Once you've scanned your pages, they appear in the menubar at the bottom of the screen. Here you can go in and edit each page. Once you're happy with the document, tap on the Save button to create a PDF file and then import the file into your library.

Cancel

If you've changed your mind, just tap on the Cancel button to close the document scanner without adding the document to your library.

Editing Pages

Tap on the thumbnails in the menubar to open the Page Editor. In here you can make changes to the crop, rotation, and color mode as well as delete or retake the picture for that page.

Importing

Once you're happy the scan, just tap on the Save button to import the scanned document into your library as a song.

Scanning Pages

The document scanner takes over your enter screen to use your camera in an augmented reality interface to capture pages. Here are some steps to make sure you get the best results.

Best Practices

Here are some tips for getting the best quality scans.

1. Make sure that your case or cover is not blocking the camera.
2. Place your paper on a flat surface such as a table, the floor, or a music stand.
3. Ensure the paper is as flat as possible to avoid warping as the system corrects for perspective.
4. Use good lighting to ensure the highest contrast ratio between the paper and text.
5. Use other controls on the left to adjust the image using flash, mode, and shutter.

Capturing the Page

As you move the camera, the computer vision system will identify rectangles in the scene. If the rectangle is determined to be a piece of paper, the scanner will automatically take a picture. You can also tap on the camera button on the bottom or side of the screen to initiate a photo.

Multiple Pages

As you capture pages, they will appear in the menubar at the bottom of the screen. You can flip through multiple pages for a single song. You can always go back and make adjustments.

Screen Mirroring

When you connect an external video device to an iOS device, it mirrors the content of your screen directly onto the other video device. This is great for sharing what you see on the screen with others. Use this for giving presentations, or with video capture software to create tutorials.

OnSong takes control of any connected video device for projecting lyrics or displaying music charts on stage. This allows OnSong to use the entire screen, as well as control resolution and orientation. User interface components don't get in the way either.

If you want to prevent OnSong from taking over the display and use the built-in screen mirroring found in iOS, go into Settings » Live Settings » External Video » Screen Mirroring and turn this on and tap Done. When you are done with your presentation or recording a video tutorial, you can turn this back on.

Note: You may need to restart OnSong for this to take effect.

Video Devices

Connecting your device to a projector or HDTV requires some extra equipment. This depends on the device that you have and the application. Pick one of the options below:

AirPlay

Stream video content from your iOS device to an HDTV or projector wirelessly using AirPlay. This requires an AppleTV connected to an HDTV and a reliable WiFi connection. No Internet connection is required.

Digital A/V Adapter

You can hard-wire you device to a video device that supports HDMI connectors. Purchase the adapter from Apple for the device you have.

VGA Adapter

If you have an older monitor system or projector, you may need to resort to an analog VGA connection. Purchase the appropriate adapter for your device.

Note: Devices older than the first generation iPad do not support external video devices. The first generation iPad does not support video over AirPlay.

AirPlay

AirPlay is an Apple technology that can stream audio and video content wirelessly to another device using WiFi. This requires a reliable WiFi network as well as a receiver device. Here's what you'll need:

Apple TV

The preferred method for receiving video content in OnSong is an Apple TV. This puck-sized device connects to a video device using HDMI and requires external AC power. Set it up on your WiFi network and connect it to your TV for high definition video playback.

Enabling AirPlay

Connecting to AirPlay requires an additional step that is as easy as plugging in an adapter. Follow these directions to enable AirPlay on your device and start streaming video.

Enabling AirPlay

Enabling AirPlay is slightly different on devices depending on their iOS version. Follow the instructions below to enable AirPlay video.

iOS 7 and later

Swipe up from the bottom of your screen to access the control center. Tap on the AirPlay button that appears when connected to a WiFi network with an AirPlay device. Next, tap on the device that you would like to connect to. For video-enabled devices like Apple TV, you must then turn on the Mirroring switch that appears. This will send the video of the device to the Apple TV.

iOS 6 and earlier

In iOS 6 and earlier versions, double press on the home button to open the multitasking tray. Swipe to the left to reveal playback controls as well as an AirPlay button. Repeat the steps above to select the device and enable mirroring.

Audio Only

You can also connect in the same way to audio devices. For instance, you can use an AirPort Express as a WiFi access point and to stream audio wirelessly.

Digital A/V Adapter

The digital A/V adapter allows you to connect your device to an HDMI cable and then to a video device like an HDMI splitter, projector, or HDTV.

Lightning Port

Modern iOS devices feature the smaller and reversible Lightning port. Be sure to get the Apple Lightning to Digital A/V Adapter.

30-pin Dock Connector

If you have an older device with a 30-pin adapter, you'll need the Apple Dock Connector Digital A/V Adapter.

Note: Both devices also include an additional port to charge the device while in use. Only the 30-pin model allows you to also synchronize to the device through the USB cable.

VGA Adapter

A VGA adapter allows you to connect your device to a VGA cable and then to a video device such as an analog VGA splitter, projector, or computer monitor.

Lightning Port

Modern iOS devices feature the smaller and reversible Lightning port. Be sure to get the Apple Lightning to VGA Adapter.

30-pin Dock Connector

If you have an older device with a 30-pin adapter, you'll need the Apple Dock Connector VGA Adapter.

Note: Only the Lightning VGA Adapter features an additional port to charge the device while in use.

Adobe PDF

PDF files are a popular option for storing and printing chord charts and lyrics sheets. You may have been using PDF files for years to catalog your digital library. The Adobe PDF file format is great for accurately representing the printed page and is portable between different computer platforms. Let's take a look at some challenges with this file format and ways we can extract text for best results.

Adobe PDF files are displayed "as-is" in OnSong and can't be edited, formatted, or participate in low light mode. While these files may contain text, it is placed on the the virtual page in a way that enables it to be printed, and not easily understood or modified by other apps. In addition, PDF files can also be comprised of graphics or scanned images, or any combination of these. They can also be encrypted, protecting their contents from being extracted. Because of this, every PDF file is different so there's no way to handle perfect conversion into a text-based document.

You can extract the text of a PDF file within OnSong using the Song Editor and tapping on the Extract Text button in the Conversion Toolbar that appears before the on-screen keyboard is revealed. OnSong will attempt to extract the text from the PDF file first, and if no text is available, it will process the file using Optical Character Recognition (OCR). The result will most likely end with text, but you will need to review and tweak the text into a file format that OnSong understands. In addition, if the file was encrypted, the result of the extraction may result in garbled characters. These files are not able to be extracted due to the protection applied to them by the authoring software.

Here are some issues you may have with extracted PDF files:

Bad Spacing

You may find that some text is placed out of order, or with poor spacing. This is because PDF files may text shortcuts to align text using multiple text fragments. OnSong works to place these text fragments in proximity to each other using frame proximity calculations, but there may still be issues that require you to manually correct this.

Chords with Extra Spaces

Every chord chart is created differently depending on the author and the software used. For instance, the original file may have had multiple space characters used to align chords above lyrics. If a variable-width font is used, this may result in many more spaces being used then the lyrics below. Use Fix Alignment Spaces found in the Text Tools Menu found in the Menubar of the Song Editor to bring those chords back closer to their position and then manually adjust as needed.

Compressed Chords

Another problem may be chords that are too close together on a line above the chords. This can happen if chords were originally placed into text boxes and then aligned above chords. You will need to manually align those chords over the corresponding lyrics in the Song Editor.

Garbled Characters

If you attempt to extract text from an encrypted PDF document, it may result in a screen full of characters. You will need to revert the extraction process or cancel out of the Song Editor and find a different way to extract text.

Unrecognized Characters

If OnSong cannot extract the text from the document directly, it may need to submit the document to optical character recognition (OCR). This means that a computer will attempt to "read" the document visually. Depending on the quality of the PDF, this may result in the improper character being used. For instance, if your document had a flat symbol, it may be interpreted as a lowercase letter "b", or if the PDF was scanned, faded text may result in other characters. Review the document and make these manual changes as needed in the Song Editor.

Images

Images are viewed using the web-based image viewer in OnSong and are very limited due to the file format. They are displayed "as-is" in OnSong and can't be edited, formatted, or participate in low light mode.

You can extract the text of an image file within OnSong using the Song Editor and tapping on the Extract Text button in the Conversion Toolbar that appears before the on-screen keyboard is revealed. OnSong will process the file using Optical Character Recognition (OCR) and the result will most likely end with text. You will then need to to review and tweak the text into a file format that OnSong understands.

You will likely find issues with the resulting text depending on the quality of the image. For instance, if you attempt to extract text from a photo of a beautiful sunset, you will be sorely disappointed. But if you extract text from a good image of a text document from a scanner, you will have decent results. You will want to check the spacing of chords since that may be lost during the OCR process. You can make changes to the text-based document after extraction using the Song Editor.

Word Processing Files

If you've written your chord charts or lyrics sheets in programs like Microsoft Word, you can view those "as-is" in OnSong. However, these file types cannot be edited, formatted, or participate in low light mode. Because of the subtleties of each word processor and the author of the document, there's no way to handle perfect conversion of these into a plain-text document.

You can extract the text of word processing files within OnSong using the Song Editor and tapping on the Extract Text button in the Conversion Toolbar that appears before the on-screen keyboard is revealed. OnSong will attempt to extract the text from the file, but you will need to review and tweak the text into a file format that OnSong understands.

Here are some issues you may have with the extracted file:

Chord Spacing

A common issue with word processing documents is chord spacing. This is because most chord charts are written with chords over the lyrics with spaces used to align the chords above the correct words and phrases. When a variable-width font is used, many more space characters must be used to align chords above as compared to the lyrics below. When this is covered to plain text and viewed in a fixed-width font, you'll notice chords are pushed out to the right of the document and no longer align.

Use Fix Alignment Spaces found in the Text Tools Menu found in the Menubar of the Song Editor to bring those chords back closer to their position and then manually adjust as needed.

Unrecognized Characters

One issue with any imported file is how it handles special characters. In particular, you may find that quotation marks are replaced with strange international characters. This happens because Microsoft Word uses international characters as placeholders for these smart quote characters.

To solve this, we recommend either disabling smart quotes in the word processing application, or to export the text from your word processing document as a plain text (*.txt) document and then importing into OnSong. Alternately, you can copy and paste from the word processing application into OnSong Console and tweak the song in real time.

Beam

The wireless sharing screen displays nearby devices that are running OnSong. While all devices are checked by default, you can check or uncheck devices to receive the currently loaded song or set.

Tap on the Share button in the upper right. You will be prompted before the set is sent. Recipients will receive a prompt inside of OnSong asking if they would like to receive the set. They can accept or decline the song or set. Transferred songs and sets will appear the same as they do on the source device with styles, transposition, annotations, etc.

You can also set up an OnCue streaming session by toggling the "Enable OnCue wireless streaming" switch on the bottom. This will invite the selected devices to join the wireless streaming session for you to control the display on their devices.

Lastly, the refresh button in the lower right corner will refresh the list of devices by disconnecting you from the ad-hoc network and then reestablish that connection after a brief delay.

When you are all done, tap on the Close button in the upper right corner.

About OnCue

OnCue is built on top of Apple's frameworks to allow wireless, peer-to-peer connectivity over Bluetooth. The following are some tips to get things running for your team as well as a history and future outlook for the technology.

Because these frameworks are limited to iOS devices, and due to the inherit limitations of the technology, OnSong has a technology called OnSong Connect which requires a network connection. OnSong Connect allows for more robust communication as well as support for many more devices.

OnCue Version

Newer versions of OnSong can use newer and more reliable protocols to send OnCue information. If you are using an iOS 7 or higher device, a new version of OnCue is enabled by default. If you are running iOS 6 or earlier, the older version of OnSong is enabled. Be sure to use the version that meets the needs of every device that you need to connect. For instance, if you have an original iPad that runs iOS 5.1.1, you will need to switch all devices to the older OnCue version for interoperability. This can be done in Settings » Menu Settings » Sharing.

Tips

Wireless technology changes at a rapid rate, and iOS has followed and led many of these trends. When the original iPad launched in 2010, only Bluetooth was capable of setting up an ad-hoc network of devices. With each iOS release, Apple began transforming the wireless sharing landscape. Today Apple uses Bluetooth to configure direct WiFi, peer-to-peer functions. WiFi features much higher bandwidth than Bluetooth.

Number of Devices: One major limitation to Apple's frameworks are the number of concurrent devices. While not documented in the original Game Kit Framework, the generally accepted number of peer-to-peer devices is around five maximum. The newer frameworks support a maximum of six devices.

Frequencies: However, some networks are not friendly with these WiFi requests and different versions of iOS handle this connection differently. We recommend that you turn off WiFi and turn on Bluetooth when performing. This is because WiFi frequencies can become overloaded in crowded environments such as a concert. Bluetooth is generally limited to 30 feet and is not as connected to the otherwise crowded WiFi space.

RF Noise: Another consideration is radio frequency noise. Since nearly all consumer electronics (including microwave ovens) operate in the 2.4 Ghz and 5.0 Ghz range, there is the possibility of too many wireless signals being present. This noise makes it difficult for transmissions to complete and reduces overall bandwidth.

Network Engineering: If you are using WiFi or Bluetooth at a performance level, work with a wireless communications engineer to ensure that you don't have competing frequencies. This applies to not just networking equipment, but to wireless microphones and audio reinforcement hardware as well. Many problems can be alleviated with more professional-grade equipment that can seamlessly switch to less cluttered channels.

History

When OnSong launched with the first generation iPad, this was the only way to accomplish wireless networking. Over time, Apple has changed the way this networking works and, as such, effected performance on newer versions of iOS.

The following provides a history of wireless connectivity is these iOS versions.

• iOS 3.2 was the original operating system for the first iPad. This featured Bluetooth wireless networking using Apple's Game Kit Framework. This framework only used Bluetooth 2.1 EDR for communication.
• iOS 4.x did not change the underlying Bluetooth communication system and only appeared to make the Game Kit Frameworks and Bluetooth connectivity more stable.
• iOS 5.x added the ability for iOS to send wireless data over WiFi if Bluetooth is not enabled. The default protocol remained Bluetooth.
• iOS 6.x switched the priority of wireless protocols, opting to send data over WiFi if available. The issue is that some networks are not capable of relaying this information, and there is no provision for selecting Bluetooth over WiFi connections. This release made wireless communication less reliable, but overall faster for supported networks. Turning off WiFi and turning on Bluetooth resolves the reliability problem.
• iOS 7.x is when Apple rebuilt wireless sharing with a new protocol and deprecated the original frameworks. This new protocol is not supported on devices running iOS 6 or older. It uses Bluetooth to configure a direct WiFi connection for peer-to-peer communication.
• iOS 8.x continues the new model of wireless communication using Bluetooth LE to maintain connections with devices.

Stream

OnCue streaming allows one device running OnSong to control multiple devices. This is performed by each device creating and maintaining a peer-to-peer, ad-hoc network using iOS wirelessly sharing protocols.

You can start an OnCue streaming session by either opening the Wireless Sharing Screen and turning on the OnCue switch at the bottom, or by choosing the Start OnCue option in the Share Menu. This will invite users on other devices through a prompt to join the session.

Once enabled, the songs you view and any other actions such as navigation, autoscroll, and song style changes will be sent to the other devices automatically. Depending on your network speed and reliability, this may take a second or two to send. If a follower views a different song in their library, the navigational commands will not take place.

OnCue will send the content as it appears on the leader's device. Followers in the OnCue stream can opt to turn on a setting to allow their version of a song to be used instead. This can be found in Settings » Live Settings » Live Bar » Network Settings.

Both streaming and beaming content in OnSong may experience connection issues due to how wireless sharing is implemented in iOS. Please review the About section to find ways to accomplish a reliable connection.

File Formats

OnSong supports a number of file formats with which to export songs and sets. The following is a list of supported formats:

Adobe PDF

PDF is a standard file format that is used as a means to create digital paper output. OnSong can export a song or songs in the PDF format. When the "As a single file" option is turned on, a single multipage document is outputted.

OnSong uses the page size, orientation, and margins as provided in Page Layout Settings when exporting PDF files. Only text-based chord charts and other PDF files can be exported the PDF file format. If you have another file type in your set, that will be outputted as just the song title. Songs that use the PDF format will be appended to the document in the page size, orientation, and margins used in the original file. These files do not include annotations or sticky notes.

PDF files include a .pdf file extension.

OnSong

The OnSong file format is usually just the content as it is written in the Song Editor. This is useful for importing into another version of OnSong, or to save in order to make future changes. These files are plain text and have the .onsong file extension.

ChordPro

Choosing this format will export the song content using the ChordPro syntax. This can be used to edit and view the file ChordPro-compatible apps. This file format is text-based and has the .chopro file extension.

OpenSong

Choosing this format will export the song or set in the OpenSong XML file format. This can be used in other OpenSong-compatible applications for lyrics projection or library management. This file format is XML-based and has a .xml file extension.

HTML File

HTML files can be exported to view in web browsers on any platform. OnSong exports the HTML file to closely resemble the chord chart as rendered in OnSong. This does not include annotations. HTML files have a .html file extension.

Text File

This outputs the song content as a plain text file, placing chords on a line above the lyrics. Text files are plain text and include the .txt file extension.

Song List

The song list is different from other file formats in that it does not export the actual chord chart, but rather a list of every song in the set or which has been selected using the Song Picker. This list is in the HTML file format and contains a table with the song title, artist, key, and capo.

The song list is exported as an HTML file that contains a table of the following song attributes: song title, artist, current key, and capo.

OnSong Archive

The OnSong Archive is one the best-kept secrets in OnSong. This file format is binary and can only be read by other versions of OnSong. However, these files contain all the information necessary to display a song or set in another version of OnSong (including styles, settings, annotations, and external files).

The OnSong Archive file format includes the .onsongarchive file extension and can only be opened by the OnSong app.

OnSong Backup

Exporting an OnSong Backup is a must for any user who has spent significant time organizing and curating their song library in OnSong. The OnSong Backup format always stores a single file and always contains everything needed to restore your OnSong library to its original state. This includes user preferences and settings, songs, sets, styles, books, etc.

The OnSong Backup file format includes the .backup file extension.

Output Options Menu

This menu provides options to change how files are outputted from OnSong. It contains the following options:

Lyrics only

When exporting chord charts in various formats, you can turn chords off and only display lyrics. This is useful for printing song books for congregational singing or to send to vocalists.

As a single file

When a set or more than one song is selected to be outputted, OnSong defaults to sending multiple files, one for each song. Enabling this setting will combine the individual files into one, aggregate file. For instance, if the PDF file format is selected and the single file option is selected, one PDF file is generated with multiple pages which contain all outputted songs.

Different file formats handle exporting as a single file differently; outputting in this manner does not make sense for all formats.

Original key

OnSong uses a transposition engine which allows you to set the key of the song independently from the underlying song content. This key is outputted by default. If this option is turned on, the original key in the underlying song content is used instead.

As a ZIP file

When exporting multiple files, it may make sense to export as a ZIP file. This places all individually outputted songs into one file which can be extracted. When emailing multiple songs it is beneficial to turn on this setting since most email servers will block or omit attachments it does not recognize or that could be construed as a security threat. Sending ZIP files will typically work around this limitation.

Song Picker

The song picker menu displays which songs are to be outputted, as well as allowing for you to select more songs if desired.

Most of the picker menu is comprised of your song list. Here you can search and browse for songs. Tap on a song to place or remove a checkmark. Check marked songs will be added to the export list. You can also tap on the Select All or Deselect All buttons at the bottom to do just that.

When you are finished, tap on the Done button to change the songs to be outputted. Tap on the Cancel button to close the picker without changing the song selected for output.

Premium

If you're serious about your stage performance, becoming a Premium members gets you direct access to OnSong staff and experts. Here are some ways that becoming an OnSong Premium member has its benefits.

Fast Track

Fast Track is just what it sounds like. You can take any support request and escalate it to receive the fastest possible response time from our technical support staff with automatic escalation. Your request gets bumped ahead of any other request in the queue and OnSong staff work together to resolve your concern.

OnSong Insiders

Being a paid OnSong Premium member also means you can join our private, exclusive Facebook group where OnSong experts, staff, and developers hang out. Join in the discussion!

Importing into iTunes

iTunes is a powerful media management program that is available for free from Apple. It is also used to manage your iOS device as well. You can use iTunes to browse and purchase music and other media from the iTunes Store, or simply use it as a media management device.

If you have tracks that you want to add as Backing Tracks in OnSong, you'll need to make sure they are in your computer's iTunes library before synchronizing them to your device, using iTunes in the Cloud, or iTunes Music Match.

To add tracks to iTunes, locate them on your computer, select in the Finder (Mac OS X) or File Explorer (Windows) and drag and drop them in the library area of iTunes. You can also do the same thing by opening the File option in the menubar and choosing Add To Library.... From here you can browse your files and select those that you want to add to iTunes.

iTunes will typically copy these files into its own library and organize the files based on the information available in the audio track file. You can change these settings by opening iTunes Preferences and selecting the Advanced tab.

iTunes Sync

While millions of people own iPads or iPhones, not everyone knows how to get their music on their device. Follow these steps to get music synced to the device using the USB cable.

1. Connect the device to a computer using the USB sync/charge cable that came to the device. Ensure that the computer has iTunes 12 installed and running.
2. In iTunes, click on the Device Icon in the bar just below the volume slider and choose your device if more than one is listed.
3. Tap on the Music option under settings. This is where you tell iTunes what music you would like to sync to the device.
4. You will need to turn on music syncing by clicking to checkmark Sync Music.
5. Use the other checkmarks below to determine what music to send to the device. For instance, you can sync Entire music library or only Selected playlists, artists, albums and genres.
6. If you picked the latter, place a checkmark next to what you would like to sync to the device.
7. When you are finished, click on the Apply button in the lower left to start copying the music over.
8. Check that the music is on the device by launching the Music app from the home screen.

iTunes in the Cloud

If you only have to access music tracks that you've purchased from the iTunes music store, you can access those files on your device without synchronizing with a computer.

To do this, open the Settings app from your device's home screen. Select the iTunes & App Store section on the left. On the right side, turn on the Music switch under the Show All section. This will display songs in your Music library that are not actually stored on your device.

These songs are streamed from iCloud when they are played. This requires an Internet connection for playback and is not recommended for live use. To download songs to your device, find them in the Music app on your device and then tap on the cloud download icon.

Note: iTunes in the Cloud can only display music that was purchased through the iTunes Music Store. To access any music track on your computer in the same manner, you will need to use iTunes Music Match. This will allow any track in your iTunes library to be synchronized with all of your devices.

iTunes Music Match

If you need to access any track on your computer and do not want to manually synchronize with iTunes, you can opt to use iTunes Music Match.

iTunes Music Match is an optional service that costs $24.99 USD per year. When enabled in iTunes on your computer, all your audio tracks are uploaded to iCloud in a way that makes them available on any device you own. This allows you to access all tracks such as those:

• Purchased on iTunes
• Downloaded from other online services
• Ripped from CD
• Created by you

You can learn more about setting up and enabling this service on the iTunes Music Match web site.

To enable Music Match on your device, open the Settings app from your device's home screen. Select the iTunes & App Store section on the left. On the right side, turn on the Music switch under the Show All section as well as the iTunes Match switch. This will display all the songs on your computer in your device's Music library.

These songs are streamed from iCloud when they are played. This requires an Internet connection for playback and is not recommended for live use. To download songs to your device, find them in the Music app on your device and then tap on the cloud download icon.

Color Builder

The color builder is used for creating new colors as well as editing existing ones. In addition, smaller form factor devices like the iPhone or iPod touch may use the color builder directly to create or pick colors from the palette.

*When you're done picking or building a color, tap on the Done button in the upper right corner to save your changes.

The color builder is divided into these five functional areas.

Saturation/Brightness Picker

The main area of the color builder is comprised for the saturation/brightness picker. The values displayed in this two-dimensional space vary the saturation of the color horizontally and the brightness of the color vertically. Tap or drag your finger in this space to adjust these attributes based on the selected hue.

Hue Picker

The hue picker appears under the saturation/brightness picker and allows you to choose a hue. This appears as a one-dimensional slider that moves from 0-360º from red, through the rainbow and back to red.

Opacity Picker

The color picker can also specify opacity in a color. AN example of where this is used is for chord highlighting. In this case, all colors run about 50% opacity. Using the opacity picker, you can vary the transparency of the of the final color.

Tap or drag your finger up and down to move between 0-100% opacity. All of these changes effect the add swatch button in the lower right corner.

Add Swatch Button

As you make changes to the hue, saturation, brightness and opacity, the color changes appear within the builder. Most notably, it appears in an add color button in the lower right corner. You can tap this button to add the selected color to the palette.

Color Picker

The color picker for the edited palette appears below all other controls. This lets you quickly choose a preset color from the palette to edit, or you can add and arrange your palette from the builder.

Requirements

One advantage to how Console works is that no connection to the public Internet is required. OnSong Console runs directly on your device and uses WiFi to wirelessly connect to your computer. Though this is a great advantage, there are times where you still may run into some issues. Here are some requirements for using OnSong Console.

Any iOS device running OnSong 1.989

OnSong Console was first added to OnSong in version 1.989. This means that you will need to be running the latest version of OnSong to have the ability to run Console. Because Console turns your device into a web site, you will need to have your device turned on and OnSong running in order to connect.

Desktop or laptop computer

The idea with OnSong Console is to allow you to connect to the library on your device from a full size computer such as a desktop-class workstation or laptop. While these machines don't need to be overly powerful, we do recommend a modern operating system capable of running the latest web browsers. Your computer can run Windows, Mac OS X or Linux as long as it's running a supported web browser.

Connection to a local area network

You typically connect your iPad or iPhone to a WiFi network to access the Internet, or to access other resources at your location such as network printers or Smart TVs. OnSong Console is no different. The connection between your device and your computer is created because both devices are attached to the same network. Your computer can be connected to this network with a wire, or wirelessly. The requirement is that they are on the network with the same name. Your iPad or iPhone connect to the network and are assigned a unique IP Address. Think of this as a phone number that other devices use to call your device.

Network use of custom ports

This one is a little more technical but pretty easy to explain. Each device on your network can be contacted through different ports. Ports are like extensions for a phone number. You may call the main business's phone number and then can choose who your want to speak with. OnSong uses ports 5076 and 5077 to communicate with your computer. If you have trouble connecting to Console, this requirement is the most likely cause. Some network security measures like firewalls and routers with policies may block these ports or make it difficult to get through. Kind of like a cranky receptionist meets Rambo. Please refer to the Troubleshooting Guide for help.

HTML5-compatible web browser

OnSong Connect should work with most web browsers that are in use today. Inevitably there are some who may have older versions of web browsers that do not support the web standard required to use OnSong Console. We recommend that you use a current version of one of these browsers, in order of best experience:

• Apple Safari v7.x
• Google Chrome v37.x
• Mozilla Firefox v31.x
• Internet Explorer v11.x

Javascript-enabled browsing

OnSong Console is an advanced web application that requires Javascript to operate. Make sure that you do not have Javascript disabled as that will cause Console to not start up.

Setup

OnSong Console is a web-based application that runs in a web browser. It is powered by OnSong running on an iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch. This section will cover running Console and what you need to know to get up and running.

Preparing the Network

To get started, make sure both your iPad or iPhone are on the same network as your computer. This can be any name. OnSong does not set up it's own WiFi network like other devices. Instead, just make sure that you are connected to the same network as your desktop or laptop computer where you plan to use console.

Enabling Console

To enable console, open OnSong on your iPad or iPhone and choose the Utilities menu in the menubar. On and iPad, this is located by tapping on the gear icon in the upper-right corner. On an iPhone or iPod touch, this can be accessed when viewing a song. The gear icon will appear in the upper right corner of the screen.

Next, tap on the Console option in the menu. This will open the Console screen with text that explains what Console is, along with the video tutorial. You will notice an "Enable Console" button in the lower center of the screen as well as a potential price in the upper right corner. Tap on the "Enable Console" button or the price to purchase Console. Console is $9.99 USD. Once purchased, the console will be enabled. If you've already purchased Console previously, simply ensure that the console is enabled by tapping "Enable Console".

After a moment, a web address will appear under the enable/disable button. You will want to enter this web address into your web browser in order to load the Console web application. Remember to type in every part of this web address so your computer "calls" the right person... so to speak. If all is successful, you will get a splash screen containing an OnSong logo.

Granting Access

You don't want just anyone peering in on your music library. OnSong maintains a list of who may connect to your device. You'll notice a message below the logo in Console that says "allow access to this browser on the host device to connect". At the same time, you will notice an alert appear within OnSong on your device. Agree to this prompt within 30 seconds to add the device to the whitelist of allowed devices for use with OnSong Connect.

OnSong Console generates a random identifier to identify itself to OnSong. It then stores that identifier as a cookie in your web browser. That means as long as you don't use a different OnSong library, clear your cookies or use a different web browser or computer, you can continue to use that device indefinitely without needing to approve the connection each time.

If you choose to not accept the connection, OnSong will inform the web browser running Console so that it stops trying to connect. This will render OnSong incapable of accepting new connections for 5 seconds. After this time, OnSong will listen for new incoming requests to connect.

Troubleshooting

While connecting to Console should be easy, you may experience difficulty. This is because Console relies on your network setup and computer configuration, which may inadvertently be blocking access to the service running on the device. The following are things to check to resolve most of these issues:

Check your web address

Believe it or not, one of the most common issues is that the web address that was entered into the web browser is either not correct or incomplete. Be sure to type the full web address that appears in the Console screen in OnSong. The web address must start with "http://", contain four numbers separated by periods, and end with ":5076", which is the port.

If Console was working and you've connected to another network, such as traveling from work or church to your home, then you may need to check for an updated web address. This is because as your device connects to new networks, it is assigned a different IP address. OnSong 1.99 automatically switches the IP address as the networks change, but you will need to make sure you are using the most current web address as displayed in the console screen.

If you bookmark the web address, it is likely to not work in the future. This is because your network may assign a new IP address to your device in the future. Some networks will attempt to reuse the same IP address for the same device, but may need to assign a new one if there is a conflict.

Check your network

Make sure that both your computer and iOS device are connected to the same local area network. OnSong does requires a common WiFi connection to communicate between the devices.

More advanced network connections or public networks may have restrictions to prevent users from abusing the service or to maintain the user's privacy. If you are at a public location and having trouble using OnSong Connect, you may want to try a different network to see if the problem persists.

If you don't have a WiFi network available, you can also set up your iPad or iPhone to be a cellular hotspot if it has cellular capability. Remember that OnSong Console does not use the Internet, so you shouldn't receive any usage for enabling Console while connected to a cellular hotspot.

Check your firewall

One of the most common issues in connecting to Console is a computer firewall that denies access to resources in order to protect itself from possible security issues. If you are having trouble connecting to Console for the first time, go into your computer's firewall settings and temporarily disable the firewall. You can then determine if that is the issue. If this enables Console to work, be sure to grant ports 5076 and 5077 access.

Check your web browser

Console works on all modern web browsers that support the HTML5 standard and Canvas tag. You may have an older browser that won't work correctly with Console. If you are unsure, we recommend downloading and installing Google Chrome. This browser is updated often and supports all the standards required to run OnSong Console.

Disabling Console

While there's no pressing need to disable the Console, there are a few reason why you should. First, you probably don't want just anyone attempting to connect to your device. It would require them to be on the same local network as you and have the ability to guess or scan for your OnSong device, but it is possible. Turning the Console off will prevent them from connecting to you.

While very small, OnSong Console does use a few extra resources while running. On stage, a little extra battery life and performance can go a long way. That's just another reason to turn it off if you're not using it.

To disable Console, open the Console screen and tap on the button again to Disable Console. After a moment, the button will change back to Enable Console and the web address will be removed.

User Interface

Once you've loaded Console into a web browser, you're ready to get to work. Console let's you import or create songs as well as edit the songs you already have in your OnSong library on the device. This is accomplished by selecting a song, making changes in the editor, viewing in the real-time preview screen, and then saving. Let's take a look at the different areas of the Console's interface to help with each of these tasks.

Header

The top is the header which contains the OnSong logo. To the left of the logo is the name of the current song. If you have made changes to the save, a save button will appear to the right of the song title allowing you to save changes back to your OnSong library on the device. Finally, the help link is located on the far right and provides access to this web site.

Palettes

Palettes are floating windows that can be placed around the user interface. These palettes can be opened and closed using the menubar of the following panes.

Song List

The song list is displayed on the left and contains all the songs in your library. To view and edit a song, just select it from the list. This area also contains a search bar to search songs in your library as well as an add button to create new songs or import existing songs from your computer. Tapping on the + button displays the Add Songs Palette.

Song Editor

The song editor appears in the center of the screen and provides a text editor for making changes to your song. The toolbar items give you access to tools for managing your content such as the metadata, insert and text tools palettes, as well toolbars to convert text and delete the song.

Song Preview

The song preview pane displays the chord chart on the right side and is updated as it is updated in the song editor. The toolbar items allow you to turn certain features on and off such as Low Light mode, Pages mode, and follow mode. The toolbar also gives you access to additional palettes including style palette (to make changes to the look of the song) and chords palette (to transpose and capo). Lastly, you can toggle between the text and imported files with the view as menu, or export and print using the export menu and print button.

Palettes

Palettes provide the means to interact with songs and are similar to menus in the OnSong app for iOS. These palettes are opened by toggling buttons in the toolbars of the various panes in the application. Once opened, you can close and minimize the palette using the buttons in the upper-right corner of the palette titlebar.

Here is a list of all the palettes used in Console:

Add Songs Palette

The add songs palette is opened in the Song List pane and is used to create new songs or import files.

Metadata Palette

Provides fields that can be set to write the metadata of each song in the proper format. This is similar in function to the Metadata Editor found in the Song Editor.

Insert Palette

Provides buttons to insert chords and sections, as well as line formatting characters without needing to know the OnSong file format codes.

Text Tools Palette

Provides tools like search and replace, as well as the ability to toggle between chord formats similar to the Text Tools Menu in the Song Editor.

Style Palette

Enables you to customize the look of the song in a way similar to the Style Preferences Menu.

Chords Palette

Gives you options for transposing and capoing chords, as well as controlling how chords and diagrams appear on the screen. This is similar to the bottom of the Style Preferences Menu.

Add Songs Palette

The add songs palette is used to either create a new song completely within the Console, or to upload Supported Files to create songs.

Create New

This section of the palette allows you to type an optional song title and artist name. You can then click on one of the buttons to create the song and open it in the Song Editor.

• Create OnSong creates an OnSong-formatted file with the optional song title and artist name.
• Create ChordPro creates a ChordPro-formatted file with the optional song title and artist name.

Import Files

This area of the palette allows you to import one or more files at once into OnSong. Click on the Select files... button to open a file chooser window. Browse and select a file to import. Use the shift, command and control keys on your keyboard to select more than one file to import.

When you are all done, click on the Choose button in the window. Console will automatically upload and import those files into your library and show you the import status below the Select files... button. You can then close the palette to continue editing.

Insert Palette

The insert palette is used to insert chords, line formatting, and section labels into a song. Position the text cursor where you would like to insert chords or on the line where you'd like to apply line formatting.

Chords

As you write new chords in the text editor, they will appear here. Position the text cursor where you would like to insert the chord and then click on a button to insert the chord in that location. Position of the cursor differs for each chord format:

• Bracketed Chords requires the cursor to be placed within lyrics where you would like the chord to be played.
• Chords Over Lyrics requires the cursor to be placed above lyrics and positioned above lyrics using spaces.

Font Style

Click on a color to insert color codes at the front of the line. You can also toggle the bold and italic buttons to insert those line formatting codes as well.

Highlighting

Click on a color to add highlighting line formatting code to the front of the line. The white option will remove the code.

Labels

Common section labels appear in this section. Tap on one to name the current section.

Metadata Palette

The metadata palette automatically updates its fields as you select songs in the Song List. Change the contents of the fields to have OnSong update the metadata section of your song. This palette includes these fields:

Song Title

The title of the song.

Artist

The name of the artist or the byline to output under the song title.

Number

A number used to lookup the song in numbered music collections like hymnals.

Keywords

Keywords or topics to enter for the song. This is used in the By Topic tab in the Songs Menu.

Key

This sets the key of the song. If the key had been already set and there are chords in the song, this will also rewrite the chords of the song into that key.

You can also change the mode of the key to minor by clicking on the "m" button on the right side. The song contents are not rewriting when toggling between major and minor keys.

Capo

Sets the recommended capo level for the song.

Tempo

Set the tempo using this slider. Remember that you can click on the arrows to the left and right of the sliders to fine-tune adjust the values.

Time Signature

Click on a button that represents the time signature of the song to be written in the metadata section. If you do not want a time signature outputted, click on a selected time signature again to remove it. If the time signature you need is not in the list, congratulations on your rhythmic genius. Because of your skills, you'll just need to write the time signature yourself.

Duration

This is the time duration of the song. Set this to a default to enable autoscrolling with the approximate speed. This can be expressed as hh:mm:ss or numeric seconds.

Flow

This is the flow of the song used to arrange the parts of the song into a top-down fashion. Please see Flow for more details.

Copyright

This is the copyright line of the music. This will appear at the bottom of chord charts as well as in lyrics projection.

CCLI Song

This is the unique identifier for registering the song with CCLI SongSelect reporting. This will appear at the bottom of the chord chart on screen as well as at the bottom of lyrics projection.

Restrictions

These are a list of restrictions that are used to limit what recipients of the song can do with it. Please see Restrictions for a list of possible options.

Text Tools Palette

The text tools palette is used to perform operations on the text content of the song. This can help you change text quickly or switch and fix chord formatting.

Search and Replace

This section of the text tools palette is used to search and replace text in the Text Editor. This is useful for replacing words or chords when using bracketed chords. For instance, you can change all instances of [A4] to [Asus4].

To use, type the search value in the first field and the replace value in the second field. Then press the Perform Search/Replace button to perform the operation.

Chord Format

This section includes toggle buttons that allow you to switch between the two supported formats. If there are any square brackets located in the song content, the Bracketed Chords button is selected. Otherwise the Chords Over Lyrics button is selected. Press the opposite button to reformat the text content into the desired chord format.

It is useful to switch the bracketed chords when splitting or combining lines. This is because the chords will travel with the lyrics in this case. You can then switch to chords over lyrics if you would like to position chords in a more visual manner.

Fix Spaces

This section provides a single-use tool for correcting issues that may occur when converting text from a word processor. You may find that chords are pushed to the right and beyond the lyrics they used to reside over. This is due to variable-width fonts that require many more space characters to align chords above lyrics.

Press the Fix Alignment Spaces button to have chords detected and the space between the chords reduced by a specific amount. This usually will align the chords very close to their original positions when viewed in a word processor or printed. From there you can more easily adjust the chord positions.

Chords Palette

The chords palette provides tools for changing how chords appear in the chord chart. This affects both transposition, appearance, and chord diagrams.

Style

Typically chord charts use alphabetic characters to define chords. OnSong can convert alphabetic chords into numeric ones to better suit musicians that play using a number system. The selected style is highlighted. Choose from one of the following chord styles:

• Alphabet uses letters A-G with sharps and flats to indicate precisely what chord should be played. If using different chord localizations, this may also include an H. Default.
• Nashville uses a decimal numbering system which indicates the chord number based on the root chord of the key. In addition, this method uses symbols for different chord variations.
• Roman uses upper and lowercase Roman numerals for chords. Major chords are represented in uppercase while minor chords are lowercase. Symbols are also used to indicate different modes such as a minus symbol for minor.
• Italian uses do, re, mi, fa, so, la, ti, do instead of numbers. Symbols are used to indicate different modes such as a minus for minor.

Transpose

Use this slider to transpose the song to any key. The key of C is placed on the far left and the key of Cb is on the far right. You can use the arrow keys to make fine-tune adjustments the key you would like to pick.

The power icon on the right turns transposition on and off. If turned off, and if no capo is applied, then no transposition is performed. This will display chords just as they appear in the Song Editor.

Capo

This slider allows you to apply a capo to the song. Slide from 0 to 11. This will modulate the chords of the song down to maintain the key of the song when a capo is applied. You can change the direction of this modulation in Settings » Display Settings » Song Formatting » Capo » Capo Modulates

You can turn the application of the capo on and off using the power icon on the right side. This allows you to maintain a capo and determine if you want to apply it or not depending on the instrument you are playing.

Diagrams

This section of the chords palette is used to toggle the chord diagram display on and off. Use the slider to adjust how many diagrams appear across the page. You can select a number between 4 and 10. Use the power icon on the right to toggle the visibility of chord diagrams on and off.

You can change how and where chord diagram appear in Settings » Display Settings » Song Formatting » Chord Diagrams.

Instrument

This section allows you to select the instrument to use when displaying chords. The selected instrument is highlighted. Choose a different instrument to have the chord diagrams change to the selected instrument.

Note: Making changes in this palette does not affect the song content but is applied in addition to the original song.

Style Palette

The style palette is used to change the way the chord chart looks in the Song Preview Pane. Use this to change the font, size, visibility, and color of different parts of the chord chart.

Font

This section contains toggle buttons that allow you to choose the typeface in which your chord chart should appear. Press the font button to make a change. The current font selection is highlighted.

Title

This slider allows you to the change the size and visibility of the title of the song. Slide to the left or right to decrease or increase the font size. The point size of the font is displayed as you adjust this. You can also click on the arrow buttons to the left and right to fine-tune adjust the amount. Tap on the power icon on the right to toggle visibility of the title on and off.

Metadata

This slider allows you to the change the size and visibility of metadata of the song. This includes the artist name, key, capo, tempo, and time signature.

Slide to the left or right to decrease or increase the font size. The point size of the font is displayed as you adjust this. You can also click on the arrow buttons to the left and right to fine-tune adjust the amount. Tap on the power icon on the right to toggle visibility of metadata on and off.

Lyrics

This slider allows you to the change the size and visibility lyrics in the song. Lyrics comprise all content in the song other than chords such as musical instruction, section labels, etc.

Slide to the left or right to decrease or increase the font size. The point size of the font is displayed as you adjust this. You can also click on the arrow buttons to the left and right to fine-tune adjust the amount. Tap on the power icon on the right to toggle visibility of lyrics on and off.

Chords

This slider allows you to the change the size and visibility of chords that appear above or within lyrics. Chords are detected in the song or have been surrounded with square brackets.

Slide to the left or right to decrease or increase the font size. The point size of the font is displayed as you adjust this. You can also click on the arrow buttons to the left and right to fine-tune adjust the amount. Tap on the power icon on the right to toggle visibility of chords on and off.

Line Spacing

This slider is used to adjust the spacing between text in the chord chart. Slide to the left or right to decrease or increase the line spacing. You can use the arrow buttons to the left and right to fine-tune adjust the amount.

Chord Highlight

You can choose the highlight chords in your chord chart using this color picker. Click on the color of the highlight you desire. It will display under the chord in 50% opacity, just like a highlighter. Choosing the white color option removes the highlight.

Chord Color

This section allows you to change the color of the chords as well as their appearance. Click on a color in the color picker to change the color of the chord text. Choosing black uses the default text color which is black or white depending on the selected low light mode.

You can also toggle italic and bold appearance on and off for the chords as needed for extra visibility.

Song List

The song list appears in the left-most pane of the web app and is used for finding and selecting songs to view and edit. Use one of the following to add, import, or edit songs:

Add Button

The + button in the upper left corner of this pane opens the Add Songs Palette. From here you can create new songs or import songs that are stored on your computer.

Search Bar

The search bar gives you an area to type keywords. Press enter on your computer keyboard to filter the list by those keywords. You can then clear the search field to view all songs again.

Song List

The majority of this pane displays a table of songs. Three columns provide common information for browsing songs including:

• Icon column displays an icon that was picked from the Organizer Menu. You can sort songs by this attribute by clicking the table header in the column.
• Song Title displays the name of the song. You can sort the list by song title by clicking on the column header. The song list is sorted by the song title by default.
• Key displays the key of the song if one is provided. Clicking on the table header above this column will sort the songs by key.

Click on a song to load it into Console. The song's contents will appear in the Song Editor and the song will be previewed in the Preview Pane.

Song Editor

The song editor contains tools and a large text area used to change the text-based content of the song.

The text editor component of this pane allows you to type content using the full-sized keyboard of your computer. As you type, the changes you make are reflected in the Preview Pane on the right. This gives you feedback on what the song will look like to avoid trial and error.

In addition to typing content in the text editor, you can also use palettes accessible from the toolbar to get the song looking just right. The toolbar buttons include:

Metadata

This toolbar button toggles the Metadata Palette on and off. Use this to set information about the song without knowing OnSong or ChordPro tags.

Insert

This toolbar button toggles the Insert Palette on and off. Use this palette to insert chords, section labels, and line formatting into the text editor.

Text Tools

This toolbar button toggles the Text Tools Palette on and off. Use this to change the formatting of the song or perform search and replace functions.

Delete

Click on this toolbar button to delete the song from your library. When you choose this option, you will be prompted prior to the song being deleted.

Convert

When you've imported a convertible file such as PDF or Microsoft Word, this option becomes enabled. Click on this to begin the conversion process on the host device. Once completed, the text editor is updated with the newly converted text.

Song Preview

The song preview pane displays how the song will look inside of OnSong. This uses the HTML 5 canvas tag to draw the song just the way OnSong does. You can scroll this pane to view the entire song. Use the toolbar to toggle features and palettes on and off.

Note: If you are viewing a file that is not text-based, it is up to the web browser if and how the file will be displayed. Most web browsers can view PDF files in a browser window, but other documents such as Microsoft Word will be downloaded to your computer for viewing in a separate application.

Low Light

Click on this button to toggle low light mode on and off. Not only does this show you how the chord chart will look in the preview, but when you save your changes the host device will also switch to low light mode too.

Pages

Click on this button to toggle viewing the chord chart on physical pages. This will divide your song based on the Page Layout options you've set in settings. This can give you an idea of how the chord chart will print.

Lead

When you turn on lead, action you make in Console like changing songs, scrolling and selecting sections also take place on the host device. This allows Console to remotely control another iPad, iPhone or iPod touch.

Follow

When you turn on follow, Console will load the currently viewed song on the host device. In addition, the screen will scroll along with any changes made on the host device. This is handy for knowing the song that is loaded on the device.

Style

This opens and closes the Style Palette, allowing you to style how the song should appear in the preview and on the device.

Chords

This opens and closes the Chords Palette so you can transpose, capo, and change the way chords and diagrams appear on the screen.

View As...

When viewing external files such as a PDF, this will display the PDF in the preview pane. You can switch between that and the text-based version of the song similar to the Use the imported file instead of OnSong switch in the Conversion Toolbar of the Song Editor.

Download

Click on the down arrow to choose a format to download the chord chart in. This will use the host device to create the file so be sure to save your changes first.

Print

Click on the print button to have the host device generate the print-ready PDF file and print it from your computer. This will prompt you to save your changes before printing.

Download Menu

When you click on the down arrow next to the download toolbar button, you can choose one of the following formats to download to your computer.

• Adobe PDF
• ChordPro
• HTML
• OnSong
• OpenSong
• Text File

Note: This uses the host device to generate the content so you will be prompted to save any changes prior to the file being generated.

Header

The header portion of the console interface appears at the top of the browser window. This contains the following elements:

OnSong Logo

The OnSong logo appears on the left side of the header to visually reinforce the web app. In addition, this logo's glow will pulse subtly when network operations are occurring.

Song Title

The song title appears prominently and changes as you select a different song in the Song List.

Save Button

The save button will appear once you've made a change in the Song Editor or in one of the palettes.

Lyrics Projection Button

Tapping on the lyrics projection button will open a new window suitable for running lyrics projection from within a web browser on a remote machine.

Help Link

This will link to the Console help web page on the OnSong web site.

Lyrics Projection

Tapping on the lyrics projection button in the Console will open a new window that displays the configured background and lyrics. This allows you to display lyrics from a remote computer and operate it with OnSong running on an iOS device, or through the console if the leading is enabled.

Full Screen Mode

Drag the window to the external screen you'd like to target and click in the body of the window. This will cause the window to enter full screen mode. You can then press ESC on the keyboard to exit full screen mode. Keep in mind that full screen mode acts differently depending on your browser and platform.

Navigation

When the lyrics window is enabled, you can use the arrow keys on the keyboard to move between sections.

Background and Styles

Currently all changes to the look of the lyrics projection must be performed through the External Video Menu from inside the host device.

Frequently Asked Questions

Here are some questions that you may have before purchasing, or when using OnSong Console.

Does Console work on Windows or just Mac?

OnSong Console works on both Windows and Mac, and most likely Linux too. It just requires a modern web browser that supports the HTML 5 and CSS 3 web standards.

Do I need to purchase Console for every device I own?

No. As long as you are using the same Apple ID to access the App Store, you only need to pay once. In addition OnSong Console is included in an OnSong Premium subscription. You may need to make sure you are signed in with your account or restore past purchases otherwise.

My computer is wired to my network, but my iPad is wireless. Will Console still work?

Yes. As long as both devices are on the same computer network, a wired connection or wireless shouldn't matter.

Both my devices are on the same network but I only get a blank screen in my web browser. Why?

OnSong Console works by turning your iPad or iPhone into a mini web server which may not be appreciated by some networks. Please try the following if you are having trouble connecting to Console:

1. Ensure that your iPad or iPhone is on and OnSong is running. Console requires OnSong to be running in order to communicate.
2. Disable and enable Console from the Console screen in the Utilities menu, or restart your iPad. In some cases, the web address that is shown may not be correct, especially when switching between networks.
3. Make sure you are typing in the web address correctly. You must add the http:// before the four-part number called an IP address, and include the colon with the port number (5076).
4. Some corporate networks do not permit other services to be running. Check with your IT staff to see if you are allowed to run console in that environment. OnSong Console operates on ports 5076 and 5077. Some networks may block traffic on these ports. Log into your router and be sure to allow these ports to be active on the network. Some corporate networks do not permit other services to be running. Check with your IT staff to see if you are allowed to run console in that environment.
5. If you are running a firewall on the computer, temporarily disable it to make sure that it is not inhibiting traffic.
6. Try a different network to see if that helps resolved the issue.

Can I use my iPhone or iPad hotspot connection instead of a WiFi access point to use Console?

Yes. Turn on the hotspot in your device's Settings screen and use the WiFi option. Bluetooth or USB will not work. Connect your computer to the hotspot network, and connect your device if it is not already the hotspot. Keep in mind that some carrier may charge you for hotspot connectivity.

My Console screen is telling me to type in 127.0.0.1:5076 and it doesn't work. Any ideas?

127.0.0.1 is essentially the iPad or iPhone referring to itself and is caused by the network IP address not being able to be resolved. Go into the Console screen and disable and enable the console again to see if that refreshes to a different web address. You can also go into the Share menu » Connect » Servers and use the IP address found under your device's name.

What web browsers does Console work with?

OnSong Console is an HTML 5, web-based application. This means that it works on modern web browsers such as the latest versions of Chrome, Safari, Firefox and Internet Explorer. Different browsers have their quirks and we are continuing to refine around these. Older versions of Internet Explorer will definitely have some issues.

I'm getting just the opening screen with the OnSong logo and it gets stuck. Why?

OnSong Console requires Javascript to be enabled in order to communicate with your device. Make sure that Javascript is enabled in your web browser's preferences and that no additional security plugins are preventing Javascript from operating.

Supported Foot Pedals

The following is a list of foot pedals supported by OnSong.

AirTurn

AirTurn makes some of the premier foot pedals for musical applications. Musicians trust these foot pedals for their ease of use and reliability.

• PED is the latest member of the AirTurn family and is a cost-effective, all-in-one device that covers most needs.
• BT-105 Duo is the original design that covers most needs and is flexible for future expansion.
• BT-105 Quad is just what you need if you need a lot of foot pedals in a convenient package.

BiliPro

BiLiPro develops innovative peripherals for controlling your computer with your feet.

• Page Turn was originally designed for use persons with physical disabilities, but is useful for wired hands-free scenarios.

IK Multimedia

IK Multimedia is an industry leader in products for making music on mobile platforms.

• iRig Blueboard is a wireless MIDI foot switch that is useful for a number of operations.

Griffin

Griffin makes great products for your mobile lifestyle.

• Stompbox gives you real guitar stomp box feel in a single, wired package at an incredibly affordable price.

PageFlip

PageFlip makes two foot pedals to meet the needs to musicians.

• Cicada is the basic, two-pedal page turner.
• Firefly provides LED lights to light the way.

Griffin Stompbox

The Griffin Stompbox is a solid, wired foot pedal with a real stomp box pedal feel. In addition to four stomp buttons, it includes a 1/4" input jack for an optional expression pedal.

The Stompbox connects to your iPad or iPhone with a 30-pin dock connector. For newer Lightning port devices, you will need to use a Lightning to 30-pin Adapter.

OnSong lets you choose different actions for each foot pedal using the Foot Pedal Setup Screen. Just be sure to swipe to the Griffin Stompbox screen to enable the Stompbox and configure the buttons and expression pedal.

LIFX

Philips hue

Advanced Audio Coding

Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) is an audio coding standard for lossy digital audio compression. Designed to be the successor of the MP3 format, AAC generally achieves better sound quality than MP3 at similar bit rates. This is the native audio format for iOS devices.

When you import audio files directly into OnSong, they are added to your OnSong audio media library where you can link them to chord charts as backing tracks.

Audio Interchange File Format

Audio Interchange File Format (AIFF) is an audio file format standard used for storing sound data. AIFF files are typically uncompressed resulting in large file sizes but without lossy compression for higher quality sound output.

When you import audio files directly into OnSong, they are added to your OnSong audio media library where you can link them to chord charts as backing tracks.

FLAC

FLAC stands for Free Lossless Audio Codec which is an audio coding format for lossless compression of digital audio, and is also the name of the free software project producing the FLAC tools, the reference software package that includes a codec implementation. Digital audio compressed by FLAC's algorithm can typically be reduced to between 50 and 70 percent of its original size and decompress to an identical copy of the original audio data.

FLAC is supported in OnSong on iOS versions that support the codec which appear to be iOS 11 and higher only.

HTML

The Hypertext Markup Language or HTML is what is used to create web pages that you browse on the Internet. In some cases you may save chord charts as HTML files that can then be imported into OnSong. OnSong can view these files using the built-in viewer and can also convert these files into text. The quality of the conversion depends on how the HTML file was authored. For instance, you may receive navigation or hidden text from the conversion.

JPEG

If you have lots of paper chord charts, you may opt to scan those documents into a digital form. One method you could save files is as a JPEG image. You could also use JPEG images for lyrics projection backgrounds. OnSong can import both file types and determines their use automatically.

About

JPEG images are typically used for photography since the compression algorithm can be used without noticeable loss of quality. However, as the compression is increased, the artifacts may become apparent and the image may blur and lose quality as a result. OnSong can read JPEG files, but it may not display properly depending on size and complexity of the image. OnSong recommends a scan setting of 100 DPI greyscale if you intend to use scanned paper documents in OnSong. Since a chord chart may span more than one page, you may choose to scan as a PDF document.

Scanned Chord Charts

If the image is in a portrait orientation, or if the scan is landscape and the average color of all four corners has an average brightness greater than 93%, then the image is considered a chord chart.

Lyrics Projection Backgrounds

If the image is in the landscape orientation and not consider to be a paper scan, then the image is imported into your image media library. You can then use that background in the External Video Menu using the Background Image Picker toggle button.

Microsoft Word

Microsoft Word is one of the most popular word processing applications available. You may have many chord charts available in that format. OnSong can read, view, and convert both the older DOC file format as well as the newer DOCX format.

To learn more about Microsoft Word, please visit http://office.microsoft.com/word.

Converting

Word processing files can be challenging to convert into text-based chord charts. This is because files are often written in variable-width fonts that make a space character much narrower than other characters. While this is easier on the eye while reading, it can cause the author of the chord chart to use many more spaces to align chords on lines above lyrics. Other word processor specific features (like tabs or text boxes) may also have been used making the alignment of chords difficult because both of these layout tools are not used in text-based file formats.

You will usually need to adjust chords after converting them to text. OnSong provides various tools to assist with this process. Please see the Text Tools Menu for details.

Viewing

Word files are viewed "as-is" using the built-in web viewer of iOS. This means that any issues regarding the viewing of these files is related to how iOS interprets them. For instance, some users have reported formatting or font changes when viewed on an iPad versus Microsoft Word. OnSong has no way to correct these rendering issues as the file format is relatively closed and display of the file is handled by iOS.

Another common issue is found when viewing DOCX files in Word. There appears to be a bug in iOS 7 and higher that may cause a crash when more than one DOCX file is loaded concurrently. OnSong takes steps to limit this behavior and avoid the crash condition.

MIDI Files

MIDI files contain up to 16 channels of MIDI commands and are written in such a way to support playback of those songs on a MIDI-compatible instrument. OnSong supports MIDI files as backing tracks in OnSong which can be linked to chord charts and played. This allows synthesizer apps as well as virtual and MIDI-enabled instruments to playback the MIDI stream. You can also use this to configure more advanced MIDI commands to be sent for configuration when a song loads or when you trigger playback.

When you import audio files directly into OnSong, they are added to your OnSong audio media library where you can link them to chord charts as backing tracks.

MP3

When OnSong imports MP3 files, it actually does a few things. If the MP3 file contains lyrics, it creates a chord chart based on the attributes of the song and its lyrics.

The MP3 file is then importing into the OnSong audio media library and optionally associated with the created chord chart. This allows you to bypass using iTunes to synchronize audio tracks for linking chord charts to backing tracks.

MPEG-4 Audio

The M4A file type is primarily associated with 'MPEG-4 Audio Layer'. Files in .M4A format are actually the audio layer of (non-video) MPEG 4 movies. M4A is slated to become the new standard for audio file compression. This format is also known as Apple Lossless, Apple Lossless Encoder, or ALE. It is a new codec designed to provide lossless encoding in less storage space.

When you import audio files directly into OnSong, they are added to your OnSong audio media library where you can link them to chord charts as backing tracks.

MPEG-4 Video

M4V and MP4 files contain MPEG-4 video streams. OnSong imports video files directly in your OnSong image media library allowing your to set the background image or motion graphics in Lyrics Projection.

Video files should be 720p or 1080p for best quality and support looping for seamless motion backgrounds.

OnSong Archive

The OnSong Archive file format is used internally by OnSong to transfer a song, collections of songs, or an entire set. It includes all the information required to restore this information in another OnSong library including the song content, attachments, styles, settings, transposition, and annotations. This file is intended to be imported and exported from OnSong and cannot be easily read with other software.

The OnSong Archive file format has a file extension of either .archive or .onsongarchive.

OnSong File Format

The OnSong file format is a text file that is written in a way to give a song musical meaning. It typically has a .onsong file extension, although OnSong understands any type of plain text file and can render it as an OnSong-formatted file. This format uses special characters to attribute meaning to different parts of a song.

Apps for Editing Plain Text

The first thing to know is that an OnSong file is a plain text document. This makes it very easy to edit on any platform with included software.

• On OS X open TextEdit from your Applications folder. TextEdit is a general purpose word processing program that can also edit plain text files. Be sure to switch to plain text by choose Make Plain Text from the Format menu.
• On Windows open the Notepad application from the Start menu.

To follow along with the rest of this tutorial, download this Example OnSong File and open it in your application of choice.

Sections

The first thing to know about the OnSong file format is that it can be divided into sections. Sections are typically used to divide verses from the chorus or bridge. They can also be used to divide a verse into two separate stanzas for lyrics projection, or to make things easier to read. You can even label sections if desired.

Metadata

Metadata is information about the song which is always contained in the first section. Typically these are provided in name/value pairs separated by a colon, each being placed on its own line. You can also set the title and artist of the song as the first and second lines in the file.

Chords and Lyrics

Chords are placed to align with certain words or phrases. OnSong supports two kinds of chord formatting: Bracketed Chords and Chords Over Lyrics.

ChordPro

While the OnSong format does much of what you need in a chord chart, the ChordPro format has a few other tricks up its sleeve. You can use ChordPro syntax interchangeably for advanced options.

Line Formatting

Want to bold or highlight a line of lyrics? OnSong uses special characters to format your chord chart for harmony parts, or to make things stand out.

Pages

You can now define separate pages in your chord chart which can be used to force page breaks for printing.

Verse 1:
This is the end of the first verse.
Just before we start the second one.

----

Verse 2:
This is the second verse now,
And then we are done.

Verse 1:
Amazing [D]Grace, how [G]sweet the [D]sound,
That saved a wretch like [A7]me.
I on[D]ce was lost, but [G]now am [D]found,
Was blind, but [A7]now I [D]see.

Verse 1:
        D           G        D
Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound,
                         A7
That saved a wretch like me.
  D                  G      D
I once was lost, but now am found,
               A7    D
Was blind, but now I see.

.I Am Chords
`I Am Also

# This line will not appear in the song viewer, only in the song editor.

Line Formatting

Line formatting in OnSong lets you add characters to your lines in the song editor to apply basic formatting in your song viewer.

To do this, choose a song and open the song editor by tapping the pen icon in the menubar. You can then place special characters in front of lines to add formatting like this:

*This line will be bold
/This line will be italicized
!This line will be bold and italicized
&red:This text will be red
𞉀:This text will be a custom color using HTML color codes
>yellow:This line will be highlighted in yellow

If you want to use a custom color code, note that it starts an a # symbol. This is a hexadecimal representation of color used on web pages. Use a color picker website to compose colors and then type the 6 characters into this area in your OnSong document.

You can even also combine these line formatting commands for more complex scenarios.

Color Names

Line formatting can change the text color or the highlight color. You can use named colors to achieve this. Here is a line of named colors you can use:

Standard Colors

The standard named color can be used.

• black
• blue
• brown
• clear
• cyan
• darkGray
• gray
• green
• lightGray
• magenta
• orange
• pink
• purple
• red
• white
• yellow

Special Colors

The following are special colors that can be used:

• onsong is a bright teal color that matches the OnSong brand.
• paper is the color of the current paper background color.

Color Code

You can use custom colors in line formatting using the HTML color code syntax. This requires a hexadecimal value preceded by a pound sign. This is an example of using a custom color:

>#00C6B3:This line will be highlighted in teal

HTML color codes divide a color into three parts: red, green and blue. Every two characters of the color code represents the amount of color to be applied. Colors are 24 bit which results in more than 16.7 million color combinations which far exceeds the eye's ability to perceive a difference in those colors. Each component is 8 bits which results in a value from 0 through 255.

Hexadecimal encoding uses numbers and the alphabetic letters A through F to represent numbers. A through F represent decimal values 10 through 15. Using this method, 0-255 can be represented in two characters. The first character in the two-character sequence represent 0-15 multiplied by 16. The second character is added to that in the range of 0-15.

In the example above, 00 is simply a red value of 0. That was easy, right? The value C6 is C or the decimal value 12 multiplied by 16 which results in 192 and then 6 is added to that for a final value of 198. Likewise, B3 is the value of B or 11 multiplied by 16 which results in 176 and then the 3 is added to that for 179. Thus, the RGB (red, green, blue) values are 0, 198 and 179.

Now that you know how to do this, you may be happy to know that there are utilities available to help you pick colors and give you that HTML color code without all the mental gymnastics. We recommend colorpicker.com to help you blend colors and use the resulting HTML color code.

Amazing Grace
Daniel Thomas
Key: D
Tempo: 76

Lyrics and chords start here...

Flow: V1 C V2 C C B C C

Flow: Verse 1, Chorus, Verse 2, Chorus, Chorus, Bridge, Chorus, Chorus

Flow: Verse 1, Chorus, Verse 2, Chorus, (Repeat 2x), ----, Bridge, Chorus, (Repeat 2x)

1.2:0@0, PC1.2:3@0, N67@1, START, SS8

PC3.1:7@0, 3.1:7@0, 3:7@0, 3:7, 7@0, 7

CC105:63@2, CC105:63. CC105@2, CC105

N60:95@7, N60@7, N60:95, N60

Restrictions: Print, Export, Distribute

OpenSong

This format is used by a variety of open source lyrics and music programs. It stores metadata in XML and lyrics/chords as plain text. Chord lines are delineated by a period at the beginning of the line. The file extension is (.xml)

Other

OnSong can display any type of file that iOS can display in the built-in web viewer. We cannot guarantee the usability of these formats beyond that. For instance, you could import a Microsoft PowerPoint presentation which may view slides vertically. This may not be what you expect. Please use a supported file format for better results or a text-based chord chart for best results.

Plain Text

OnSong can import plain text files just as it would OnSong or ChordPro files. In fact, all of these files are treated as the text-based chord chart and editable in the Song Editor. This means that you can write your songs with a .txt file extension and OnSong will recognize the file as either:

OnSong File Format

The OnSong file format is the native text-based chord chart format of OnSong that uses simple text and human-readable syntax to create chord charts.

ChordPro File Format

The ChordPro file format is used by other applications and has a syntax similar to the OnSong file format. Instead of using reader-friendly syntax, it uses curly braces to define "tags". These tags provide information about the song structure.

Portable Network Graphics (PNG)

Portable Network Graphic or PNG files are used to replace older graphic image formats on the web. They are becoming more common in new devices because of their higher quality, lossless compression, and are not encumbered by third-party royalty fees.

About

While OnSong can read PNG files, it may not display properly depending on size and complexity of the image. OnSong recommends a scan setting of 100 DPI greyscale if you intend to use scanned paper documents in OnSong. Since a chord chart may span more than one page, you may choose to scan as a PDF document for better results.

Scanned Chord Charts

If the image is in a portrait orientation, or if the scan is landscape and the average color of all four corners has an average brightness greater than 93%, then the image is considered a chord chart.

Lyrics Projection Backgrounds

If the image is in the landscape orientation and not consider to be a paper scan, then the image is imported into your image media library. You can then use that background in the External Video Menu using the Background Image Picker toggle button.

QuickTime Movie

A powerful multimedia technology with a built-in media player, QuickTime lets you view internet video, HD movie trailers, and personal media in a wide range of file formats. OnSong supports QuickTime video that is supported by iOS and has the .mov file extension.

OnSong imports video files directly in your OnSong image media library allowing your to set the background image or motion graphics in Lyrics Projection. Video files should be 720p or 1080p for best quality and support looping for seamless motion backgrounds.

Rich Text File

The Rich Text Format, or RTF for short, is an interchange format created by Microsoft and understood by many types of word processing applications. OnSong can read, view, and convert RTF files to text.

To learn more about the Rich Text Format, please visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rich_Text_Format.

SongSelect USR

SongSelect USR is a file format used for transferring lyrics in file form. OnSong will import this file format and convert it into the OnSong file format for internal use and editing.

SongShowPlus

SongShowPlus is lyrics projection software for Microsoft Windows. OnSong can read and automatically convert files exported in the SongShowPlus file format.

To learn more about SongShowPlus, please visit their website at http://songshowplus.com.

System Exclusive Files

System Exclusive MIDI is a way to send raw data to devices and is used for more complex MIDI configurations. These are normally written as hexadecimal text that begins with the characters "F0". SysEx messages are non-channel specific MIDI that is broadcast so that compatible devices can receive the information and act accordingly.

These files can be started as raw data or hexadecimal text files with the *.sysex or *.syx file extension. When imported, OnSong will automatically create a MIDI Global using the file name as the global name and tag.

TIFF

The Tagged Image File Format or TIFF is commonly used in scanning and desktop publishing applications due to it's scope of compression options. OnSong can view TIFF images, but it may not display properly depending on size and complexity of the image. OnSong recommends a scan setting of 100 DPI greyscale if you intend to use scanned paper documents in OnSong. Since a chord chart may span more than one page, you may choose to scan as a PDF document for better results.

Waveform Audio File Format

Waveform Audio File Format (WAVE, or more commonly known as WAV due to its filename extension) is a Microsoft and IBM audio file format standard for storing an audio bitstream on PCs. It is the main format used on Windows systems for raw and typically uncompressed audio.

When you import audio files directly into OnSong, they are added to your OnSong audio media library where you can link them to chord charts as backing tracks.

Adobe PDF

Adobe PDF files are commonly used as digital versions of paper documents. The PDF format faithfully reproduces the printed page. OnSong can view PDF files, vertically scrolling through multiple pages. OnSong expects each song to be contained in a single PDF file.

While PDF files maintain how a document should look, they can sacrifice meaningful text to do that. For instance, some PDF documents do not contain textural content but rather shapes and images. While this may appear as text to the human eye, it can be very difficult to extract from the document. OnSong attempts to do this when converting to text. If sufficient text cannot be extracted, OnSong will upload the document to an optical character recognition service (OCR) that will attempt to read the document using computer algorithms. This can have varying results depending on the original document.

For more information about PDF files, please visit the Adobe website at http://www.adobe.com/pdf.

Apple Pages

Pages is a word processing program available on the Mac OS X as well as on iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch. You can view Pages documents in OnSong as well as convert them to text.

For more information about Pages, please visit the website at http://www.apple.com/iwork/pages.

Note: Recently Apple has updated their iWork suite which has changed the file format used by Pages and other apps. This change has reversed platform compatibility, making the use of these files much more difficult outside of their native applications. OnSong no longer fully supports viewing or conversion of Pages 5.x files due to changes in the file format.

ChordPro

The ChordPro file format is a common format used in other software applications. OnSong understands this format natively. OnSong recognizes files with the following file extensions: .chordpro, .chopro, .cho, .crd, .pro

The ChordPro format allows for song information to be expressed in tags delineated by curly braces. This information can be logically divided into metadata tags and inline tags.

Metadata Tags

These are ChordPro tags that you would use in the metadata portion of the song.

• {title:} or {t:} The title of the song.
• {subtitle:}, {st:} or {su:} The artist name or any other byline information. You can specify multiple artists by separating names with a semi-colon. - Kim Walker-Smith; Chris Quilala
• {album:} The name of the album where the song is located.
• {artist:} or a: The artist name or any other byline information. You can specify multiple artists by separating names with a semi-colon. - Kim Walker-Smith; Chris Quilala
• {author:} The name of the person who created the chord chart. This is displayed at the bottom of the chord chart and in lyrics projection.
• {key:} or {k:} The key of the song written as a key with enharmonic preference and an optional "m" to indicate minor. - alphabetic, e.g. Bb or Em
• {capo:} The capo to set as number of frets - numeric
• {tempo:} The beats per minute (BPM) - numeric
• {time:} The time signature - numeric beat over bar e.g. 3/4
• {duration:} The song length for autoscroll - seconds or mm:ss
• {book:} The name of the book or books to place the song into. This is a comma-delimited list of book names into which the song will be placed. If the book does not exist, it will be automatically created.
• {number:} The number of the song - numeric, use for hymns, years, etc. You can sort songs by the number for reference.
• {flow:} The arrangement of sections - list of section labels. See Flow for details on arranging the flow of a song.
• {midi:} The MIDI commands to send when the song is viewed. See MIDI Syntax for how to express MIDI commands as text in OnSong.
• {midi-index:} The MIDI commands that will trigger this song to be opened in the Song Viewer. See MIDI Syntax for how to express MIDI commands as text in OnSong.
• {pitch:} The notes to play when using the Pitch Pipe feature.
• {keywords:} or {topic:} The list of tags to use with topic search. See Topics for more information on browsing by topic.
• {copyright:} or {footer:} Specifies copyright footer text to appear at the bottom of the page or lyrics projection.
• {ccli:} The CCLI number of the song.
• {restrictions:} The rights management for the song's comma-delimited list of restrictions. See Restrictions for details on setting restrictions for your song.

Inline Tags

These tags are used within the content of the song and can be used to either define sections or to format parts of the song.

• {define:} is used to define custom chord diagrams. See Defining Chords for more information.
• {comment:} or {c:} Defines a comment and appears as a musical instruction.
• {comment_bold:} or {cb:} Defines text to appear in bold.
• {comment_italic:} or {ci:} Defines text to appear as italic.
• {guitar_comment:} or {gc:} Defines a comment that appears as a musical instruction.
• {start_of_bridge} or {sob} Declares the start of a bridge section.
• {end_of_bridge} or {eob} Declares the end of a bridge section.
• {start_of_chorus} or {soc} Declares the start of a chorus section.
• {end_of_chorus} or {eoc} Declares the end of a chorus section.
• {start_of_tab} or {sot} Declares the start of tablature which OnSong renders in a monospaced font.
• {end_of_tab} or {eot} Declares the end of a tablature section.
• {new_page} or {np} This is used to declare a new page.
• {new_physical_page} or {npp} This is used to declare a new page.

Formatting Tags

The following tags are used to define the default font and size for lyrics and chords in the chord chart.

• {textsize:} Defines the size of the lyrics as a numeric value in points.
• {textfont:} Defines the name of the font to use for lyrics. Must be supported on the platform.
• {chordsize:} Defines the size of the chords as a numeric value in points.
• {chordfont:} Defines the name of the font to use for chords. Must be supported on the platform.

{flow: V1 C V2 C C B C C}

{flow: Verse 1, Chorus, Verse 2, Chorus, Chorus, Bridge, Chorus, Chorus}

{flow: Verse 1, Chorus, Verse 2, Chorus, (Repeat 2x), ----, Bridge, Chorus, (Repeat 2x)}

{define: E5 base-fret 7 frets 0 1 3 3 x x fingers - 1 2 3 - - key E}

1.2:0@0, PC1.2:3@0, N67@1, START, SS8

PC3.1:7@0, 3.1:7@0, 3:7@0, 3:7, 7@0, 7

CC105:63@2, CC105:63. CC105@2, CC105

N60:95@7, N60@7, N60:95, N60

OpenOffice Text

OpenOffice is a free, open-source office suite available on nearly any operating system. This software includes "Writer" which saves word processing documents as "ODT" files. OnSong can view these files as well as convert them to text.

For more information about OpenOffice, please visit the OpenOffice website.

Toolbar

When using OnSong on iPhone or iPod Touch, access to many menus is moved to the bottom of the screen via a toolbar. The following items can bet accessed:

Share Menu

This icon looks like an up arrow in a box and allows you to share the current song or set in a variety of ways including exporting, emailing, printing, and sharing wirelessly.

External Video Menu

This menu button looks like a computer monitor and lets you configure an external monitor or projector for use with OnSong. Using an Apple Dock Connector to VGA Adapter, Apple Digital AV Adapter, or AirPlay and an AppleTV, you can use OnSong to project lyrics for an audience, or to display chord charts on a monitor on stage.

Playback Menu

This icon looks like a pair of headphones and lets you set an audio track to play along with while viewing the chord sheet. It also lets you configure the metronome tempo and time signature, as well as setting a duration of the song for autoscroll. You can also find new versions of that song through the integrated iTunes search.

Messages Menu

Using this menu, screen taps and foot pedal presses can send messages to your team. Use these to communicate more effectively in live performances.

This button may be removed on smaller screen sizes.

Organizer Menu

The organizer menu is used to place the currently loaded song into a set, book or to mark a song with an icon such as a star. When the song has an icon associated with it, the star icon in the menu bar is enabled.

Song Editor

This icon opens the song editor. The song editor allows you to make changes to the song's chords, lyrics, and metadata as well as tools to assist you in editing songs, or even writing them from scratch.

Annotations Menu

This icon looks like a sticky note and allows you to easily add sticky notes or drawings to your chord chart. These can help remind you of things such as who starts the song or how it is played.

Style Preferences Menu

This icon looks like a series of sliders and allows you to quickly change how your song sheet looks and acts. In this menu you can change font sizes and styles, highlight colors, and transpose/capo the song. You can also turn portions of the song on and off such as the header, lyrics, chords, tablature, and whether the capo should be applied.

Audio

The audio playback live bar button is flexible to meet the needs of live performers. By default, the button is designed to start and pause a backing track. Double-tapping on the audio live bar button when playing or stopped will cause the song to beginning at the beginning of the track as a repeat function.

OnSong automatically selects a track from your libraries with the same name as the chord chart. This means the only requirement is to have an audio track with the same name of your chord chart in your music library. OnSong searches both your Apple Music library as well as it's internal OnSong audio media library. See Adding Tracks to your Apple Music Library for details on how to accomplish adding audio tracks to your Apple Music library. Your OnSong audio media library can be completely managed from inside of the app using the OnSong Audio Media Library.

Picking Audio Tracks

If you have multiple tracks available in your libraries and need to choose a different track, or if you need to choose a track with a different name, tap and hold on the audio live bar button to open the Audio Track Picker and choose a different track, or link to a specific track using the Choose Custom Track option.

Configuring Audio Playback

You can configure how OnSong plays backing tracks in settings. For more details on these options, please see Settings » Live Settings » Live Bar » Audio.

Apple Music Library

OnSong can link chord charts in your OnSong library to audio tracks in your iTunes Music Library on your device. You can browse your iTunes Music Library using the built-in Music app from your device's home screen. Apple provides tools and services to help you get your music onto your device.

History

In the days of the iPod music player as well as the first iPhone devices, you put music on your device using iTunes. iTunes is free software that was required to instantiate and manage your device. Since that time, Apple has moved away from requiring you to connect your device to a Mac or PC, making the iPad and iPhones standalone products.

iTunes

Most users who purchase iPad or iPhone are familiar with iTunes. In fact, the App Store is an extension of the iTunes store which sells apps instead of music, videos, and more. The iTunes application not only acts as media management software, but also as a portal to this large ecosystem of music, TV shows, movies and of course apps.

Misconceptions

That being said, there's a misconception that you need to purchase content from iTunes in order to use it on your iPad or iPhone. You can use iTunes to manage your own audio tracks or tracks from other vendors such as Amazon. However, Apple has made it very easy and convenient to purchase music legally through their iTunes store which is why many believe that is the only way.

Transferring Music

There are a few ways to get music onto your iPad or iPhone. The first and original way is to plug your device into a computer running iTunes. Next, add music in your iTunes library. Remember that you can do this either by purchasing content on the iTunes store, using software that bounces or adds tracks to iTunes (such as GarageBand), or by simply dragging MP3, AAC or other supported file formats into the iTunes window.

iTunes sorts and manages your tracks from any source. You can then use choose your device from the iTunes user interface and synchronize or "Apply" your music to the device. Learn more about adding, importing and converting music using iTunes

Music in the Cloud

With the advent of iCloud, Apple has made getting music to play on your device even easier with iTunes in the Cloud and iTunes Music Match. These services allow you to access your music on your device without having the music physically stored on the device. For most people this is convenient because their music collections are large, not always listened to, and would take up significant space on their device.

While OnSong can play music from iCloud, there may be a delay as the song is streamed and buffered for playback. Make sure that you download music for live performances to your device before playing. That will ensure that network problems do not inhibit your performance and provides for smoother and immediate playback of your audio. Learn more about iTunes in the Cloud

Audio Track Picker

The audio track picker displays all tracks that match the current chord chart by name. In addition, this menu will display a custom track that you've picked. For each track, the album artwork is displayed (if available) as well as the track name and artist.

Audio Playback Settings

Tapping on the wrench icon will open a screen allowing you to change audio playback settings. Tap Done to save changes and close the screen, or tap on Cancel to close the screen without saving changes.

Linking To Matching Audio Tracks

Tap on the audio track you want to associate with the chord chart. By default, OnSong will link the first found track when matched by name. A checkmark will appear next to the track to indicate the currently linked track. If you would like to unlink the track from the chord chart, tap on the checked track to uncheck it. This will result in no audio track being associated with the chord chart.

Linking To Custom Audio Tracks

To choose a track from your Apple Music Library or OnSong Media Library, tap on the Choose Custom Track row in the menu. This will open the Choose Custom Track menu that allows you to browse for music.

iCloud Music Matching

Please note that tracks found by matching the name of the chord chart to the audio track may include audio tracks found in iCloud. You can remove these as options in Settings » Live Settings » Live Bar » Audio » Show Music in iCloud.

Choose Custom Track

If you want to link a custom audio track to your chord chart, you must first decide which library to pull from for playback. OnSong provides access to the following libraries.

Apple Music Library

This option provides access to shared audio tracks that you can play using the Music app on your device. Linking audio tracks from your Apple Music library has some advantages.

• Tracks that are stored in iTunes in the Cloud or Apple Music match can be accessed using the Apple Music library.
• Tracks that contain digital rights management may need to be played through the Apple Music library.
• Tracks are not stored within your OnSong library making the storage requirements of your app and backups less.
• Tracks are shared between multiple apps and can be played back from the Music app on your device.
• Tracks can have playback metadata associated with them as configured in Apple Music. For instance, you can adjust the output volume as well as start and end time points.
• While OnSong does support background audio when playing music, if OnSong were to crash for any reason, the audio would stop. When using Apple Music library assets, the song can keep playing even in the event of an unlikely failure.

OnSong Media Library

Choose this option to manage audio files directly inside of OnSong without needing to use Apple Music to manage your backing tracks.

The OnSong media library is stored inside of your OnSong library. This lets you import and manage audio tracks without using Apple Music, but does require that the audio tracks are stored inside of the OnSong app. This means that your backup files will increase in size to contain the audio files.

Apple Music

Apple Music is where you can access any song that you have access to through the Music app on your device. If you subscribe to Apple Music, all of your songs are available for playback. You can use this Apple-provided interface to select songs to play or import as backing tracks. Once you find a song, select it to link it to your song in the OnSong library, or to import into the library.

This interface is controlled by Apple and may require you to sign into Apple Music to access your tracks. We recommend that you download tracks for performance use through the native Music app so that the track can be played in OnSong without interruptions. Streamed backing tracks and tracks with digital rights management can only play using the Apple Music app which OnSong controls remotely. Certain features like crossfading are not available for tracks played through the Apple Music app.

iTunes Music Library

You can choose any available song in your iTunes Music Library to link to a chord chart. When you tap on the "iTunes Music Library" option in the Audio Track Picker, a modal window will appear. This gives you options for browsing your iTunes Music Library. Choose a tab on the bottom to determine how to browse your songs. You can also search songs in the Songs tab.

Once you've found the song you are looking for, tap on it to select it. The song will be added the Audio Track Picker and checkmarked. This links the custom track to the currently viewed chord chart.

If you do not want to pick a song, simply tap on the Cancel button at the top.

Spotify Library

The Spotify Library screen let's you link Spotify tracks to your song in OnSong. You can access saved songs as well as followed artists in Your Music. You can also search the entire Spotify music catalog by song title, artist or album.

Authentication

If you haven't signed in yet, you'll be prompted with a Spotify login screen. Tap the Log In To Spotify button to login with your credentials.

If you don't have a Spotify account, you can create one at spotify.com or by signing in with Facebook on the Login Screen.

Spotify Library

Once you've authenticated into your Spotify account, you'll see the following tabs to access Spotify tracks:

• Playlists browses for songs in all the playlists that you've created in Spotify.

• Songs views all of the tracks that you've saved to Your Music under your Spotify account.

• Artists displays all artists that you are following.

• Albums shows albums that you have saved to Your Music under your Spotify account.

• Search allows you to search for tracks by track, artist or album.

Note: You can tap on the close button in the upper right corner to close this screen at anytime.

Albums

The Albums tab lets you quickly browse albums that you've saved to Your Music in Spotify. Tap on an album to view its songs.

Cancel

Tap on the Cancel button in the upper-left corner to close the Spotify Library screen without linking a track.

Logout

Tap on the Logout button to sign out of Spotify, close the Spotify Library screen and start over with the Login Screen.

Viewing Songs

Tap on an album in the list to view a list of the songs contained in the album in the order they appear.

Songs

Once you've tapped on a album, you can view all of the songs in the album to link a song to the active chord chart.

Logout

Tap on the Logout button to sign out of Spotify, close the Spotify Library screen and start over with the Login Screen.

Linking Songs

The list of songs that is displayed and the songs found in the album. The list contains columns for the album artwork, track title, artist name, album name and duration. Tap on a track to link it to the active chord chart.

Artists

The artists tab displays all artists that you are following on Spotify.

Cancel

Tap on the Cancel button in the upper-left corner to close the Spotify Library screen without linking to a track.

Logout

Tap on the Logout button to sign out of Spotify, close the Spotify Library screen and start over with the Login Screen.

Viewing Albums

Tap on an artist row to view a list of albums you can use to browse to a Spotify track.

Albums

Tapping on an artist will reveal every album they have in the Spotify music catalog. Tap on an album to view its songs.

Logout

Tap on the Logout button to sign out of Spotify, close the Spotify Library screen and start over with the Login Screen.

Viewing Songs

Tap on an album in the list to view a list of the songs contained in the album in the order they appear.

Songs

Once you've tapped on a album, you can view all of the songs in the album to link a song to the active chord chart.

Logout

Tap on the Logout button to sign out of Spotify, close the Spotify Library screen and start over with the Login Screen.

Linking Songs

The list of songs that is displayed and the songs found in the album. The list contains columns for the album artwork, track title, artist name, album name and duration. Tap on a track to link it to the active chord chart.

Log In To Spotify

You can log into Spotify using either Facebook or your Spotify username and password.

Facebook

Tapping on the Log In With Facebook button will display the Facebook login screen to let you authenticate using your Facebook account. Once complete, you will be signed into your Facebook-linked Spotify account.

Spotify Login

You can also type in your Spotify username and password in the fields below. Checking the Remember me option will retain your login information in the web page that is used by Spotify to authenticate you. This has no no effect on OnSong unless authentication occurs automatically.

Forgot Username or Password

If yo have forgotten your username or password, tap on the Forgot your username or password link to recover your information.

Note: If you are not a Spotify user and choose to sign in with Facebook, you will automatically be registered and automatically agree to the Spotify Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy.

Playlists

The playlists tab displays all playlists that you have created on Spotify.

Cancel

Tap on the Cancel button in the upper-left corner to close the Spotify Library screen without linking to a track.

Logout

Tap on the Logout button to sign out of Spotify, close the Spotify Library screen and start over with the Login Screen.

Viewing Songs

Tap on a playlist to view a list of songs in that playlist in the order that they appear.

Playlist Songs

Once you've tapped on a playlist, you can view all of the songs in the playlist to link a song to the active chord chart.

Logout

Tap on the Logout button to sign out of Spotify, close the Spotify Library screen and start over with the Login Screen.

Linking Songs

The list of songs that have been added to the playlist are displayed. The list contains columns for the album artwork, track title, artist name, album name and duration. Tap on a track to link it to the active chord chart.

Search

Use the Search tab to search the entire Spotify music catalog for a track.

Cancel

Tap on the Cancel button in the upper-left corner to close the Spotify Library screen without linking a track.

Search Bar

The search bar in the upper-right corner of the screen lets you enter keywords to search for. In addition, a menu to the right of the search bar allows you to search either the album, artist or track title.

Linking Songs

Once you've performed a search, the results appear in list format. This list contains columns for the album artwork, track title, artist name, album name and duration. Tap on a track to link it to active chord chart.

Songs

The Songs tab lets you quickly browse tracks you've saved to Your Music in Spotify. Once you've found a song, tap on it to link it to the active chord chart.

Cancel

Tap on the Cancel button in the upper-left corner to close the Spotify Library screen without linking a track.

Logout

Tap on the Logout button to sign out of Spotify, close the Spotify Library screen and start over with the Login Screen.

Linking Songs

Songs that you've saved to Your Music appears in list format on this screen. The list contains columns for the album artwork, track title, artist name, album name and duration. Tap on a track to link it to the active chord chart.

Audio Media Library

The OnSong audio media library screen features audio tracks that you've imported.

Adding Tracks

You can add tracks by importing audio track files just like any other file type. You can also import directly inside of the audio media library screen by tapping on the + button in the upper right corner to open the Import Files Menu.

Browsing Tracks

You can browse your tracks by artists, songs and albums with the default view being the songs list.

• Artists groups your tracks by artist.
• Songs displays a list of all songs in your OnSong audio media library indexed alphabetically by the track name.
• Albums groups your tracks by album name if available.

Picking Tracks

You can choose a song to link to a chord chart by tapping on it in the list. This will close the audio media library screen and return you to the audio picker menu.

Managing Tracks

You can delete and edit tracks in the OnSong audio media library by swiping from right to left over the audio track. This will reveal an Edit button to make changes to the track using the Track Editor screen. The Delete button will delete the audio track from your library.

You can also tap and hold on a row containing an audio track to open the Track Editor if you are not running iOS 8.

Reduce File Size

This screen presents available file formats that can be used to downsample media to reduce file size in storage. For instance, if you've imported large WAV files, you can downsample within OnSong to M4A file formats and reduce the size of your OnSong library.

Audio

OnSong provides compression into the M4A file format to reduce the size of audio files.

Video

If you are compressing a video file format, OnSong can encode into a low resolution video using the built in H.264 encoder.

Share

The share menu is the built-in activities menu in iOS/iPadOS which provides access to all available apps and actions.

Apps

Here you some standard apps available to share the media items to:

• AirDrop the files to another device over peer-to-peer WiFi.
• Messages to send as an iMessage attachment.
• Mail to email the attachments.
• More allows you to pick other apps that have been registered to open these sorts of files.

Actions

You can also select from actions available in the system or through OnSong:

• Copy will place the content into the clipboard for pasting.
• Export will open the Export Menu allowing you to export using the OnSong export interface.
• Add To OnSong will import the files into your OnSong library which would be an odd choice, but you're free to choose!
• Save To Files allows you to save the reports to storage locations or drives connected to the Files app.

Editing Mode

When you tap on the Select button in the upper right corner of the menubar, you enter selection mode. This will allow you to tap on songs, artists or albums to select each item, placing a checkmark on the left side of each item to indicate it has been selected.

Export

To export, tap on the action button that looks like a square with an up arrow in the upper right corner to open the Export Menu.

Delete

To delete selected tracks, tap on the trash can icon in the upper right corner.

Cancel

If you do not want to export the selected songs, tap on the Cancel button to cancel out of selection mode.

Export Menu

The export menu lets you choose a location where exported content should be saved. If you have more than one file to export, the number of items is displayed in parenthesis in the title.

OnSong supports four general locations with the last option allowing for future expansion to web services that implement standard access protocols.

Dropbox

Dropbox is a file storage service that allows you to place your important documents in the cloud. This means that they are near-instantly available on all your devices, making the service a great candidate for backing up your library. Tapping on the Dropbox option allows you to select a folder in your Dropbox where you would like your files exported.

Google Drive

Dropbox is a cloud-based storage service that allows you to store documents in the cloud. This means that they are near-instantly available on all your devices, making the service a great candidate for backing up your library or storing files. Tapping on the Google Drive option allows you to select a folder in your Google Drive where you would like your files exported.

File Sharing

This option allows the user to export to file sharing. This is a special folder contained inside of the OnSong app which can be accessed through the Finder (macOS) or iTunes (Windows) when connected with a sync/charge cable. This means that the file is stored on your device until it is saved off of the device onto a computer.

Files

iOS has the ability to export files to apps from storage providers that support integration with the iOS Files app. Use this option to select a location and folder where the file should be exported.

Other

Some online storage services have support for open standards, allowing files to be securely stored and retrieved without individual configurations. Use this option if you would like to add an online source that supports Amazon S3, FTP, or WebDAV protocols.

Albums

The albums tab in the audio media library groups all tracks by album if available. This allows for faster browsing of larger music libraries. Albums are indexed alphabetically.

The album artwork is displayed on the left followed by the album title and artist name. The number of songs and total album duration in minutes are displayed on the far right side.

Tap on an album to display songs performed on that album in the Album Track List.

Album Track List

The album track list displays the selected album's information above a list of tracks. Album information includes a thumbnail of the album cover artwork, the album name, number of songs and length of time of all tracks.

Each track is displayed in order of track number. The track number is displayed on the left followed by the track name and duration of the track.

Picking Tracks

You can choose a song to link to a chord chart by tapping on it in the list. This will close the audio media library screen and return you to the audio picker menu.

Managing Tracks

You can delete and edit tracks in the OnSong audio media library by swiping from right to left over the audio track. This will reveal an Edit button to make changes to the track using the Audio Track Editor screen. The **Delete* button will delete the audio track from your library.

Artists

The artists tab in the audio media library groups all tracks by artist if available. This allows for faster browsing of larger music libraries. Artists are indexed alphabetically.

The album artwork of the most recent album is displayed on the left followed by the artist's name. The number of albums and songs are displayed on the far right side.

Tap on an artist name to display songs performed by that artist in the Artist Track List.

Artist Track List

The artist track list displays the selected artist's information above a list of tracks. Artist information includes a thumbnail of an album cover artwork, the artist's name, number of albums and total number of songs.

Each track is displayed in order of track number. The track number is displayed on the left followed by the track name and duration of the track.

Picking Tracks

You can choose a song to link to a chord chart by tapping on it in the list. This will close the audio media library screen and return you to the audio picker menu.

Managing Tracks

You can delete and edit tracks in the OnSong audio media library by swiping from right to left over the audio track. This will reveal an Edit button to make changes to the track using the Track Editor screen. The Delete button will delete the audio track from your library.

Import Files

The import files menu provides a list of common import locations with the ability to import audio tracks from those sources. These import screens are similar to those found in the Songs Menu except that only audio files are selectable.

Dropbox

Dropbox is a popular cloud-based storage service that works great for importing documents from your computer.

iTunes File Sharing

iTunes File Sharing allows you to import files from your computer using a USB cable and iTunes software.

Other

The other options lets you import from other remote sources using standard communication protocols.

Songs

The songs tab in the audio media library shows all songs contained in your library. Songs are indexed alphabetically by track name.

Picking Tracks

You can choose a song to link to a chord chart by tapping on it in the list. This will close the audio media library screen and return you to the audio picker menu.

Managing Tracks

You can delete and edit tracks by swiping from right to left over the audio track. This will reveal an Edit button to make changes to the track using the Track Editor screen. The Delete button will delete the audio track from your library.

Track Editor

The track editor is accessed by swiping from right to left over audio tracks and choosing the Edit button. This present you with editable fields. When you are finished making changes, tap on the Done button to save your changes and have audio adjustments gradually implemented in a track being played from the live bar.

Track Information

This is information related to the track metadata.

• Title is the name of the track, typically the name of the song.
• Artist is the name of the artist.
• Album is the name of the album.
• Copyright is the provided copyright information.

Note: Changes made here is saved in the OnSong audio media library record and does not get written back to the underlying audio file.

Preview

Use this scrubber and play button to listen to the track. This is useful for other adjustment sliders below.

Volume Adjustment

This will adjust the output volume of the track allowing for custom volumes to normalize track volumes. Changes to the volume here are reflected in the audio output if you preview the track, but not to the track if it is being played from the live bar. Tap on the target icon on the right to return to the original value.

Pan Adjustment

This will adjust the pan settings for the track. Changes made here are elected immediately to the track that is being previewed, but not to the track if it is being played from the live bar. Tap on the target icon on the right to return to the original value.

Autoscroll

The autoscroll live bar button is used to toggle autoscroll on and off. Autoscroll will automatically navigate through your song. Choose from linear or non-linear autoscrolling to meet your needs.

Tapping on the autoscroll button for the first time displays the Autoscroll Menu you can use to set the duration for linear autoscroll or record the timeline events for non-linear autoscroll.

Toggling Autoscroll

Once autoscroll has been configured, tapping on the autoscroll button starts autoscroll. Tapping on it when running will stop autoscroll. You can resume autoscroll by tapping the button again. Tap and hold on the autoscroll button to open the Autoscroll Menu to adjust parameters.

Linear Autoscroll

If you set a duration and remain on that tab, OnSong will scroll the page from the top to the bottom over the set duration. Tapping on the autoscroll button toggles When autoscroll is running, you can continue to scroll the page. Autoscroll will temporarily pause and then resume from the new scrolled position. Zooming your chord chart also will pause and recalibrate autoscroll.

Because autoscroll scrolls vertically from the top to the bottom of the song content, it may not handle changes or repeated sections in the song. You will want to combine autoscroll with Flow in order to arrange your song in a continuous piece to allow autoscroll to be more effective.

Non-Linear Autoscroll

If you record events using the timeline tab, then OnSong will playback those recorded events over the duration that you have set. In other words, if you set a duration and record a timeline, and then later adjust the duration, the timeframe of playback is adjusted accordingly.

You can continue to scroll and interact with the page, but timeline events will continue to play.

Autoscroll Menu

When you tap on the autoscroll button for the first time, or if you tap and hold on the autoscroll button in the live bar, the autoscroll menu appears. In this menu you can configure either linear or non-linear autoscroll depending on when tab you choose.

Duration

Tapping gone this tab and keeping it selected will cause autoscroll to scroll from the top to the bottom of the song smoothly over the set amount of time.

Timeline

Tapping on this tab and keeping it selection will cause will playback the events that you record within the tab. This allows for non-linear autoscrolling since you can configure it to scroll back and forth to different parts of the song.

Changing Autoscroll Speed

Changing the speed of linear autoscroll is as simple as changing the duration of the song in the duration tab. However, changing the speed of non-linear autoscroll is possible as long as you take some steps:

1. Set the duration of the song in the Duration tab.
2. Tap on the Timeline tab and record your timeline.
3. OnSong records the original duration of the song to the timeline.
4. Return to the Duration tab and adjust the duration to change the speed of autoscroll.
5. OnSong will adjust the delay between events to adjust for the difference between the original and new duration.

Change Duration

The duration picker appears in the autoscroll menu as the default selected tab when first tapping on the autoscroll button in the live bar, or when tapping and holding the button to make changes to a song with autoscroll previously configured. You can also access the duration picker from the Metadata Editor found in the Song Editor.

Autoscroll Settings

Tapping on the wrench icon will open a screen allowing you to change autoscroll settings. Tap Done to save changes and close the screen, or tap on Cancel to close the screen without saving changes.

Setting the Duration

Set a time by tapping and dragging your finger to the left and right. This is great for quickly picking a duration. To fine-tune the duration, tap on the left/bottom or right/top sides to decrease or increase the time by one second.

When finished, simply close the menu to have your song duration updated. If you are using autoscroll at the time of the adjustment, it will automatically change speed to adapt to the new duration of the song.

The duration picker allows any duration of time to be set. If you set the duration to zero or less, the duration setting is removed.

Timeline

When the timeline screen is selected, OnSong uses non-linear autoscrolling. This means that you must record navigational events to play back when autoscroll in enabled.

Recording Events

To record events, tap on the Start Recording button at the bottom of the screen. The menu will close so you can begin recording navigation events right away.

Scroll, zoom, select sections and even toggle linear autoscroll using the autoscroll button. Each navigational event will be recorded into the timeline. Tap and hold on the autoscroll button to open the autoscroll menu and stop recording.

Viewing Events

Each event describes what type of action was recorded, followed by the amount of time to wait until playing the next event. You can tap on a timeline event to have it performed.

Editing Events

Tap on the Edit button in the upper right corner to make changes to recorded timeline events.

Clearing Events

Tap on the eraser icon on the lower left corner to clear all timeline events and start over. OnSong will prompt you to confirm clearing events.

Recording Options

Timeline records the most common actions that you perform like changing the scroll position of a song, selected sections, linear autoscroll and more. But in some cases you may not want to record certain actions. The recording options screen lets you toggle those actions on and off when you record.

• Change Scroll Position determines if swiping or tapping to scroll are recorded. You may choose to disable this if you are recording section selections to perform scrolling instead.
• Change Section determines if section selections are recorded. You may choose to turn this off if linear autoscroll is handling automatic selection of sections.
• Send Messages determines if messages should be recorded. You may want to turn this off if you want to handle sending messages manually when played back.
• Toggle Audio determines if backing tracks being played, paused or stopped are recorded.
• Toggle Autoscroll determines if linear autoscroll is recorded. You may turn this off if you want autoscroll to record position changes automatically.
• Toggle Metronome determines if starting or stopping the metronome is recorded. You may disable this if you use the metronome for recording purposes but do not want it recorded in the timeline.
• Zoom determines if zooming in and out of the document should be recorded to the timeline.

Edit Mode

When you tap on the Edit button in the upper right corner of the screen, you can make changes to events in your timeline.

Deleting Events

Tap on the red minus icon on the left side to reveal a Delete button. Tapping on the delete button will remove that event from the timeline.

You can also delete events from the timeline by swiping from the right to left when not in edit mode.

Reordering Events

You can change the order of events in the timeline by tapping and dragging on the reordering handles on the right side.

Changing Event Timecodes

While recording is the fastest way to set what you want to happen, it may not be accurate enough for your needs. Tap on the row to open the Timecode Editor and change the minute, second or fraction of a second for each event in your timeline.

When you are all done, tap on the Done button to save your changes to the timeline.

Event Editor

The timeline event editor lets you change the aspects of each event. Tap on the Done button in the upper right after making changes to update the event in the timeline.

Timecode

The timecode if the time at which the particular event is performed. You can tap on the time to adjust the timecode using the timecode editor.

Action

You can change the action associated with the timeline event by tapping on this row. Please note that recorded actions are special and may not exist in the same way in the action picker.

Parameters

Different actions may have different named parameters that can be modified. Different actions may have different parameters, or none at all. For instance, momentary actions do not have parameters.

If you choose a variable action, the "amount" parameter will be available which is typically a value between 0-100%.

Changing the timecode will move the timeline event independent of other timeline events unless the timecode you choose is greater than or less than an existing timecode. This will cause those timeline events to push elsewhere on the timeline.

Actions Menu

The actions menu lets you pick an action to perform when an event occurs such as pressing a foot pedal or tapping on the screen.

• None performs no actions when the input is received.
• Capo Up increases the capo for the song by one fret.
• Capo Down decreases the capo for the song by one fret.
• Scroll Up scrolls the song up. If using a foot pedal, performing this action once the top of a song is reached will navigate to the previous song in the set.
• Scroll Down scrolls the song down. If using a foot pedal, performing this action once the bottom of a song is reached will navigate to the next song in the set.
• Next Song navigates to the next song in the set.
• Previous Song navigates to the previous song in the set.
• Random Song loads a random song from the currently selected book or set. Use for practicing songs in your library without a pattern.
• Reset Song scrolls the current song to the top and optionally resets toggled events such as autoscroll, backing tracks, the metronome and section assignments. These can be customized in Settings » Navigation Settings » Actions » Reset Song.
• Next Slide advances to the next slide when projecting lyrics.
• Previous Slide advances to the previous slide when projecting lyrics.
• Next Timeline Event will advanced to the next event as recorded or specified in the the Timeline.
• Previous Timeline Event will go to the previous event as recorded or specified in the the Timeline.
• Show/Hide Menubar toggles the menubar on and off for a full screen view.
• Show Quick Pick displays the Quick Pick screen for quickly searching and loading songs.
• Show Songs List shows and hides the song menu.
• Scroll Faster decreases the duration of the song by 30 seconds which causes autoscroll to speed up.
• Scroll Slower increases the duration of the song by 30 seconds which causes the autoscroll to slow down.
• Start Audio will start playing a backing track assigned to the currently viewed song.
• Start Autoscroll will begin autoscrolling the current song.
• Start Metronome will start the metronome to the tempo assigned to the currently viewed song.
• Stop Audio will stop the audio track if one is playing.
• Stop Autoscroll will pause autoscroll whether linear or in a non-linear timeline.
• Stop Metronome will stop the metronome.
• Toggle Audio play, pause, or stop the backing track associated to the song.
• Toggle Autoscroll starts or pauses the autoscroll.
• Toggle Capo turns the capo on or off.
• Toggle Low Light Mode turns low light mode on and off. When on, the background of the song is black with white foreground text.
• Toggle Metronome turns the metronome on and off.
• Toggle MIDI Clock starts or stops sending MIDI clock events used to synchronize tempo between MIDI devices.
• Toggle MIDI Start/Stop sends the MIDI start or stop command.
• Mute Metronome mutes the metronome, allowing it to continue to keep time and optionally blink the menubar. This is great to use for practice to see if the beat can be maintained without click reinforcement.
• Tap For Tempo is used to change the tempo of the current song. This should not be used on high latency foot pedals like the AirTurn BT-105 since they are designed to forgive accidental foot taps or double entry.
• Tempo Up increase the tempo of the song by 1 BPM.
• Tempo Down decreases the tempo of the song by 1 BPM.
• Transpose Up transposes the song up by one half step including enharmonic variations.
• Transpose Down transposes the song up down one half step including enharmonic variations.
• Volume Up increases the master volume of the device by a sixteenth.
• Volume Down decreases the master volume of the device by a sixteenth.
• Blackout Lyrics blacks out the lyrics for lyrics projection by hiding lyrics and removing the background.
• Clear Lyrics shows or hides the lyrics during lyrics projection while retaining the background image or video.
• Continue Scene will continue the playback of a scene if a step is encountered that has an infinite duration. Use this for more advanced playback without the creation of addition scenes.
• Play Scene is used to restart playback of the currently loaded scene.
• Stop Scene is used to stop the playback of the currently playing scene.
• Toggle Scene Playback can be used to toggle the playback state of the currently loaded scene.
• Playback Pitch plays the pitch of the song for a cappella groups. This can be configured using metadata.
• Shift Up shifts to the next gear in the configured gears.
• Shift Down shifts to the previous gear in the configured gears.
• Unshift shifts to the first gear in the configured gears.
• Send Message allows you to select a message to be sent to connected devices.
• Send MIDI when using the MIDI in-app purchase, this option is available and allows you to define a MIDI command to be sent.
• Switch Scene can map a specific scene to an action. For instance, set an action to blackout all lights or to bring the house lights up.
• Switch Section allows you to link an action directly to a named section in your song. For instance, you can link to "Verse 1" or "Chorus".
• Switch Song allows you to switch to a particular song in your library when triggered.

Timecode Editor

The timecode editor allows you to adjust the timecode, or the exact time when an event will occur.

How Timecodes Work

Timeline events contain an action coupled with a wait time. This means that the timecode is generated based on the placement of the event in the timeline. This also means that you may only be able to reduce to the timecode to a point that it does not conflict with other events in the timeline.

Adjusting the Timecode

To adjust the timecode, slide your finger left or right. You can then fine-tune the timecode by one frame by tapping on the left or right. Timecodes are displayed in minutes, seconds and frames where frames are 1/60th of a second.

MM:SS FF

When you are finished adjusting the timecode, tap on the Back button to return to the timeline editor.

Metronome

The metronome live bar button is used to toggle the metronome on and off. The first time the metronome button is pressed with out a tempo, the Tempo Picker will appear allowing you to select a tempo for the song.

Once a tempo has been set, tapping on the button will start the metronome. Tapping again will stop the metronome. Tap and hold the button to open the tempo picker again to set a different tempo.

For more details on the metronome, refer to the Metronome in Features.

Tempo Picker

The tempo picker is displayed when a tempo is required to play the metronome, when tapping and holding on the metronome live bar button, or when settings the tempo using the Metadata Editor in the Song Editor. It allows you to set the tempo in beats per minute (BPM).

Setting The Time Signature

to change the time signature, tap on the time signature in the upper left corner to display the time signature picker. OnSong uses the 4/4 time signature by default.

Adjusting Metronome Settings

You can change the audio and visual attributes of the metronome directly in the metronome live bar menu by tapping on the wrench icon in the upper right corner. This will open a screen containing metronome settings. You can then tap Done to apply those settings, or tap on Cancel to close the screen without saving changes.

Setting the Tempo

To set the tempo, slide your finger to the left and right to decrease or increase the tempo in broad strokes. Tap on the left/bottom or right/top of the picker to decrease or increase the tempo by one beat per minute.

Alternately, you can tap in the middle of the tempo picker to tap the tempo of the song that is already playing.

Starting and Stopping

Because playing the metronome should be immediate when tapping on the live bar button, tapping and holding the button will cause the metronome to start playing. This is by design since to determine if a tap has been held requires the operating system to wait to determine the type of touch. The tempo picker includes a play/stop button that allows the metronome to be started or stopped. This can be used to stop a playing metronome for settings a new one, or to check the tempo once a BPM has been selected.

Changing Tempo Limits

The tempo can be adjusted between 40 and 200 BPM. If the tempo is set below the minimum BPM, it is set to None, removing the tempo from the song. The minimum and maximum BPM can be adjusted in BPM Settings found in Settings » Live Settings » Metronome » Audio Settings » BPM Settings.

Acquiring Tempo from MIDI

If you have enabled the MIDI add-on, you can acquire the tempo by listening to a MIDI clock. The MIDI clock is sent from hardware and software to allow multiple MIDI devices to remain in sync with one another during tempo shifts.

Turn this switch on to set the tempo. When finished, turn the switch off to retain the acquired tempo.

Time Signature Picker

You can change the time signature of the current song by tapping on the time signature button in the upper left corner of the metronome.

Swipe up and down to adjust the number of beats and beats per measure. The time signature will change on a running metronome. You can also tap on the play/stop button to toggle the metronome playback as well.

When you are done selecting the time signature. Tap on menu beneath to hide the picker.

Networking

The networking live bar button is used to toggle wireless networking on and off in OnSong. Wireless networking allows your device to be discovered by other OnSong peers for sharing songs and sets, or remote controlling your device using OnCue. This button does not effect OnSong Connect.

Tap on the networking button to toggle networking off and on. This does not change your WiFi or Bluetooth status, only the visibility of your device on the ad-hoc, peer to peer OnCue network.

Tap and hold on the button to open the Wireless Sharing Screen. From there you can choose peers to share content with as well as set up an OnCue streaming session.

Chord Inspector

The chord inspector appears when a chord or chord diagram is tapped in the Song Viewer. This allows you to see various ways to place the chord on different instruments.

Viewing Chords

You can scroll through variations of a chord by swiping left to right in the viewer.

Selecting Chords

Tap on a diagram in the viewer to select it as the preferred variation for the song. When you select a song, the chord can be played back using a sound bank.

Playing Chords

Tap on the speaker icon in the upper left corner to toggle chord playback on and off. Playback does require a sound bank to be installed. You can purchase sound banks in the Add-Ons Screen. You can alter the way chords are played under the Utilities Menu » Settings » Live Settings » Chord Playback.

Editing Chords

Tap on the Edit button in the upper right corner to open the Chord Diagram Library with the selected chord loaded.

Choosing an Instrument

Choose an instrument in the tab bar on the bottom of the chord inspector to view chords for that instrument. Supported instruments are:

• Guitar
• Piano
• 4-String Bass
• 5-String Bass
• Ukulele
• Mandolin
• Banjo

Guitar

The default instrument selected for the chord inspector and diagrams is guitar.

Guitar chord diagrams contain six strings tuned to the standard E A D G B E tuning.

Piano

The piano instrument displays chord diagrams as miniature, two-octave versions of the piano keyboard. The keys to be played are highlighted in red.

Inversions are created from the standard chord when the first key is the root of the chord. Inversions are created for each note in the chord. For instance, in a standard major triad, this results in three chord inversions. More complex chords result in more inversions.

4-String Bass

Diagrams for bass guitars are rare since you typically only play one string at a time. OnSong provides chord diagrams for bass guitar for completeness and to help teach bass guitar to students.

The chord diagrams show are for the standard 4-string bass tuning of E A D G.

5-String Bass

Diagrams for bass guitars are rare since you typically only play one string at a time. OnSong provides chord diagrams for bass guitar for completeness and to help teach bass guitar to students.

The chord diagrams show are for the standard 5-string bass tuning of B E A D G.

Ukulele

The ukulele instrument displays chords using four strings. This is done with the standard ukulele of G C E A.

Banjo

The banjo instrument displays chords using four strings. This is done with the standard banjo tuning of D G B D.

Mandolin

The mandolin instrument displays chords using four strings. These strings are tuned to the standard mandolin tuning of G D A D.

Hot Corners

OnSong is designed for performance. It can do many things to help you in your performance. The trouble is that you have limited dexterity and time while playing an instrument.

Hot corners allow you to assign the four corners of the song viewer to perform actions in OnSong. For instance, you can configure a hot corner to handle lyrics projection tasks, or to send messages to other members of your team.

To configure hot corners, go into the Utilities Menu » Editors » Navigation and then use the Screen Tab.

You can also access hot corners in Settings » Navigation Settings » Hot Corners.

Navigation Zones

Navigation zones are found along the four edges of the device and also includes the center of the screen. Tap on any edge to scroll up and down in the current song, or to switch songs in your set. This is their default function, but can be configurable.

To change the function of the navigation zones, go into the Utilities Menu and open the Navigation Editor to choose the Screen Tab. There you can tap on the navigation zones to change their function.

You can also setup navigation zones in Settings » Navigation Settings » Navigation Zones.

Section Mapping Menu

This menu allows you to map actions to be performed when a section is selected or when the song is viewed. You tap and hold in other of the following sections within the Song Viewer.

• Tapping and holding in the header/metadata section of the song to map actions when the song is viewed. For instance, each time the song appears when tapped in the Songs Menu or when flipping through a set.
• Tap and hold in a lyric section of the song to map actions to when that section is selected either by tapping on it, using foot pedals or autoscroll.

You can map the following types of actions to sections:

MIDI Events

MIDI can be used to configure your stage instruments and perform other automation such as setting guitar effects or synthesizer programs. Mapping MIDI events to sections requires the MIDI add-on to be enabled.

Scenes

Scenes let you change lighting and images on your stage. This is great for visually reinforcing the emotion of each song, or even each portion of a song. Mapping scenes to a section requires the Scenes add-on to be enabled.

MIDI Events

The MIDI Events menu lets you set up MIDI to be sent when a song is loaded, or when a specific section is selected.

Adding

To add a MIDI command to the event list, tap on the + button in the lower right corner to open the MIDI Editor to add new commands.

Acquiring

Instead of manually creating MIDI commands using the MIDI editor, you can turn on the Listen for MIDI events switch to have OnSong listen for incoming commands from a MIDI device.

Deleting

To delete a MIDI command from the list, swipe right to left over an item in the list to reveal a Delete button. Tap to delete the item from the list.

Editing

You can edit an item in the list by tapping on it to open the MIDI Editor.

Reordering

You can reorder the MIDI event list by tapping on the Edit button in the upper right corner. This places the list in editing mode. In this mode you can tap and drag the reordering handles on the right to change the order that MIDI events are sent. You can also tap on the red minus icon on the left to delete MIDI events.

Testing

Tap on the Test button in the upper right corner to test the MIDI events by sending them.

Scene Picker

Scenes let you assign color washes, lighting programs and lyrics projection backgrounds for each song, or each section of a song. Not only that, but you can use OnSong's advanced navigation features to switch scenes seamlessly during a performance.

Picking Scenes

Place a checkmark next to the scene you would like to map to the section by tapping on it in the list. To remove a scene from the section, tap on the marked scene to uncheck it. Tap on the preview on the left to see a preview of the scene.

Adding Scenes

You can create new scenes right from this menu. Tap on the + button in the upper right corner to open the Scene Editor

Editing Scenes

To edit a scene, open the Scenes Editor and choose a scene from the list to make changes. Any changes you make the scene will be automatically applied to the section the next time the scene is set.

When you are done picking a scene, tap on the Done button (iPhone) or tap off of the menu in the Song Viewer (iPad) to close the menu.