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Posted By: gadabout Quirky interface woes - 03/06/10 02:47 AM
I've been playing with this BIAB 2009 software for a couple of weeks now. I basically like it but certain things are driving me nuts. During chord entry, I'll sometimes hit a wrong key or click in the wrong spot by accident. To correct my error, I'll try the "undo" under the Edit menu but then I'll end up with something really crazy. Right now I've got a gray bar in the middle of my song. There are no bar numbers in this gray bar, so I don't know what it is. I can't seem to get rid of it. Very frustrating.
Posted By: Mac Re: Quirky interface woes - 03/06/10 03:36 AM
Takes time to learn how to use Band in a Box. Well worth it.

In this instance, you can change a single global setting to get rid of the "gray bar" -- which is more than likely due to the "new line every part marker" feature.

Prefs -> Display and then look down at the next to the bottom line in the little Display controls window and UNcheck, "New line for every section (part marker)..."


--Mac
Posted By: gadabout Re: Quirky interface woes - 03/06/10 04:08 AM
Mac,

Thanks for the tip. Unfortunately, changing that setting did not remove this mysterious gray bar. It removed the narrow gray bars that separate sections, but this bar is something else. Its the same height as the measures.
Posted By: Jazzman Re: Quirky interface woes - 03/06/10 08:40 AM
Hi gadabout

This could be what you are looking for -

Highlight the "gray" bar > go to Edit along the top > on the dropdown select "Delete Bar(s)" and leave it as 1 for one bar or whatever number of gray bars you want to get rid of and hit OK

If this what you want it to do then Save it or slightly rename it to save as another and preserve the original

In the same dropdown you can also Insert bars

Brian
Posted By: Noel96 Re: Quirky interface woes - 03/06/10 10:06 AM
Hi gadabout,

Something that occurred to me is that it might be a screen-redraw problem. Try going to notation window and then back to the chord window. You can toggle between these two windows by clicking the 1/8th note button located in the middle of the screen immediately above the chord display.

Also, have you checked your graphics card manufacturer to see if there is a new version of driver? Some people on here have found that a newer graphics driver helps solve some problems.

Lastly, check the update version that you have (Help >> About Band In A Box). The update-version will be given in parentheses following the year-version. According the the support page, the most up-to-date update is #287 (found here).

Regards,
Noel
Posted By: FirstBassman Re: Quirky interface woes - 03/06/10 06:43 PM

This is not a Preferences or a Part Marker issue.

I have had the same and similar experiences as the original poster and have documented some of them on this forum.

Undo, deletes and scrolling are examples of the actions that trigger the behavior.

There is a BiaB problem with the Chord Sheet and I hope PGM recognizes that and is working on fixing it.
Posted By: Mac Re: Quirky interface woes - 03/06/10 09:49 PM
If anybody can post a screeshot of exactly what they are seeing when this happens to them, it would be good.

I haven't experienced anything like that here. At least, not yet. Might be a system or other tweak or something, making this only happen to certain folks.


--Mac
Posted By: gadabout Re: Quirky interface woes - 03/06/10 11:19 PM
Here is a screenshot. I agree with FirstBassman, by the way. This seems to be a software issue. You can see the gray bar in question between measures 36 and 37.

Posted By: Mac Re: Quirky interface woes - 03/07/10 01:02 AM
Great job with the pic, thanks. Picture says the proverbial thousand words.

I see that your problem is inside a TAG ending. (That was not mentioned in this thread so far...).

*Did you change the length of the TAG ending after the first time you invoked it to make it longer than the original length? --This could be a bug, or something happening to resources somewhere, or perhaps even an improper setting in the TAG Ending window as to number of bars for tag, start of tag, etc.

*Every once in a while, I've had a BiaB song file get corrupted from something or other, the only true solve for a corrupted songfile I know is to hit the New button and re-enter the entire thing from scratch, saving under new name or overwriting the original name. Printing out the sheet first can really speed up the re-entering time, something else I do when I suspect this problem and have to re-enter a BB song.

Yes, it may even be some sort of program bug, not ruling that out entirely at all. These things can prove to be elusive sometimes. Happens *every* time to you, development can't duplicate, that sort of thing. If you re-enter the song as a New file in entirety and the same issue comes right back to haunt, that would help nail it down as a "proper" bug in the coding rather than some rogue setting, something perhaps in the entering of the tag, etc. These things can get rather complicated rather quickly in such a feature-laden program. Not an apology, nor a fanboy attitude here, just the facts as I see 'em.


--Mac
Posted By: gadabout Re: Quirky interface woes - 03/07/10 01:47 AM
Quote:

*Did you change the length of the TAG ending after the first time you invoked it to make it longer than the original length? --This could be a bug, or something happening to resources somewhere, or perhaps even an improper setting in the TAG Ending window as to number of bars for tag, start of tag, etc.
....




Sure, I probably changed the length of the tag ending. There is no reason why that should corrupt the file.

I was just working on a different file and started getting similar "gray bar behavior" after awhile. Again, it was in the tag ending.
Posted By: Mac Re: Quirky interface woes - 03/07/10 02:44 AM
No, it shouldn't happen, of course not.

Just trying to help get to the bottom of things, for if this is a bug that development can fix in an update, they will need all the most concise info on how to cause that bug in order to squash it. I've been around this forum a long time and have learned that we can either do that or let a bug go un-squashed for way too long.

So if development finds out that one must create a TAG, then extend the TAG in order to get this behavior to exhibit, then we are closer to a solve. That's all.


--Mac
Posted By: PeterGannon Re: Quirky interface woes - 03/07/10 10:44 AM
Please email the song to beta@pgmusic.com , and we can hopefully duplicate the issue.
Posted By: Jazzman Re: Quirky interface woes - 03/07/10 11:22 AM
Hi gadabout

Quote:

I'll sometimes hit a wrong key or click in the wrong spot by accident.




Because you say that you made the above mistakes did you try my remedy in my post because I have only come across this once and that was with an imported file it has never happened here with my own input - it should have showed up any software fault

Try to delete the four bars as described and Save before Play to prevent it from re-occuring
Brian
Posted By: gadabout Re: Quirky interface woes - 03/07/10 02:27 PM
Jazzman,

I tried your suggestion. Actually that was probably one of the first things I tried when hacking around and trying to fix it myself. Unfortunately, the gray bar still remains after trying this.

I emailed Peter a copy of the file, so hopefully we will be able to find out what's going on here.
Posted By: Jazzman Re: Quirky interface woes - 03/07/10 06:42 PM
Hi gadabout,

Pleased to hear that you tried it earlier - did the deletion remove the 4 bars if it did and should - did you then Save the altered song before you tried to play it again - this is very important

I have found the song on a disk I had the same problem with and did the deletion and Save and the problem is solved here

Brian
Posted By: gadabout Re: Quirky interface woes - 03/07/10 08:17 PM
Brian,

Yes, the deletion removed the bars that I requested and yes, I did save it. The gray bar seems to have no effect on what gets played. It's only visual.
Posted By: Jazzman Re: Quirky interface woes - 03/08/10 10:19 AM
Hi gadabout (and Peter),

After not seeing your problem I have actually managed to recreate the problem and making the four gray bars appear

I tried to force the issue by making "mistakes" and the one thing that made it happen was by hitting a song in the song picker window twice quickly and causing a glitch before the first one had loaded properly - i.e operator error

I simply reloaded the song correctly and of course the saved proper version was back without the four gray bars
Brian
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