Every time I install a new BIAB build I have to load an earlier backup version of bbw.lst to prevent the dreaded "index exceeded" message and freeze when I rebuild Stylepicker. I know this happens because I have lots of third party styles and the current limit is 20,000 entries (not actual styles)

It also means I cannot use my custom ls3 file that organizes the Stylepicker entries the way I want them.

Please increase the limit, it sounds like one line of code.

Tony

Tony, you sure have collected some styles there boy! I thought I had lots, but only have a quarter of that amount. Where did you collect so many?

Best
Trevor

I don't have 20,000 styles, it's just the way Stylepicker is programmed. If you list a style twice because it can go in two different categories then Stylepicker counts this as two styles towards the 20,000. The basic BIAB listing from PG does this many times via the bbw.lst file. It is surprisingly easy to reach 20,000 once you add extra styles and start writing your own ls3 files.

Tony

Yep, I have the same problem. I had to remove a lot my third party styles from StylePicker, because I kept hitting the limit. Like Tony said, it's not a matter of having 20,000 styles; it's that one style might be found in multiple categories, and each entry counts against the limit.

So, yes, please increase the number of styles allowed by StylePicker.

Better yet, recode StylePicker to make it easier to use and quicker to update when you add new styles. Other than adding new buttons and search/filtering features (which I also believe could be improved), it hasn't change a whole lot over the years, and the limit has been previously increased several times, so it is doable.

+44,000 (at least)

The stylepicker window, being a central element of the GUI, needs a complete and urgent redesign, IMO. Finding the right style should be a much easier and flexible task, but the ancient stylepicker window and the cryptic 8.3 style names don't help at all.

John, Understood, thanks.

In that case:

+44,001

20,000+1 - redesign stylepicker - redesign everything. It's time.

Z

Another +1!

If making the increase is difficult maybe PGMusic could count each style only once regardless of how many times it is listed.

I often wonder how many styles there actually are, beyond the sales hype, which does not impress here.

Yep, it has certainly come the time for a clean-out and redesign

The product itself is great, it just has too much legacy baggage. Fresh user start needed, desperately

Stylepicker only picks up style files located in one of two places: C:\BB and C:\BB\Styles (where C:\BB is the location you actually installed BIAB - for example, on my machine it is D:\Apps\PGMusic\BIAB).

So, just take a look with Windows Explorer and filter on *.sty in both of those locations to see how many style files you have.

What I do on my machine is to keep all PGMusic provided styles in the C:\BB folder (which is how they come with each new version), and then keep 3rd party and my own home-created styles in the C:\BB\Styles folder.

Also, if you have them all intermingled and have purchased Norton Styles, they all begin with a "#" sign in the file name, so it's easy to distinguish which are Norton styles and which are not.

what I mean John is that I think that many styles actually sound similar to my ears, except for an addition or subtraction of an instrument. So one "style" is considered to be more than one "style". I think there are fewer styles than the hype states, but I dont know how to ascertain how many styles there are.

Z

Yes VT, the fear is that PG will 'improve' the style picker, whilst leaving the interface spaghetti type design the same cluttered and unintuitive and cranky, with a few world class features - this is my opinion.

Z

Well, there is a huge difference in RealStyles versus MIDI styles. For RealStyles, all you can do is select a "Real" instrument for a slot in the style, and it's going to play pretty much the same thing in every style that contains it. That's because it's pre-recorded. Yes, there are variations, depending upon where in the style BIAB picks up the riff, but mostly will sound the same. So you can have another style with the same guitar and a different bass, and it's going to sound like the same guitar, but a different bass.

For MIDI styles, however, there is a lot of variation, depending upon the number of patterns contained and defined for that style. MIDI styles are generally created with the whole "band" playing in a certain way, with the riffs complementing each other (although they don't have to, but usually they do). RealStyles, however, are just a matter of choosing a RealTrack that "probably" sounds good with one or more other RealTracks. The riffs of each instrument are not "synched" up to play together as a band.

Those are some of the trade-offs you get between Real and MIDI.

And of course, StylePicker displays RealStyles (all RealTracks), MIDI styles (all MIDI instruments and defined riffs), and mixed (some RealTracks/some MIDI in the same style).

I suspect though, once you get past the first few thousand styles anyway, they're going to start sounding similar, because you only have so many instruments to choose from and only so many patterns to play in a bar or two.

Yes, the stylepicker need a fresh redesign.
And by the way, it is time now - not in 3 or 5 or 10 years - to get rid of archaic DOS 8.3 filenames.
The new stylepicker would also take in account the user styles. At present time, when you apply filters in the stylepicker, the user styles are not seen.
Thread not really new, but it becomes urgent to go ahead.

>>> I think there are fewer styles than the hype states, but I dont know how to ascertain how many styles there are.

What 'hype' are referring to that leads you to think that there are fewer styles.
Count the number of .STY files in c:\bb - that is the # of styles. I count 4,849 of them - does the 'hype' state that there are more than that?

I get 5590 styles on disk (C:\bb\ and below), but 4456 in the Style Picker (I did select the Find New Styles button first)

))) I get 5590 styles on disk (C:\bb\ and below), but 4456 in the Style Picker (I did select the Find New Styles button first)


Correct, because you're including sub folders of BB. Some styles are special cases and intended only for certain songs, and don't get put in the BB folder.

Peter

Any response to the subject of this thread?
Increasing the Stylepicker capacity.

Tony

Yes, we plan on increasing that soon.

A Big Hurray !! - F

I believe that it is not only a matter of increasing the number. I have two almost identical installations on two computers. Almost, because one is not a copy of the other but a true separate installation -- usually done a couple of days later to better experience changes and their effects.

There is the same number of styles on both computers but still the StylePicker shows different numbers. On my desktop everything is easy and relaxed, on my laptop the StylePicker laments about too many entries. On both computers the number of entries in the StylePicker is way below 20.000. On my desktop the number is currently 6.917 while on my laptop the number is about twice that.

Having been software tester for quite a while, I would create a version that records the path through the program and give that to the users that have problems, especially users like me that have problems on one computer but not on the other. But also some to users who do not have problems.

I would be happy to test run a test version to find the faulty part of the code. And yes, I would make sure to have both installation as identical as possible.

It's not so much the style files per se, but what is listed in the BBW.LST and any *.ls3 files you have in your BIAB folder. That's where the duplication happens. And then, of course, BIAB picks up any additional style files it finds and inserts them into the [Other Styles Found] category (or whatever it's called).

Thanks for the clarification John.
My BBW.LST has 18,150 lines, plus a couple of dozen lines in LS3 files, so I'm closer to the edge than I thought!

But this still does not explain why my laptop has twice as many entries than my desktop.

I don't develop styles on my laptop, when I'm gone from home, I only preview styles and songs. I sometimes even create an arrangement. But essentially, when I did something new, that is moved to my dropbox and as soon as my desktop starts I have it there, too. I try to have both installations as similar as possible, a certain type of laziness is a good reason for this.

The program "StylePicker" behaves in an unpredictable way on different computers -- so it seems.

I said it before and I repeat it: I would be happy to run a test version of the StylePicker that protocols its ways through the code on both of my computers. And I'm sure there are quite a few users on this forum who would be happy to assist also. The result could be zipped and maild to PGMusic or uploaded to one of their servers.

GHinCH,

You make some good points there.

I don't have the answers, but maybe PGM can analyze and explain why this number might be so high on some computers, and not others. This might help to track down the issue that causes this, and resolve the issue rather than just extending a list capacity when this is not the actual source of the problem.

Hope these ideas help

Trev

You didn't inadvertently copy [not move] all your styles from the main BIAB folder to the BIAB\Styles folder, did you?

Have you looked at you BBW.LST files on both computers to make sure they are the same? Likewise any *.LS3 files. (BBW.LST and *.LS3 files are all text files, easily editable)

Additionally, this was supposedly fixed, but in the past I know there was a problem with the BBW.LST file, where it didn't show me all my styles. The lack of that blank line prevented the StylePicker from showing any user styles (which are found in LS3 files). To fix it, all I had to do was edit the file and add a blank line to the very end of the file, and all the styles would pop in. And then every time PG did an update, I had to do that again when the it got overwritten.

Have you tried to rebuild stylepicker on both machines? Are both installations on the hard local drive, or does one run off the external drive?

I'm sure you've looked at those things, but just checking...

Hello John,

oh yes, I've checked them before. See here: http://www.pgmusic.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Main=39457&Number=281269#Post281269 and following messages. Even PGMusic's Andrew didn't find more when he looked around on my laptop with TeamViewer.

Here are the the laptop's current figures:
6660 in C:\BB
7416 in C:\BB including all subdirectories.

The figures from January -- BB itself (no subfolders):
Laptop: 6654
Desktop: 6661

Being on the laptop I don't have the destop's current figures. No, there is some odd behavior in the StylePicker's ways.

Maybe it doesn't zero the existing count before it recreates the new count value? (Double-counts)

Yeah, something like that -- that is one of the reasons why I would like to run a test version across both of my installations.

I still don't believe that raising the number fixes it, it will just be a remedy for a symptom.