March 2019 Updates

Vincent Giersch -

Hi Everyone,

We released some great updates last month, and we would like to share the main ones today with you:

Text styles customization

You can now easily customize the text styles of your scores. We also added more than 150 fonts from Google Fonts.

These text options are available in the Layout settings of your score. First, choose the default font for your score, then adjust the styles for the specific text elements.

Learn more about this update and how to use custom text styles.

Custom keyboard shortcuts

The second update from March is the ability to customize your keyboard shortcuts. In our music notation editor you can quickly add your own keyboard shortcuts, and editing keys associated with existing actions.

To start customizing your shortcuts, press Alt + ? in the editor, then click on Customize.

Learn more about this update and how to create your very own shortcuts.

MIDI support for iOS

Our native iOS app now supports MIDI devices with our step-by-step mode.

For USB MIDI devices, simply plug them to your iPad or iPhone using a USB to Lightning cable (your device must be compatible). The list of available devices is displayed in the score settings (see below).

For Bluetooth MIDI devices, open the score settings by clicking on the edit icon on the top left of the screen, then choose MIDI Input and Connect a Bluetooth MIDI Device:

iOS updates (2.7.3 to 2.9.0)

In addition of the support of MIDI devices for iOS, we added several new features and improvements to our app:

  • In the iOS editor, we added the support for Concert Pitch and multiple fixes for grace notes.
  • We now have better support for imported MusicXML/MIDI files from other Cloud apps (e.g. iCloud/Dropbox/Google Drive). We also added the support of other files formats like Guitar Pro, MuseScore and Power Tab.
  • For iOS 11 and iOS 12 users using our authentication by email and password, we now use the same credentials stored in the iCloud Keychain for our iOS app and our website flat.io on Safari.

Layout improvements

Systems reflow

In the previous version, when a system height was increasing a lot, the last system of the page could be shifted out of the page. On the image below, you can see that the note is out of the page.

With the new version, the system will instead be pushed to the next page.

Systems/staves spacing

We have changed our spacing system for staves and systems, so you can now express more accurately the minimal distance you want between systems and staves. It is expressed as the minimal distances between upper staff bottom line, and the lower staff upper line.

Remove final barline when there is a fine

We now display a normal barline at the end of the score when there is a Fine:

MusicXML import improvements

Import the maximum number of measures per lines.

We now try to deduce the global number of measures per lines from the system breaks in the imported file. We then remove the corresponding system breaks to clear the display. If there are system breaks in the imported file, we also set the notes spacing to the minimum, in order to preserve the initial and intended layout.

TAB format from MuseScore & Guitar Pro

We now handle the way MuseScore and Guitar Pro are storing the TAB data. You can now import your guitar creations on Flat :)

Thank you

Thanks again for all your feedback, we always love to hear from you! If you have any comments or suggestions, please drop us a line at hello@flat.io.

Cheers,

Vincent, Cyril & The Flat Team