Progressions

July 12, 2022

Hello again! Just popping in with a much-requested feature addition, and a quality of life improvement for yours truly. - Every few months, someone emails me to ask about support for page turners, and because I've never been able to track down any details on how they work, I've never managed to give a satisfactory response. Until now. I spent some time significantly improving Progressions' keyboard navigation, and so with that comes support for page turners that work by sending keyboard shortcuts. Sorry I'm so late to this particular party, everyone. - I recently made changes to the way I collect crashes analytics in my other app (GIFwrapped), and given it's incredible success both in how useful the new services are, and how much more privacy-focused they allow me to be, I've made the change in Progressions as well. This update comes with the requisite changes to the Progressions' privacy policy, so be sure to check in on that if you're curious. Thanks so much for using Progressions! If you have anything you'd like to mention to me, the best thing you can do is reach out: send an email to support@pgns.co or hit up @progressionsapp on Twitter. I want Progressions to be the best it can be, so I'm always happy to hear from you!

March 3, 2022

Over Christmas, it came to my attention that there's an issue with editing charts where they won't be saved properly, so they retain the edits while the app stays alive, and then get lost on relaunch. It came down to a piece of code that was supposed to check if the chart existed in the database already returning a false negative, which should now be sorted. Thank you for using Progressions! For help with problems, to make suggestions, or to request access to TestFlight releases, you can email support@pgns.co or tweet @progressionsapp. It's important to me that you're able to use Progressions without issues, so if you do have any, please don't hesitate to reach out!

December 3, 2021

The last release introduced a couple of awkward bugs that ranged from being slightly annoying to making the app unusable. Because I know how frustrating these things can be, I put a rush on getting an update out the door to resolve the issues I know about. If there's anything else… please let me know, and I'll do what I can. - I inadvertently discovered that there are people still using Progressions on iOS 13 when the last release introduced an issue that caused them to experience a black screen upon loading the app. The good news is that I was able to fix it, the bad news is that Progressions' support for iOS 13 is not long for this world, so it might be worth updating to the latest iOS anyway. - Progressions' ability to track the system dark mode setting and serve up the appropriate theme was on its last legs due to system-level changes, so when I switched over to scene-based UI architecture in the last release, I basically ripped the carpet out from underneath it and broke the thing. A couple of adjustments and it's back up and running again. Phew! - Another issue that showed up in the recent update was the fact that Progressions couldn't process external files or links, which isn't awesome when that's how a lot of stuff gets shared around. I'm working on better solutions for this, but I also dug in and sorted out the problem because I don't like leaving things broken. It bothers me. Thanks for using Progressions! Once again, if you need help or have suggestions, toss an email to support@pgns.co or tweet @progressionsapp, and I'll do what I can! Until next time!

November 25, 2021

I had a few people write in to tell me about the stuff that they've been dealing with in Progressions recently, so here's an update dedicated to them. I really appreciate it when I hear from people using the app, even if it's because of a bug. - Despite being a fairly rudimentary thing, the ability to rename sets has been something that Progressions has lacked for a long while. Too long. So when I got asked to add the feature again recently, I took the opportunity to dig in and provide a way to do it: tap the edit button on the list, and then edit the name right there in the navigation bar. No muss, no fuss. - If transposition involved changing a natural chord to a flat or a sharp, bass notes were getting updated twice. The number of characters in the chart's text would change, and the way that the code for transposing charts to know where it up to would get out of alignment. The good news is that someone spotted it, let me know, and I dug in to find the cause and rooted it out. Problem solved. - I've also seen a bunch of crashes happening during transposition, so I went through it and did what I could to stop the crashes from happening by making sure it didn't try to mess with strings outside of their bounds. Between this and the last fix, transposition should be back to being rock solid again… I just hope saying so doesn't jinx it. Thanks for using Progressions! I love to hear from you all, so if you need help or have suggestions, toss an email to support@pgns.co or tweet @progressionsapp, and I'll do what I can! Until next time!

October 25, 2021

A small but important update today… well, small on the surface, but huge under the hood. Definitely important, either way. - A while back, a user discovered that some less common chords weren't transposing correctly, setting me on a path that I'd been considering for a long while: ripping out and re-implementing the core logic for finding chords in plain text. It was no small task, but has definitely made my life infinitely easier, improved the range of chords it can handle, and significantly reduced false positives. I haven't even gotten to the part where I'm making full use of the new capabilities for rendering charts yet, and I'm already impressed, so I hope you are too! - The search bar in the chart list has been looking more and more out-of-date as iOS versions progressed, so I updated it to be more at home with search bars in other parts of iOS. Thanks for using Progressions! If you need help or have suggestions, toss an email to support@pgns.co or tweet @progressionsapp, and I'll do what I can! Until next time!

October 2, 2020

Who ever would've thought that iOS 14 would break stuff? Not me, but I was wrong, as evidenced by this release focused (mostly) on fixing a fun new bug introduced by iOS 14. - For the purposes of testing, the less versions of iOS that I need to support, the easier it is. As such, I've moved up the minimum supported version to iOS 13. This shouldn't affect too many people, but should significantly improve my ability to stay on top of bugs and introduce new features down the line. - Something in iOS 14 changed the way that split views work (i.e. the thing that makes Progressions have a two column layout), which in turn caused the button used to hide the side column to straight up crash the app. Not ideal at all, so I dug in, changed a whole bunch of stuff, and made the columns behave as intended. No muss, no fuss. - After like two years of ignoring them, I got an itch to get some shortcut intents implemented, so you can now search for charts, create them, and open them from actions in Apple's Shortcuts app, which is cool and good (and useful for automating parts of Progressions). There's a few more on the way, but this felt like a solid start. - There was a few things broken with link-sharing for charts, so I reached in, rummaged about a bit, and got things working again. No big deal… most of the problems were on the server side, but I did attempt to make it a little more resilient. Thanks for using Progressions! If you need help, I'm only an email away! Hit up support@pgns.co or tweet @progressionsapp, and I'll do what I can to help! Until next time: stay safe, stay warm, and tell someone you care about that you love them.

August 23, 2020

It's been a long time coming, but I've given Progressions a little bit of love, by fixing some bugs and returning a feature that was removed when I rebuilt the app. iOS got dark mode, so in return, I give you light mode! - When I rebuilt the app without including the choice between light and dark themes, I got a lot more email than I would've expected, so I felt like I needed to make it right by returning the feature. Choose between themes in Settings, or use the System option to dynamically change based on the Dark Mode option in iOS 13. - There was a small issue causing huge problems on first launch, where the app would crash because it needed to update a back button that wasn't loaded up yet. Took care of it, no need to worry yourself any longer. - The guide file wasn't being correctly included in the shipped app, which meant that if you tried to open the guide without internet, there'd be hell to pay. No one wants that, so I fixed it to make sure it doesn't happen again. If you want to let me know about any issues, I'll be happy to hear from you. Either tweet at @progressionsapp, or send an email to support@pgns.co, and I'll do what I can to help out. Until next time!

March 18, 2019

Hey everyone! I've been incredibly busy with other work lately, but since I received a few emails about some fixes that are honestly quite overdue, I took some time to dive in and get them sorted. Mostly a bunch of crashes… here's some deets on the more juicy items: - New(-ish) iPads without home buttons should now have proper support now. There's really no reasonable excuse for why this hadn't happened yet, but at least it's done now? Right? - There was a small issue causing huge problems on first launch, where the app would crash because it needed to update a back button that wasn't loaded up yet. Took care of it, no need to worry yourself anymore. - The guide file wasn't being correctly included in the shipped app, which meant that if you tried to open the guide without internet, there'd be hell to pay. No one wants that, so I fixed it to make sure it doesn't happen again. If you're having issues or want to make a suggestion, I always try to be available to help out… even if Progressions isn't something I'm able to work on full-time. Toss an email my way via support@pgns.co or follow @progressionsapp on Twitter.

April 27, 2018

It's been a little bit since the last update, and I apologise for that! It's partly because I've been busy with other work, but also because there were a couple of pretty tricky bugs to sort out. Nevertheless, here's a new update to hopefully sort out some of the stuff I've been able to track down. - Charts got a small visual improvement with very subtle highlighting of chords within the content. This more or less acts as a visual marker of what can/will be transposed, and helps to differentiate things a little. There's no additional adjustments that can be made at this stage, but I'm working on more improvements in this space, so stay tuned. - On occasion, charts can have words that are also chords: A and Am being two of the obvious candidates. You can now "escape" these words with a forward slash (like so: \A or \Am), and the resulting txt won't be picked up when transposing. Progress! - The underlying database had some concurrency issues that could cause odd behaviour when editing sets or writing charts (though mostly the former). I went over the affected code with a fine-toothed comb and cleaned up the parts that could cause problems, which has smoothed things out considerably. - Charts that contained tabs (as in the spaces, not the musical ones) has some formatting issues that could pop up, where lines would get cut short unnecessarily, causing chords to get out of line with lyrics, amongst other things. Rather than fixing it (because I literally can't), I've introduced ways of replacing them with spaces instead, avoiding the whole thing altogether. - The delete/remove buttons for charts were inaccurately labelled due to a minor logic error, and the whole fiasco was made more confusing by the fact that favourite charts were deleted, not "unfavourited", as the label might have suggested. Both of these things have been resolved, ensuring that there is no confusion, or lost charts. - I made some very, very minor tweaks to how stuff in Settings is displayed, making it a little clearer as to what does what, and the things that can actually be poked at. - Using the tab key to move between fields in the chart editor was a bit haphazard, causing things to be highlighted and the key menu to be opened. I've streamlined the behaviour so it works as expected, so no more haunted editor. If you need help with something, want to report problems, or just want to shoot compliments my way, you can totally do that! Hit me up by email at support@pgns.co or follow @progressionsapp on Twitter. Until next time!

October 20, 2017

Hello again! I'm back with another update to patch up a few bugs and oddities. Thanks to everyone who's been getting in touch… your help has been instrumental. There's still more to patch up, but this takes care of the most notorious for the moment! - List animations were acting all wiggy and could cause significant issues in certain cases, but I tracked down the underlying cause and made some changes which appear to have cleared things right up, and things are much smoother now. - The paging system for displaying charts wasn't quite hooked up the way it should have been, and in some cases would cause crashes if things didn't go how it expected. I went over it with a fine tooth comb to clear up any possible issues, and while I was at it, I improved some of its interactions with other UI. It's much nicer now. - The chart selection screen for creating sets was crashing on opening, which was very very strange. I quickly fixed up the issue, so it should be good to go again. - The backup system was doing more work than it really needed—attempting to create multiple automatic backups at once, which is unnecessary as heck—so I streamlined its code and ensured that things happen in sequence, which should mean future backups are more reliable, and will resolve the occasional crash that could occur if things went truly pear-shaped. If you fin that you need help, want to report problems, or just want to shoot compliments my way, you can totally do that! Hit me up by email at support@pgns.co or follow @progressionsapp on Twitter. Until next time!