Songs

The PDF repository is where you can access all the individual songs that we play.

Initial Setup

Pre-requisite: You must have the Google Drive app (↗️Google Play  ↗️Apple App Store)  installed on your tablet and be signed into your google account.

On your tablet click the PDF Repository link. This will open the Google Drive App in the Ukes ‘n’ More Songs folder.

If this is the first time you’ve accessed the repository on Google we’ll add a shortcut to the Ukes ‘n’ More Songs folder so that its easy to come back to later.

On iOS:

• To the right of the Ukes ‘n’ More Songs heading, next to the Search icon, tap the ellipsis (…)

• Tap Add to Starred

• Goto the Starred section to check: Click the Starred icon at the bottom of the screen – The Ukes ‘n’ More Songs folder should now be there

On Android:

The Ukes ‘n’ More Songs will be a dropdown with a down arrow, Tap that heading.

• Tap Add to Starred

• Goto the Starred section to check: Click the Starred icon at the left of the screen – The Ukes ‘n’ More Songs folder should now be there

Next time you come back to Google Drive, just go straight the Starred Section and tap the Ukes ‘n’ More Songs folder.

Sub folders underneath the Ukes ‘n’ More Songs repository:

• Current-Songs: All the songs we regularly play are here. You can access the lot here, but if we add new songs you'll have to make sure you are up to date.

• Setlists: For each night we’ll create a setlist folder with the date of the Ukes night as the folder name. The folder will contain just the PDFs for the songs we are playing for that night, in the order we are playing them. 

This makes it a lot easier to find just the files you are after on the night. In Google Drive once you open the first file and display that PDF, you can then swipe left and right to go to the next (or previous) song. Setlist folders are usually available 2-3 days before the Ukes night.

Other sub folders are:

• Books: Full Book PDFs

• Archive: Older songs we don't play any more

• Unofficial: Songs we’ve done at some point and may introduce (eg for 'event' nights)

Viewing the PDFs on your tablet

Google Drive has quite a good PDF reader built in, but you can also use the Adobe Acrobat Reader to open the PDFs which some people have found is better at displaying longer songs.

Important! How to make sure you can access the songs while at Ukes N More:

• If you will have internet access on your tablet/phone on this night there’s nothing more to do, you’ll be able to access files in any of the sub folders under Ukes ‘n’ More Songs.
  (Note: while there is WiFi access available in the hall, if possible we prefer that you provide your own connection so that we don’t overload the WiFi and affect our livestream. Also, the Wifi in the hall has been turned off from time to time. For tablets that don’t have built in 4G/5G, it is usually straightforward to ‘tether’ the tablet to your phone and use its 4G/5G connection – for instructions just google “make your phone a hotspot”.)

• If you don’t have internet access on your tablet/phone, you can effectively ‘download’ the files you want to access on the night by Making them Available Offline. You’ll need to do this beforehand while you are connected to the internet. To do this:

  • Go into the folder – for example “Current-Songs” or one if the playlist folders for the date you are after.

  • Select the songs you want. First, long press a file to go into selection mode. Then tap the other files you want. Or, to Select All files in the current folder, tap the icon that looks like a square surrounded by dots: .

  • Once the files are selected, tap the ellisis (looks like three dots) icon at the top of the screen.

  • Tap Make available offline

  • The files will be downloaded, and a small tick icon will appear next to the file(s) indicating it is available offline.

  • A gotcha is that if you select multiple files and some are available offline (tick) and some aren’t (no tick), the
    Make available offline option won’t be available. So if we add new files just select the ones without the tick first, or do one by one.

  • Test by disconnecting your tablet from the internet, and then go back in and try to access one of the PDFs.

If you need help please ask Macca or one of the Ukes team. Just bear in mind we can be busy setting everything up before the night commences, so afterwards would be preferred.