5. Exporting & Importing Help

The ability to export and import rhythms is central to Keep Ya Beat. When you first install it, the saved rhythms list is automatically imported, and you can modify/delete these as you choose.

You may want to import for a variety of reasons, for instance:

• There's a new set of rhythms provided on our Download Rhythms page which you want to use
• You deleted or modified a rhythm from the default set that you want to restore (either from your own backup or from an updated rhythm pack on our Download Rhythms page)
• You want to use Keep Ya Beat on another device and need to move your saved rhythms over
• A friend (perhaps a music/dance teacher) has given you a rhythm(s)

*Tip: When you export a rhythm to share with someone else, if the rhythm includes your own sound(s), give them the raw sound file too, so they can hear it the way you made it. It's also a good idea to only use the supplied sounds if you're sharing your rhythm with the world through this site.

Let's first take a quick look at exporting rhythms, this will make the import easier to understand. In the example you can see some rhythms (a) have been selected (click selects one, click plus <shift> or <ctrl> for multi select). When there's any rhythms selected the export button becomes active (b), and pressing this brings up the Export Rhythms window (c). Add a short description and an export file is created.

After clicking OK (the tick/check mark) you'll see a confirmation window as in the following example (a), telling you the file name and where it was put (on most systems this is the home folder). A short notification is also shown at the bottom (b).

You can use export to create backups of your rhythms for you own use. And if you want to share them with friends you just need to give them the file, the confirmation window also provides an introduction to Keep Ya Beat (including a link to this site so they can download the app) which you can copy to your clipboard and paste into your message to your friends. If you feel that the rhythms provided on our Download Rhythms page is lacking, you can also send your rhythms file to us and we'll make an announcement so everyone can use them.

Returning now to the import, perhaps you downloaded a rhythms pack from this site, or are simply importing a backup set that you exported yourself.

The Import Rhythms tool is under the 'More...' menu, when you click on it you'll see a file browser like the one shown next. The file we just exported in the last example is now visible in the home folder (a). Choosing this file takes us to the selection window in the next example.

You can choose which rhythms to import from the file/pack. By default only new rhythms will be selected (click b for options), but you can also choose to overwrite everything or select them individually yourself (a). Overwriting an existing rhythm removes the previous version, just in case you wish you hadn't, you can still undo the import until you restart the app though.

When you import a rhythm you get tags too. This is very handy if you're importing a pack of rhythms someone else has provided, you get their whole set up! If they happen to speak a different language to you, just rename rhythms and tags to your own language. The program will still recognize them if you ever import them again in the future.