Repeating fingering manual adjustment

• Sep 3, 2014 - 15:52
Type
Functional
Severity
S5 - Suggestion
Status
closed
Project

Testing the 2.0 Beta version by starting a new classical guitar score, I faced a rather annoying thing when entering fingerings:
After placing for instance the number '2' and adjusting it to the right place adjacent to a note, copy and pasting that same number to a note on another place in the score, I again have to adjust it to its right place. I know that in this version you can choose a default place but that is mostly not enough. Fine tuning is necessary in most cases.
In the 1.3 version after copy and pasting this number for another note the number appears at exactly the same place as the note I did the copying.
Is there a possibility to get this feature also in the 2.0 version please?
Thanks, Joe.


Comments

I've been looking at this since you brought it up on the forum. It actually appears this is at least partially deliberate. Because the layout of fingering depends on various factors - where the note is on the staff, stem direction, etc - the position is recalculated on each paste. That way it automatically positions itself correctly even when pasted from one note to a note with different staff position & stem direction, rather than keeping same position.

In theory, it *would* be possible to take any actual *manual* positioning into account and apply that on top of the *automatic* repositioning. The problem, unfortunately, is that the automatic positioning is actually implemented as if it were manual. That is, add a fingering to a note, check Inspector - you'll see it shows the adjustment that has already been applied. So there's no way currently to differentiate what is truly manual from what it is not.

Thus, if I fixed it so your manual adjustments were honored, you'd basically lose the automatic positioning when copying & pasting fingerings that *don't* have manual adjustments, and worse, it would basically position them as if you were pasting onto a note of the same pitch / stem direction.

The better solution might be to change the way the automatic positioning algorithm records its decision - instead of making it part of the "user" offset, we could "bake" it into the default in the same way that is done for some other elements for which these sort of automatic adjustments are also performed (articulations, dynamics, ties that I know of). But I'm not sure if that really makes sense here or if soemthing else might depend on the way it is now - eg, a "reset" of position via the Inspector now returns fingerings to the position specified in the text style with no adjustments, which might be a useful feature.

Sorry for the long explanation (it's as much for my benefit to help me jog my memory if I forget these details, or for anyone else who chooses to look at addressing this).

My question to you is, can you show me an example of some of these adjustments you are making, explain why you are making them, and show me where you want them to copy and wh you think the same manual adjustment will make sense in the copy that it *wouldn't* have made sense to just change the default? Not that I doubt you, but it would be good to see a concrete real-world example.

BTW, further discussion took place here: http://musescore.org/en/node/32081

I'm not convinced there was a universal consensus, but I got the sense people were leaning toward saying that it is OK to lose the benefit of auto-placement when copying and pasting fingering markings. That is, we could just copy the adjustments (whether truly manual or "auto"), and if the user wishes new auto-placement to kick in, he can press Ctrl+R. I think I tried implementing that as a test and it worked?

I'm still wondering about the default placement of string number elements, also the possibility of having separate text styles for LH and RH fingerings and being able to different these in right click / Select / More / Same subtype. I'd like to get on this, but am still kind of waiting for a really solid consensus to emerge, with clearly stated suggestions on what to change and how to change it.

Marc,
If you are waiting for a CONSENSUS, then between whom? A lot of classical guitarists using MuseScore do have to respond then, which I think will not be the case.
The only thing I can contribute is to provide you some samples of the USUAL WAY classical guitarists make note of their fingerings.
This I have done in the file attached.
LH finger numbering usually appears on the left side of a note head. They often need adjustment to make things more clear. That is why I often do the 'copy and paste' action when I am facing a fingering which has almost the same place as in an earlier situation in the score.
The way string numbers are placed in a score is mostly determined by clearness. So they can appear at any place (up-down-left-right) with a note or chord. So mostly an adjustment is needed.
RH fingerings are often italics (but some published scores do not use this....) and are usually placed above notes. It does not matter if they appear as beamed clusters or single. But in case of a chord then for clarity they often appear on the right side of the used notes in the chord because the LH fingering is then placed on the left side of the chord. So the way it is now implemented (in first instance above the notes) is fine for me.
When you have implemented the copy and paste possibility FOR THE WHOLE PALETTE then this will be of great help!!
But I am an amateur classical player so perhaps there are people who differ in opinion. Hopefully this little contribution will be of some help making your decisions.

Thanks for that. I guess when I talk about consensus, I mean, I was hoping for a specific bullet list of changes that people are requesting, where at least two people would agree on each item of the list, and no one would be arguing for exactly the opposite :-)

Since this goes beyond just the question of copy/paste and manual adjustments, it's really better suited for the forum. So I'll start a new thread with a specific list of proposals to see if the consensus exists.

BTW, one thing to be aware of fingerings are used by pianists as well as guitarists, and they may have different opinions on some of these matters.