Warning dialogues that should display
When I selected a rest and tried to flip it, no warning dialogue appeared.
Is there anything else in which a warning doesn't display, but probably should?
Using MuseScore 2.0 Nightly Build (3a23613) - Mac 10.7.5.
Comments
No. I don't think a warning dialog would be helpful here. It would just kill the workflow. If a user type X on a rest, he probably doesn't understand what flip means, or a what a rest is, or most probably it was a mistyping.
Miwarre and I once discussed about the possibility to produce a sound in this case. It would be more user friendly, if they user has his speakers on, and is not deaf... Also, if the user selects a region with a rest in it and press X, should he get a dialog or a sound?
A intermediary way would be to add a dialog and a way to dismiss the dialog for ever ("Do not display this message anymore" checkbox). But it looks like a lot of dialogs for not much usability gain.
In reply to No. I don't think a warning by [DELETED] 5
I have to agree with lasconic that dialogs wouldn't be helpful. Even sounds or forever dismissable dialogs would be counterproductive, as they disrupt the user's workflow.
I don't see the flip command doing nothing as an issue, but if you think it is, the best solution would be to simply disable the icon for non-flippable elements.
Also, perhaps the command could be called "Flip stem" to avoid confusion?
In reply to Dialogs are counterproductive by tinman
I agree about disabling the icon.
I think I also I agree about re-titling it 'Flip stem'.
In reply to I agree about disabling the by chen lung
And I disagree again... The X action and the icon associated with it is not for flipping stems, it's for flipping a lot of different things: articulations, slurs, tuplet brackets, and yes, eventually, stems. So renaming it Flip stem would be couner productive.
Disabling the icon could be done, but it would not solve the issue(?) that pressing X on a rest does nothing. For what is worth, pressing P, or O does nothing as well...
In reply to And I disagree again... The X by [DELETED] 5
I forgot about all those other things, but I had wondered at the time.
Thanks.
Maybe the short-time appeared message in the status bar would be helpful (like in Visual Studio),
or a tooltip appeared at the center of the screen for a second or two (like in SmartGit, if there are no more changes to show after the user clicks "Go to next change").
I can't see that a dialogue or warning would help most users when you try to perform an action on something that doesn't support it but if there was a way to implement the warning if the attempt was repeated, say, three times in succession then that might help someone less used to the program who is puzzled as to why repeated pressing of x isn't doing anything.
Could x be used to flip rests in multiple Voices? X could flip a displaced rest back to the middle of the stave and vice versa. That would be a useful action.
In reply to I can't see that a dialogue by underquark
That is a good idea, but I can't help think it is misusing the function somewhat.
I think flipping is about direction (of ties, stems), rather than position.
What do you think?
In reply to I can't see that a dialogue by underquark
Sorry @underquark, but I do not agree; meaningless actions may be come out of ignorance/mis-comprehension or by mistake; in both cases, some feedback may be useful.
Example: I drop an articulation on a time signature; maybe I'm drunk or I have no idea of what an articulation is, maybe I just missed the note I was aiming to and dropped on the time signature nearby by mistake.
In both case, having the articulation just disappear is not useful. Some kind of feedback, telling me "No, you can't do that" would confirm that I actually did something but it was not acceptable and, in the long run, would help to increase my productivity, by letting me to discover that I cannot drop anything on anything else or by trying to increase my mouse skill.
For keyboard commands it would even be more useful: I press something and there no feedback whatsoever; did I miss the key? is my keyboard broken? is MuseScore frozen? have I been teleported to a parallel universe? Some feedback would instantly answer all these questions: nah! I just did something unsupported / meaningless / impossible.
I still believe that some kind of short, 'dumb' sound would be the best (and I think used in other applications too); unfortunately it is not possible under Linux (the sound player is 'stolen' by the synthesizer); but, for instance, a light (shortly) blinking somewhere in the main window or a large, overlaid, question mark quickly appearing and disappearing on the main window might also do (a sound may be added for the platforms supporting it)
Just my opinion, though...
M.
In reply to Sorry @underquark, but I do by Miwarre
I would also agree that some sort of warning - not a dialog requiring action, but just a sound like many programs use - would be fine by me. And, hmm, if we can't use the OS-level support for that on all platforms because the synth has stolen the soundcard, why nit simply use the synth? Just use it to play a note, using one of the "sound effect" patches maybe.
I guess the problem with implementing anything like this is finding all the places where we would need to add it.
In reply to Sorry @underquark, but I do by Miwarre
The intent is good, but I don't think a sound is a good solution -- hearing a sound tells you you didi something wrong, but it tells you nothing about what you did wrong or how to do it right.
For commands that do nothing in a certain circumstances, the clear solution is to just disable them in those circumstances.
For drag-and-drop from the palette, the solution has several aspects.
I've long been a proponent of getting rid of the drag-and-drop gesture and using a single click on a palette item, then a single click on the target (like tools in drawing programs), which is easier to do and allows the user to make sure the mouse is over the target. That would reduce the number of accidental errors.
Another thing to bring errors to a minimum would be to "magnetically" attach palette elements to whatever they're closest to -- e.g. lines kind of work this way.
And another thing would be to highlight the possible target areas (non-target areas could be darkened) and/or show the palette item in red until it's over a target area.
As for keyboard shortcuts, a message in the status bar telling the user why nothing was done -- e.g. "No note selected" or "No items in the clipboard" -- would be much more informative.
In reply to The intent is good, but I by tinman
While it's true that hearing a sound doens't solve the problem for you, it *is* the solution used in countless other programs. There is value in consistency. Adding a message to the status bar too is a good idea, though.
Also, I am all in favor of reducing reliance on drag & drop. It's actually only needed for a few things now - adding lines, key & time signatures, maybe one of two others. For everything else, click score then double click palette works. As part fo the accessibility work undertaken by Andrei for the Google Summer of Code, he prototyped some additional support for keyboard navigation and application of palette items. But completing that portion of the work was postponed until after 2.0 - the changes were too big, I think. At some point, we will surely revisit this.