Meta-tag popup text--Request and Suggestion
The new Header/Footer/Numbers page in 2.0 is a very useful improvement, but the huge popup text box that gives info on the meta-tags that can be used in the input fields is very intrusive. I have a request and a suggestion:
REQUEST: Get rid of the popup, and move the information to the page itself. Perhaps it could be put in a separate frame at the top of the page, using a multi-column format to make it fit without overburdening the page.
SUGGESTION: Add to that list of meta-tags the information that inline html tags can be used to format text font, weight, size, etc. within each header or footer element.
Obviously, this suggestion is to let users know about a workaround for a text-formatting problem. It could later be elminated if the development team decides to put the 'click-to-edit' and 'selectable text' functionality (which was present for the copyright footer in 1.3) in as a patch to 2.0.
Comments
inline html tags *cannot* be used in footer and header. You can use some tags that are not related to HTML at all and you are on your own if you break the score. These fields should get controls to change font, color etc.. or better the footer and header should be editable in the score directly but I don't think documenting the tag is a good thing.
Regarding the metatags, I would vote for a link to a online handbook page to explain the usage of metatags. And if we move the edition of headers/footers to the score, a link in the File >Info box.
In reply to inline html tags *cannot* be by [DELETED] 5
Bon, you've got me confused now. Can you explain to me why the HTML tags that Jojo, M.I.R.O., and Marc told me to use--which WORK, btw (as long as they're in lower case)--'cannot be used' in the way I'm using them?
Not that I disagree that those fields should get text-formatting controls or better yet that the header and footers should be editable directly in the score...but unless and until that is done, users need a workaround to 'getterdone' (fait ce qu'il faut faire).
The great thing about MuseScore is that it does as much or more than the expensive commercial scorewriter programs for typesetting the music--thanks to guys like you who know how to do the coding--but as a music publisher, I can see a need to work on the text presentation that is a necessary part of the final printed product. The last thing I want to have to do is go with Finale or Sibelius or whatever...and that's not because of the price of those programs, it's because I can't even imagine having this sort of discussion with the developers of those programs. That sort of thing just isn't going to happen with a commercial enterprise.
See attached score for how I'm using html tags to format the text in my footers.
In reply to Bon, you've got me confused by Recorder485
I think his point is, they aren't actually HTML - they just happen to superficially resemble it.
In reply to I think his point is, they by Marc Sabatella
Ah. Well, it doesn't take much superficial resemblance to confuse someone who learned the little he knows about computer coding the same the way a lot of us learned to play guitar in the 60s....
Let me revise my suggestion to the extent of not calling these tags 'HTML'; rather, let's say I suggest that unless and until footer/header text is made editable in the score--the way it was in 1.3--the text-formatting tags one might need (fontface and size, as well as the various font styles--italic, bold, underscored, etc.) be listed along with the meta-tags ($:xx:). The point is not so much whether they are real HTML or not, but that they can be used to accomplish a needed task that cannot--for the nonce--be done any other way. And no ordinary MuseScore user is going to figure that out on his own.
In reply to Ah. Well, it doesn't take by Recorder485
Well, I guess the point it these html like things may be working currently but may not in the future, they are unsupported and may cause problems later.
For now you may be using then as a workaround, but if you do you're on your own.
In reply to Bon, you've got me confused by Recorder485
OK. I was not clear. Sorry for that. My points were:
1- It's not HTML. You can't use HTML tags in this field. They might look the same but they are not.
2- It's a bad idea to encourage ordinary users to write something else than plain text in these fields. If a user really needs to get the job done, feel free to risk it but then I wouldn't consider him as an ordinary MuseScore user who would be perfectly happy to not even have a header or footer.
3- Documenting the tags wouldn't help. We "just" need a better solution.
4- Not really related, but the attached file as a trailing comma. It's not a MuseScore file but a backup. You might want to check that you don't use one for the other.
Moving the content of that toolTip into the dialog itself would make that already busy dialog much larger and may result in a size that won't fix small netbook screens anymore
In reply to Moving the content of that by Jojo-Schmitz
Would it help if I developed a graphic version of that page showing how it could appear? I am totally incompetent to write any code, but I could probably whomp up a PDF showing what I have in mind.
In reply to Would it help if I developed by Recorder485
Anything more involved should go into the handbook, I think.
But certainly a picture of what you mean might help here too