Transpose dialog could use few improvements
I'm working on my first MuseScore work and found the need to transpose parts up or down an octave. To do this I have to open the Transpose dialog, choose "by interval" (, maybe choose "down") and the choose the appropriate interval. By default, the first one in the list is perfect unison. Who has ever transposed something by perfect unison?
So maybe change the list around, showing Perfect Octave at the top and Unison (if it even needs to be there) in the bottom. This would be easy and fast fix.
A bit harder to implement, but please consider adding keyboard shortcuts for octave up/down, perfect fifth up/down and diatonic 3rd up/down. Those in combination with up/down arrow keys would mean less need to open the transpose dialog and faster workflow.
Comments
For a selection:
[Ctrl] UpArrow to move up an octave
[Ctrl] DownArrow to move down an octave
For the whole score:
[Ctrl] a followed by [Ctrl] UpArrow or DownArrow
F2 to move up a semitone
[Shift] F2 to move down a semitone
F2 pressed seven times to move up a fifth
In reply to For a selection: [Ctrl] by underquark
And to be clear - those shortcuts are not for the transpose dialog but work directly on the score itself. That is, you don't need to open the transpose dialog at all to transpose notes by an octave; Ctrl+Up/Down does the job directly once you select the passage you wish to transpose. Also Up/Down by themselves transpose the whole selection a semitone, or Alt+Shift+Up/Down to transpose the selection by step diatonically.
The only reason you would normally need to use the transpose dialog is if you also want chord symbols or key signatures within the selection to be transposed. And the F2 shortcuts do this without the need for the dialog, but the dialog produces better enharmonic spellings I find.
In reply to And to be clear - those by Marc Sabatella
Thanks for the info. The CTRL+arrow shortcut was news to me. Maybe I need to read the Handbook more carefully :)
But just out of general interest, is there a real world use for "Transpose by perfect unison"?
In reply to Thanks for the info. The by gravehill
Not that I can think of, but it makes a sensible default for the dialog, so that if you don't choose a specific interval, hitting OK does nothing.
As for Ctrl+Up/Down, it's a pretty basic command during note entry as a fair amount of time, if you type a letter name to enter a note, it will guess the wrong octave some percentage of the time and you need Ctrl+Up/Down to change it. Even with the need for this, entering notes by keybaord shortcut is still a much more efficient method than mouse clicking, so perhaps that's something else that will come as good news :-)
In reply to Not that I can think of, but by Marc Sabatella
Thanks for the shortcut - very handy!
In fact PU is the worst possible choice for a default.
- it is redundant since it duplicates functionality already provided by the "cancel" button in the same dialog.
- the purpose of a "default" in software is to minimize necessary interaction by anticipating most common usage (as per Wiki). PU is the least used transposition, which guarantees that the maximum number of users will be inconvenienced by having to click and scroll. The argument to leave it at a non-functioning default might hold more water if "transpose" was destructive/non-undoable/somehow inherently dangerous.
P8 is the obvious default, which is why most notation programs accommodate or expedite it.
In reply to And to be clear - those by Marc Sabatella
I also found the transpose dialog a bit slow/inconvenient. I agree that a few keystrokes are (mostly) faster than opening this window, but in larger scores (full orchestra, 100+ measures) MS looses responsiveness and transposing even a few measures takes some time (seconds for each semitone step!). Doing it in one step is just quicker and less error prone (I press an arrow key a few times and wait). But then I would like to use some keyboard shortcuts to move around the window.
In reply to I also found the transpose by snopeusz
FWIW, Tab should work fine to move around this dialog as with just about all dialogs.
Performance on large scores is an issue that goes way beyond transposition of course. It is something I very much hope to see improved some day. BTW, one thing that helps is not generating parts until you are basically done editing.