Better search - better index in handbook?
Hi.
Many times when I want to help someone, I want to refer them to the appropriate place in the handbook. I do this rather than write out the answer because I want to encourage personal research.
However, it seems to me that so many specific items are hard to find - for example "stretch". I did a search and went through the links but there was no reference to the handbook.
So I linked to some posts about stretch to get the newbie started.
How can I help make these links easier to find? Does anyone else want to collaborate?
Regards,
Comments
"I did a search and went through the links but there was no reference to the handbook."
When you do a search, you can filter on 'Book page" for handbook pages only. See the block next to the search results at the right.
Not so much related but still relevant: The search engine is very powerful, in the sense that we can boost e.g. handbook pages above forum page. So it could be a good idea to make some kind of listing of what page type rules over another. The types we currently index: Forum topic, Issue, Book page, HowTo, Project, Page, Newsletter, Tutorial.
Attached are the screenshots of the admin panel how we tweak the type and field biasing. I've never done much testing with it since I didn't have good cases yet. So if we could take some time to test some keywords and what result you expect on top, than I can try to change the bias setting and make sure the right result is listed on top.
The problem as I see it is usually that people don't know what terms they are even searching for. Who but someone already familiar with the program would even to think to search on the term "stretch"? So regardless of what happens with search, there still needs to be some top down design to help orient people. Things along the line of what used to be the "snippets" page but that could hopefully be organized to make it easier to find the specific "how do I" writeup or video you are looking for. I think some of that will be happening, and I definitely plan to help.
But on top of that, sure, tweaks to the search engine could help too!
In reply to The problem as I see it is by Marc Sabatella
I agree that people don't know what to search for, but I feel that some of the terms used in MS are not "common" enough. I recently posted about akkolade, for example, completely new to me and I have about 15 years experience with classical music and many more with jazz.
As to filters, I thought I tried the book pages when I searched, but perhaps I missed that.
Something that I notice is there is a large disparity of knowledge in the posts, and a "Trained" musician will have a better chance to find what they want, although I can't see how anyone would think of "stretch" as a search term.
So far the idea that comes to me is to greatly expand the index to the handbook and have alternate choices for the same thing. For example, having a link, "Change number of bars in a stave". Of course, already, this presupposes knowledge of "bar" and "stave", and is wordy.
The spirit of assistance and attempts by the developers to satisfy all requests boggles my mind, but I think there has to be assumed a certain amount of experience/knowledge or the index will become too unwieldy.
That is why I suggested a link to one or more music dictionaries be judiciously placed in conspicuous spots. Of course, most of us will still try to have someone else answer our questions rather than do the research, but facilitating that research should reduce the number of help requests.
Regards,
In reply to All good. by xavierjazz
Absolutely! Just to be clear, I'm not blaming users for not knowing what to search for - some of the terms are indeed quite arcane. Nor am I blaming MuseScore - no matter what you call certain certain features, people will try to looking for the feature with a different description. I suspect no matter what term was used for "stretch", most people wouldn't think to search on it. Which is why I think some top down structure would be nice. If there were a few high level categories, like "entering notes", "playback", "layout", etc, you'd usually be able to figure out which category your issue fell into. Of course, that is exactly how the handbook is organized. The problem is that the next level after the top level is the very specific terms, and you often don't know whch specific entry will have the info you need ("voices? I'm writing guitar music, not vocal music, so clearly that doesn't apply to me!"). So part of what I'm suggesting might look like a new table of contents. But of course, an index is absolutely a great idea too, especially if organized as you suggest. And links to music dictionaries - great idea, too.
Now, as for ways of doing things collaboratively, I do have one idea that I think would be very cool. I've made mention before of the "visual index" that Finale provides. I believe it may have once been paper only, but now it's online. Check it out if you are not familiar with it:
http://www.finalemusic.com/usermanuals/finale2011win/content/finale/Vis…
Hover your mouse over items in the score and they highlight, then click to get the documentation on how to do it. I think this brilliant in principle, but the old paper one at least was so cluttered in attempt to get every feature in that it was all but unusable. The one linked above is more streamlined, but still looks strange because it is so artificial. This makes it harder than necessary to find the feature you are looking for, and it just doesn't look good as a sample score. Plus, the effort to squeeze in a bunch of features that lots of people might be interested in means that some important genre-specific stuff is missing.
What I think would be great is a series of use-case-specific visual indices that were actual *good* examples of specific types of scores. One of solo piano music, one of a jazz lead sheet, one of a Renaissance motet, one of piano/voice/guitar pop "sheet music", one of a string quartet, one of an SATB choir with piano accompaniment, one of an orchestra score, etc. These would double as advertisements for MuseScore as well as documentation. Sure, there would be some duplication - basic note entry, things like adding repeat signs - but that's fine. The repeat signs in each of the indices could link to the same snippet explaining how to do it. Ideally, I think the targets of links would be "snippets" (or whatever they are going to be called in the future) created for the purpose, but existing handbook entries would do in the mean time.
Some things don't quite fit in this model - like for instance, how you'd represent the idea that stretch had been used. An extreme case where you've clearly fit more or fewer than the default number of bars per line, perhaps. Also, some process oriented things fall through the cracks, like "how do I add more measures", or "how do I control playback". But that's OK; the visual indices don't have to do everything. They are an adjunct to the manual and other tutorials, not a replacement.
Anyhow, the opportunity for collaboration should be obvious: people could volunteer to produce specific indices for score types they are familiar with. Someone - and yes, I'm volunteering - could be responsible for maintaining the set of actual features that the indices would link to, so that if someone develops a snippet to explain how to do repeat signs for one index, the other collaborations know that is available and can link to it as well rather than needing to do their own.
In reply to Absolutely! Just to be by Marc Sabatella
http://musescore.org/en/node/12574#comment-42598
The link to the WIKI is an example of how the index/dictionary could work.
Regards,