Interval shortcuts not working

• May 6, 2017 - 19:45

After installing MuseScore2 on my new PCLinuxOS-KDE5-Plasma distro and while testing it,
I am facing the problem that the standard shortcuts for entering an interval do not work.
Navigating to Edit > Preferences and clicking on the Shortcut tab, the shortcut for several intervals
are there (for instance Alt+3 for a third), but nothing happens when I execute this shortcut in KDE5.
On my KDE4 desktop where I do not have this problem, I see no difference when I compare the shortcut list between KDE5 and KDE4.
What did I forgot to do to get things working in KDE5?


Comments

In reply to by Jojo-Schmitz

AppImage? Do not know what you mean by this.
NumPad? If you mean that I have to use the number keys on the numpad then that does not
help.
I get this message after every attempt:

"The key sequence 'Alt+3' is ambiguous. Use 'Configure Shortcuts'
from the 'Settings' menu to solve the ambiguity.
No action will be triggered."

In the KDE4 version I never had to configure shortcuts because I use only the standard ones.
Browsed through my copy of "Mastering MuseScore" but could not find any clue.

In reply to by JoeAlders

I hate to tell people to revert to factory settings, but I guess in your case you should try it since your shortcuts are messed up. Before you do that you could look at your shortcuts under the edit->preferences menu to see if Alt+3 is assigned to multiple functions and clean those up. If you want, print the shortcuts (using the print button in the shortcuts dialog) to a PDF and attach that list here so we can examine it. The is a file attachments link below.

In reply to by mike320

I fear the "revert to factory settings" is becoming a bit of cliched advice until there is an easy way of backing up and restoring all settings. Reverting to factory settings is a big deal if you have created a lot of shortcuts. The problem in this case sounds like MuseScore is not recognizing the NumPad keys which might look similar when printed out as characters but which have different Key Press codes.

In reply to by JoeAlders

I always hate to tell people to revert to factory settings. There is more that shortcuts that get reset.

I notice from your shortcut list that you are still using version 2.0.3, or earlier Most of the Linux keyboard problems I've found are in version 2.0.2. There have been reports of problems with Linux keys not being properly recognized in pre 2.1 versions such as https://musescore.org/en/node/71731, https://musescore.org/en/node/197076, https://musescore.org/en/node/23744, https://musescore.org/en/node/52546 among others.

As I said previously, most of the bugs are 2.0.2 and are traced back to the framework MuseScore is built upon. The MuseScore developer and the framword update in later versions seem to have fixed this.

A possible work around is to add the specific definition of alt+NumPad+3 (this means press alt and the numeric keypad 3) to your interval definition and see if that helps. MuseScore specifies if a numeric keypad key is selected for a shortcut. I would actually upgrade to version 2.1 first, as this may solve the problem by doing what you are probably going to do pretty soon any way.

Test also these shortcuts inside MuseScore with another window manager, to check if this behavior happens actual only with KDE5. In this case it's maybe a KDE bug and should be reported there?

He're some other ressources concerning similar behaviors with KDE (but whithout MuseScore), not sure, if it could be helpful:

https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2279078
https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?pid=1555949#p1555949

Note: I believe you can forget my comment ;-), as I read your comment again, it seems, you can using this shortcuts actual with Kde4

In reply to by kuwitt

Thanks kuwitt for those links!
I have finally chosen for the "easy way out" and created new shortcuts for myself :

Alt+Shift+N

Where N is an Integer between 1 and 9

This works, but it leaves me with that unsatisfying feeling not to understand why the default
shortcuts do not work in KDE5-Plasma.

In reply to by JoeAlders

Found to a similar topic of such error messages a ruby script in this discussion:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/kate/+bug/1458352
(see comment of the user "russty_robot" https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/kate/+bug/1458352/comments/6).

I didn't test it, but maybe you could check it, if it solves your problem (should maybe work with PCLinuxOS too, be sure that you've installed ruby. Please make a backup file from kdeglobals before)

A very odd bug ;-)
The shortcuts Alt+2, Alt+3, Alt+4, Alt+5, Alt+6 don't work (key sequence is ambiguous), Alt+7, Alt+8 and Alt+9 work as expected.

I can confirm this behavior with the distribution package of OpenSuse Leap.3543170 and Plasma 5.

But I can't confirm this with the distribution package of OpenSuse Leap.3543170 and XFCE.
I can't also confirm this with the AppImage 871c8ce both with XFCE and Plasma 5. And also not with the master 4b4a3df both with XFCE and Plasma 5.

In all these last cases adding an interval works as expected.

@JoeAlders Could please test it with the Appimage?:
https://musescore.org/en/download#AppImage
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btmK0Cg1DJs

In reply to by kuwitt

Downloaded and executed that AppImage file by double-clicking on it.
Immediately MuseScore started up with a recent score and I tried it out with a simple
Alt+3 for a third interval. And then it worked! BUT..........
Shutting down and restarting the MuseScore application, opening that same score and try
Alt+3 again then IT DID NOT WORK AGAIN!! I had to execute that AppImage file again
and immediately MuseScore opened and THEN I have to navigate to the desired score to let those
shortcutswork again.
It seems that I need some kind of bash script which will be first executed when I start MuseScore
in order to solve this problem? Or do I have to simply run this program to start MuseScore and
ignore the official icon?
Or did I do something wrong?

In reply to by JoeAlders

Be aware you've two versions of MuseScore now on your system. One the one hand the distribution package, where adding intervals via shortcuts doesn't work. And on the other hand the AppImage, where it should work.

Be sure that you run the AppImage and not the distribution package.

Either from terminal (in the folder where you've downloaded the AppImage) via "./MuseScore-2.1-x86_64.AppImage". Or enter "./MuseScore-2.1-x86_64.AppImage install". This should create an icon/symbol on your desktop, which you can use.

https://youtu.be/btmK0Cg1DJs?t=216

I can enter intervals also after restarting the AppImage with plasma 5. Or did I overlook something? Then give pleace precise steps to reproduce.

note: just for comparison, the AppImage version, I'm using is 871c8ce (you'll find it in the menu "Help->About...")

In reply to by kuwitt

@kuwitt:

I do not face my problem anymore when I use that AppImage. Must confess that I, until now,
never heard about "AppImage" used in linux distros.
Is this not a security risk? I mean activating the file as executable, double clicking on it and
then hoping that it launches MuseScore but instead does something else
( like wiping your files on you /home)?
After downloading that AppImage I cannot judge if it is MuseScore or some malicious content.
I am not a man who has sufficient software knowledge to judge the software content.

In reply to by JoeAlders

I don't see how that would be any more of a concern for the AppIUmage than for any other program you download. if you trust the site you are downloading from, you should be able to trust the program you downloaded, whether it happens to be packaged as an AppImage or not.

Thanks Marc, but my sole policy in this matter is to only download software from the repository
of my distro, in my case PCLinuxOS.
Then, and only then I can trust the downloaded software. But in this particular case I had to download it from the MuseScore site because this AppImage is not in the repository (as far as I know).
Moreover, if I should download software which is NOT in that repository and I am having troubles
after that, I do NOT get support from the PCLinuxOS people to get things restored again.

In reply to by JoeAlders

I'm not understanding the logic of trusting some sire *other* that MuseScore.org to give you a more reliable version of MuseScore than you'd get from MuseScore itself. That to me is like saying, you wouldn't trust what your doctor says unless he first hires someone else you trust more to read the diagnosis. I don't care how much you trust the person reading the diagnosis, it's only as good as the person who actually made it. Similarly, I don't care how much you trust your favorite repository, the software found there is only as good as what was provided by the people who actually made the software.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

Sorry Marc, reading your replay I think I did not make myself clear enough.
The policy of the support people behind my distro is that if I download software which is not
available in their repository, it is considered as "third party software". They give as reason that
after installing a "third party software package" the risk of installing/replacing library versions,
(just to mention a few) will in the worst case leave you with a broken O.S. To copy a statement of them:

"Worst case scenario would be a package that replaces something needed by our system with a version that is completely incompatible."

So it is (from my side) not a matter of not trusting you, but simply that, when things go terribly
wrong, I am left on my own.

In reply to by JoeAlders

@JoeAlders, that would be true if you installed new software via Synaptic, or installed an RPM package manually from the command line, because those methods integrate with the system and can potentially mess around with your system libraries.

However, AppImages contain all the libraries they need and deliberately do not try to integrate with the system and leave your system libraries alone. AppImages also do not require root privileges during installation (or when being run) so they are actually safer to use and install than normal packages.

I can confirm that the Alt+number shortcuts do not work in MuseScore 2.3.2 from the official Ubuntu PPA and also the Flatpak version when running recent Plasma desktop, verified in Kubuntu 18.04 and KDE neon User Edition Bionic preview, both running in VirtualBox. The Alt+number shortcuts do work in both the AppImage and Snap versions.

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