Plugins are small pieces of code that add a particular feature to MuseScore. By adding a plugin, a new menu will be appended to the Plugins menu in MuseScore to accomplish a given action on the score or a part of it. Plugins are a way to let users with minimal programming skills add features to the software.
Some plugins are already delivered with MuseScore, see →below. You can find more plugins in the plugin repository. Some plugins there work with MuseScore 2; others will only work with older versions of MuseScore.
Note that some plugins may require the installation of other components (fonts, e.g.) to work. Check the plugin's documentation for more information.
Most plugins are provided as ZIP archives, so download the plugin's .zip file and uncompress it to one of the directories mentioned below.
Some may be provided directly as a .qml file, download and place into one of these directories.
MuseScore looks for plugins in %ProgramFiles%\MuseScore 2\Plugins
(or %ProgramFiles(x86)%\MuseScore 2\Plugins
for the 64-bit versions) and in %LOCALAPPDATA%\MuseScore\MuseScore 2\plugins
on Vista and Seven or C:\Documents and Settings\USERNAME\Local Settings\Application Data\MuseScore\MuseScore 2\plugins
(adjusted to your language version) on XP.
On Mac OS X, MuseScore looks for plugins in the MuseScore bundle in /Applications/MuseScore 2.app/Contents/Resources/plugins
and in ~/Library/Application Support/MuseScore/MuseScore 2/plugins
. To be able to move files in the app bundle, right click (Control-click) on MuseScore.app and choose "Show package contents" to reveal the Contents
directory. Be careful to use Contents/Resources/plugins
and not Contents/plugins
.
In Linux, MuseScore looks for plugins in /usr/share/mscore-2.0/plugins
and in ~/.local/share/data/MuseScore/MuseScore 2/plugins.
To be able to access the installed plugins from the Plugins menu, they need to be enabled in the Plugin Manager:
It is possible to create new or edit existing plugins and run them via the Plugin Creator:
Here also the documentation of all available elements can be found
Some plugins come pre-installed with MuseScore, but they are not enabled by default. See →above to enable plugins.
This plugin imports ABC text from a file or the clipboard. Internet connection is required, because it uses an external web-service for the conversion, which uses abc2xml and gets send the ABC data, returns MusicXML and imports that into MuseScore.
This plugin enters line breaks in the interval you select on the selected measures or, if no measures are selected, the entire score. It is no longer being distributed and has been replaced by Edit → Tools → Add/Remove Line Breaks. If you ever used an early beta version of MuseScore 2, though, you may still see the plugin left over.
This demo plugin colors notes in the selection depending on pitch. It colors the note head of all notes in all staves and voices according to the BoomWhackers convention. Each pitch has a different color. C and C♯ have a different color. C♯ and D♭ have the same color.
To color all the notes in black, just run that plugin again (on the same selection). You could also use the 'Remove Notes Color' plugin for this.
This demo plugin creates a new score. It creates a new piano score with 4 quarters C D E F. It's a good start to learn how to make a new score and add notes from a plugin.
This demo plugin shows some basic tasks.
This plugin names notes. It displays the English names of the notes (as a staff text), for voice 1 and 3 above, for voice 2 and 4 below the staff, chords in a comma separated list, starting with the top note.
A translated version, which uses note names as per your language settings, is available from the plugin repository.
This demo plugin creates a GUI panel.
Creates a random score.
Creates a random score too
This demo plugin runs an external command. Probably this will only work on Linux.
This test plugin iterates through the score list.
Demo plugin to demonstrate the use of a ScoreView
This test plugin walks through all elements in a score
Some tools act as plugin as they "automate" some things, see Tools, actually some of those mentioned there used to be plugins.