mismatch between 1.x and 2.0 when reducing staff to 1-line

I guess this was a score with a customized drumset? Can you post the specific score that shows an issue and/or precise steps to reproduce a problem? When I create a score with a one line drum staff in 1.3, it *does* import correctly in 2.0 - somehow the adjustment is being made. But maybe only somehow for the default drumset?

See also #19197: Non-5-line drumset stave lines incorrectly positioned, though. We do supposedly (and do, in my experience) handle 1-line drum staves on import, but not 3.

OK, now I get it. This is *not* a drum staff, but an ordinary staff that has been made 1-line, and then actual pitches as opposed to drum notes enetered onto it.

1) new score for flute in 1.3
2) enter a middle line "B"
3) staff properties
4) change to one line - the "B" displays on the one line
5) save
6) load into 2.0

Result: The "B" displays two ledger lines below the staff

Simple enough workaround - select on on that staff, transpose up. Wouldn't work so well if someone actually expected it to sound like a "B", but I'm not sure that's a reasnable expectation - it only *happened* to in 1.3. But this also suggests the inherent difficulty in figuring out what the user meant if we were to try to fix this up automatically.

Actually, for this particular use case, there is a workaround that preserves pitch - select all, click Notes in Inspector to restrict selection to notes, enable "Fix to line", which is the option I added to support slash notation so it wouldn't transpose. It defaults to line 0 when invoked in this way.

Hi,
i was the one who reported the behaviour in the first place and am really thankful for all the good suggestions.
BUT: Neither the workarounds nor the description as '...mismatch between 1.x and 2.0...' do really hit what i am missing.
In version 2.0 apparently the developers chose the highest line to 'be the one' - and if i understood correctly this cannot be changed. This leads to a not very pretty picture if you use
- chord symbols (too little distance to the line)
- lyrics (too much distance)
- clefs (odd. ...)
- key signature
- tempo
- ...

I thought one could choose which line would be 'the one' (and asked if anybody could show me how to manage that) - and still find this the most comfortable way of dealing with the above mentioned issues.
Surely it's possible to configure all 'distance values' manually but that's a weird, tedious and ugly way. ;-)

Maybe it's a candidate for a 'feature request'?!

It should be perfectly possible to have chord symbols or lyrics at whatever distance you want - just set the desired position in the appropriate text style settings. If you are having problesm, you might want to post the score and steps to reproduce the problme in the support forum, but I don't think there is a bug here - just a question of getting your settings right when using a non-standard staff.

Regarding clef and key signature, I think I understand what you mean, but I would argue it doens't make sense to have either on a one-line staff. A treble clef only has meaning when applied to a five-line staff, and same with the specific arrangements of flats and sharps in a key signature. So simply turn off clefs and key signatures in Staff Properties if you are creating a pitched a one-line staff. Or use a percussion staff. Again, if there is something I am not understanding, you should consider posting a detailed question with sample score and steps to reproduce the problem, in the Support forum. If it turns out there is an actual bug, qe can transfer the details here.

Wow!

This is what i call a support forum! :-D
Really fast, detailed and skilled replies.

"...Regarding clef and key signature, I think I understand what you mean, but I would argue it doens't make sense to have either on a one-line staff. ..."
I politely dare to disagree: Key signature (which requires a clef) and tempo are significant for a song - even in his reduced representation as a lead sheet - and must be known when interpreting the song (for rhythmic feel, scales, voicings, ...).

As i mentioned above: Of course it is possible to experiment with the settings until it looks alright - but it seems a bit unnecessary when the previous version (1.x) already did everything right (and nice looking) out of the box.

OK, granted that key signatures might still be relevant - but then, there is still no "correct" position for a key signature on a 1-line staff. I can see that subjectively, you might happen to prefer they be centered. One way to achieve that way might be to allow you to specify which line is used, although I'd think it would just as effective and easier for MuseScore to center clefs and key signatures automatically

But regarding the other elements, I don't understand what you mean, so I'd again ask you post to the support forum and show the *specific* score you are having problems with and *precise* steps to reproduce the problems.

From my perspective, the default settings for chord position, staff text, lyrics, and dynamics do *not* look very good in 1.3 for anything but a 5-line staff. Chord symbols and staff text on a 1-line staff are too high above the staff, because they are being calculated relative to a non-existent top line. Similarly, lyrics and dynamics are placed too low beneath a 1-line staff, because they are allowing room for the non-existent bottom two lines. So I'm guess you already made those adjustments in your 1.3 score. Either that, or you've just come to accept chord symbols & staff text too high above the staff and lyrics & dynamics too far below as being "right". Which is why I'd like to see a score so we can be be sure we are talking about the same thing.

In 2.0, because the one line is the top line, the defaults actually works perfectly for chord symbols and staff text or other elements placed above the staff, so they shouldn't need adjustment. Only elements that are normally placed *below* the staff, like lyrics & dynamics, needed adjustment. They needed it in 1.3 too, but they need *more* adjustment in 2.0. Still, that seems a good tradeoff to me. It doesn't take any more effort to change the default lyric position to 1sp than it does to change it to 3sp - and it didn't even work to change the text style in 1.3; you had to change to lyric top margin instead. And at least elements placed above the staff work perfectly now whereas they always required adjustment in 1.3. So ibn 1.,3, *all* elements require custom positioning. In 2.0, only *half* of them do. Seems like a win to me?

In any event, 1-line pitched staves are exceedingly rare; hardly ever used in published music and I rather doubt any standards exist for how music should be presented on them. I'm not sure I understand why you are using them - which is another reason why a specific example would help.

I noticed a different aspect of this same thing (#51061: Single line staff is spaced as if five lines), and I found it useful to add extra space above the staff in question in Staff Properties and add negative distance above the staff below it in a score, and, using "Select all similar elements in same staff" and the Inspector, move things like dynamics, text below the staff, and crescendos up by (naturally) a distance of four staff spaces.

Hi again,

and thanks again for the very useful, quick and elaborate answers.
After a short holiday and some playing around I would like to withdraw my criticism of the 'one-line-handling' in 2.0 itself.
I found that really just my (1.x imported) sheets are awkward looking - and this is mainly due to some style alterations i made etc. .
When creating a new leadsheet in 2.0 everything looks fine.

So i would 'downgrade' my problem description to the 'mismatch between 1.x and 2.0' aspect.

Thanks a lot,

pmaliaspm.

I'm looing at this now. Getting the clefs and key signatures to center on a one-line staff is not hard. However, I am now thinking it isn't actually the right thing to do. A treble clef is also called a "G" clef, for a reason - the end of the the spiral is supposed to be on/near the "G" line. Since the one line that displays is the top "F" line, the "G" line is several spaces below - so the clef is positioned "correctly" according to normal definition. Otherwise it is lying. And the same for the key signatures. They aren't just a shape - they are telling you specific things about specific notes. If you have a staff with only an F line, the first sharp *should* be on that line. Otherwise it is lying. If you aren't caring about the picthes you place, then you have no reason to care that you are being lied to, but anyone who tries to place pitches and listen to the playback will encounter something that just doesn't make sense.

So if you wish to have a clef & key signature, they really should be telling to you true things by default, I think. if you wish to jave your clef and key signature lie to you, you should manually adjust their position - right click one, select / all similar, then use Inspector to adjust -2sp. n Basically the natural extension of what ZackTheCardshark describes for other element.

Time signatures, on the other hand, have no special relationship to particular staff lines, and hence can and should be centered. And they *are* for me. Seems there was formerly an issue with this (even after I fixed the initial time signature). But I can't reproduce right now.

Regarding the msimatch, the problem right now is we can either match appearance or match the "meaning", but not both, because the meaning of the one line has indeed changed. So if we automatically applied a 2sp offset to clefs & key signatures on load of 1.3 scores, and automatically transposed everything up a fifth, it would *look* like it did in in 1.3, but of course, now your score has different notes, and the clefs & key are lying about what notes they affect. Whereas with what we do know, the score is "correct" in terms of its sound and meaning, but *looks* different.

The only solution I see is to actually provide an option to control the behavior of one line clefs so you can choose to have it represent the middle line is you want. But I have no idea how feasiable that is, and it's not something I can see wanting to tackle immediately.

Silly me, I can still reproduce the time signature positioning issue - I couldn't at first because I forgot I just fixed it :-)

Just an update: my comment above, https://musescore.org/en/node/53686#comment-250331, where "I found it useful to add extra space above the staff in question in Staff Properties and add negative distance above the staff below it in a score," may soon be no longer needed when #58796: Bracket and instrument name misaligned to one-line staff is fixed.