Home / End / Page Up / Page Down don't change cursor position

• Jun 2, 2020 - 15:31
Reported version
3.4
Type
Ergonomical (UX)
Frequency
Once
Severity
S3 - Major
Reproducibility
Always
Status
active
Regression
No
Workaround
No
Project
MuseScore

Select an element halfway down a page and press one of the navigation keys:

  • Home, End, Page Up or Page Down

The position of the view will change but the selection (which may now be off the screen) does not change.

The same is true in note input mode: the view shifts but the cursor position does not.

Comments

• Jun 2, 2020 - 17:13

I'm pretty sure this is by design, and desirable in at least some cases. After all, my reason for navigating might be to find the measure I want to Shift+click to complete the range selection. Or maybe I've selected a range, now I want to view the beginning of the score to see a similar passage and remind myself how I want to process the selection I just made. I wouldn't want to navigation to necessarily mean loss of selection.

I guess the trick is to make sure all use cases are covered in the standard ways. But FWIW, the text box I am typing into here within Chrome behaves the same way = PgUp scrolls the page but leaves the cursor where it was. Home and End move the cursor but don't scroll the page, so that much is different.

Anyhow, there has been considerable refinement of these keys in MuseScore based on user feedback, we shouldn't change this lightly.

Reply

• Jun 2, 2020 - 17:38

@Marc Sabatella, good point about completing a range (or multi) selection. I think the cursor should always move with the view in note input mode. I agree there is an argument that the selection should not change in normal edit mode, at least with Page Up and Page Down (it should probably change with Home and End).

Reply

• Jun 2, 2020 - 18:09

Shift+navigation is indeed a thing, but that doesn't mean the other shouldn't be too.

I'm not so sure I'd say note input mode should be any different. I might be entering a passage, then want to look back a page earlier to remember how a similar passage went, then continue with note input. To me it's no different form using the scroll wheel - I want the viewport to move but not the selection, except when using a command that specifically is designed to change the selection.

Reply

• Jun 2, 2020 - 19:03

" Shift+navigation is indeed a thing, but that doesn't mean the other shouldn't be too. "
Well, if shift+navigation allows to keep cursor where it is, why should navigation do that as well?
If navigation don't move the cursor, how can you move it by keyboard?
I'm afraid that If navigation don't move the cursor we would have one more action in MuseScore not possible by keyboard and requiring mouse.

Reply

• Jun 2, 2020 - 19:21

You can move cursor by keybaord using Left/Right or Ctrl+Left/Right, also Ctrl+Home and Ctrl+End. I guess for consistency we could have Ctrl+PgUp and Ctrl+PgDn move the cursor, not that moving cursor by "page" is not normally all that relevant a thing to want to do. But again, I think there should be more discussion of this, because the current behavior has the result of much discussion and much refinement over the years, changes should be undertaken lightly as I said.

Reply