Adding comments

• Jan 18, 2021 - 14:24

I would like a feature that allowed one to add a comment, sort of like the "Sticky" feature in Adobe Acrobat, or the comments in MS Word. I frequently want to make a "note to self" on some element that I need to come back to at a later date. A comment feature would be very helpful.

Here is a comment from Acrobat. You can move it around to any position on the file.

Screen Shot 2021-01-18 at 9.22.41 AM.png


Comments

In reply to by jeetee

Yes, the plugin's a workaround... Unfortunately, each time you open a document, you must (apparently) manually open the special comment area it creates—and to do that, you must remember there are one or more comments to see. And you can't place the comments in the places they apply to.

I hope this'll be added soon. It seems like basic functionality. Programmatically, it seems pretty simple—just a bit of text on a form, placed at a certain position in the score. Nothing terribly brain-taxing, like actual notation. ;?)

Attachment Size
sibelius_comment.png 18.16 KB

In reply to by Andy Fielding

The programmatically challenge here is that currently the scoreview is pretty much wysiwyg and exporters (for example SVG and the image capture tool) take all that information and produce their output.
It's not the notes or the anchoring themselves that pose the challenge, it's adjusting the ScoreView to have an additional "comments layer" without it affecting all other current functionality that depends on ScoreView having only the score.

In reply to by jeetee

Would something like this work:

  1. Add unprinted special charater for comment anchor *
  2. Save comment and comment scope as a special prperties of the anchor
  3. Optionally highlight parts of the score which are in scope of the anchor
  4. View and edit comment off the scoreview viewport

Having actuall comment displayed off the main scoreview area is less convenient than to hove it right where you the score is, but it's a compromise which would allow to still have annotations / comments without major ScoreView component overhaul.

* It might be as well printable, so in printed score you'd have a marks denoting some comments without actuall comment text, and some way to print actual comment texts separately.

In reply to by Miguel Vicente…

Gosh, I'm always adding notes to charts, reminding me to change this or that, or that I stopped editing at a certain point, or that I need to ask the composer about something... Since I switched to MS, I've had to write this all down separately. Being able to put it right on the score again would be great. I don't see how arrangers can get by without some system like that. (Maybe you guys don't do a lot of arranging?)

In reply to by Andy Fielding

I do a ton of arranging, but I do indeed use pencil and paper a lot during the process as well, not just for these sort of notes but as a basic part of the process of arranging. I also simply add staff text within MuseScore when I want to make notes to myself. I have a predefined staff text with yellow background on a custom "Annotations" palette to make it really easy to add and identify such "sticky notes". They stick out like a sore thumb so they are easy to delete later.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

This sounds very useful. I can create a text style (Format/Style/Text styles) but can't figure out how to get the background to be colored yellow (or whatever). Changing the color affects the font, not the background. I see there is a 'highlight' option under Frame, but even if I change that to yellow nothing happens.

For me it'd also a nice new feature to add. There is Marc's workaround with staff text. I'm also using lines with text to indicate from where to where my note/question/remark applies.
But a separated type of text could be nice. With its own print status: print the score with/without the comments.

In reply to by Andy Fielding

You bet.
I often have multiple projects going at a time, then get diverted for weeks and return. At that point, it takes some studying to figure out what it was I thought I wanted to redo or finish... or why.
A notes system with icons at selected locations would be a brilliant productivity enhancer.
In the meantime, I probably need to take screen shots and plop them into OneNote or something. ... and remember that they are there to reference.

In reply to by aharown

I hate to keep saying "In Sibelius..." (LOL)—but in Sibelius, for at least ten years now, you've been able to add discrete, real-looking, non-printing "sticky notes" wherever you wished. Anyone doing professional notation would find this an important feature, for (e.g.):

• Adding notes and reminders to one's self about scores in progress, including references to related scores

• Communicating with others on projects (or reminders to communicate w/them about specific things)

• Adding reminders of hidden or otherwise unconventional elements that affect editing

Marc, it's not really practical for me to keep separate comment files for individual scores, but I'll try your workaround—thanks for that!

In reply to by jeetee

Is there a Feature Request on GitHub for this ? I couldn't find one.
I don't know how the dev team decides what are next features being added, but I can imagine that features with a large community support are taken before the ones with a lesser support.
If such Feature Request exists, and if it is thumbed up by several users, maybe will be taken before other ones.

This would certainly be useful for me. As a classical music transcriber, I deal with both the very large and the very small in many ways. If I had this comment feature, I could put in something like "Finish the left hand of the recapitulation" for a piano sonata by Beethoven for example or "Transcribe from pages x to y" for an opera. I mean, I do have a good memory but I still have those moments of "Where was I at in this piece?"

In reply to by Andy Fielding

Yeah, age hasn't really gotten to me in that respect, but productivity certainly has, that I end up doing so much that I'm like "Where was I with this?" Cause I do like about every hour or so a spin the wheel process to decide on what composer I'm going to do, which piece etc. And sometimes it can be weeks, months, even over a year before I get back to a certain score, and so yeah, having this feature would be nice. An example of how I might structure my reminder comments is:

Piece Title and catalogue number
Movement and/or section if applicable
Pages x-y of z edition on IMSLP
Instruments I still have left to transcribe
Anything else I need to do besides transcription -> Like for example, adding a playback staff for slow tempo trills.

In reply to by scorster

I agree. I've been using Google Sheets to keep track of like where I am movement-wise and if I'm part of the way through or I'm finished(lots of nested IF statements in those spreadsheets) and I've been using a notes app on my tablet to keep track of how many days I spend transcribing pieces to like build up a sample average from which I can add other factors to get an upload schedule for the composer, cause I'd like to do what I did for Mozart, set myself an Upload every x days schedule for every composer I'm transcribing. And I've also been keeping track of how often a composer uses a certain key or time signature(again using Google Sheets) cause why not if I'm tracking all this other stuff.

But with a comment feature in MuseScore, I'd put in like the exact spot I'm at in the movement, what staves I have left to do in that section(cause I do a section by section approach where my stopping point before going to the next staff is dictated by repeats, final barlines, key signature changes, other structural points like that), what pages of the PDF I'm reading that it corresponds to, and any like workaround type stuff I have to do for playback purposes.

In reply to by Caters

In the meantime: another simple workaround. Create a 'comments' staff as the lowest. In the first measure enter 3 quarter notes in voice 2, 3 and 4. Enter a voice 2, 3 or 4 note on beat 1 in the measure where you want to make the annotation.Delete the rests. In Properties switch Play off. Copy measure 2, 3 or 4 to the measure you want to annotate. Now you can move instantly between 3 annotation categories. Go with Ctrl+Shift+Home to the first measure. Press Left to deselect. Go with Shift+Down to the lowest staff. Press Left to select the full measure rest in voice 1. Choose voice 2, 3 or 4 with Alt+Right. E.g voice 2. Press right to jump instantly to the first annotated measure in voice 2. For navigating the other way: copy the first measure to the last measure. Etc. You can permanently hide the staff and make the comments in the staff of your choice. You can make these invisible and in the 'Comments staff' write which instrument it concerns. Etc.

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Comments staff.png 19.78 KB

I found this searching for how to add comments. I guess until there's a solution, I'll just add a Staff Text and turn off visibility (v) on it. That means all comments are fully visible while editing, but it's not too bad for just a note here and there.

Funny, I just posted the excated same request. As I look for text and not comment, I didn't find your :)

To answer to people: We don't want a workaround, but a simple and made for solution.

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