Note Anchored Lines

• Jan 24, 2021 - 17:10

Hello,

I have a question about note anchored lines. Is it possible to make them shorter without a computer mouse? It is strange that note anchored lines in MuseScore are way too long by default. Any ideas?

Thanks.


Comments

I believe they do require double click to put them into edit mode, then you can Tab cycle through the anchor points and use the arrow keys to move them around.

They default to connecting the centers of the noteheads only because no one had a better idea when they were first implemented, and changing it now would break the scores that had already applied manually adjustments. Definitely something worth revisiting for MuseScore 4, though.

Immediately after creation a NAL is selected. And selecting a NAL put it in edit mode to change it as jeetee described. Unfortunately at the moment you can't select a NAL with Alt + Right (or Left).
With a NAL selected you can go to the next element but not back to the NAL. In this respect a NAL behaves the same as accidentals.
It would be nice if a NAL could be selected with Alt + Right (or Left).

Personally think it would be nice for note-anchored lines to have a "margin" that would symmetrically shorten and be capable of style-saving so that all of them could have like 0.5sp for a gap between a line's terminal points and the noteheads without having to manually tweak the nodes with a mouse or keyboard.

An alternative workaround for this purpose is to use glissandos: disable playback and uncheck text visibility. A note anchored line results in a nicer-looking gap. Problem then is that dotting/dashing isn't an option.

In reply to by worldwideweary

The thought of a "margin" (or something similar) for the Note Anchored Lines I want to strengthen. Indeed it would be perfect to have the possibility to shorten the line, with a "margin" or with an automatic distance to the note. Currently it means much work to set this manually - and it is a pity, that it has to be done for every line manually and there is no possibility to copy ...

Also it would be a reasonable addition to have the possibility to change these lines to bows (bezier curves). That would help to use it as an alternative for slurs, which sometimes are not that easy to set (especially in lute tablature).

Thank you for the idea of a workaround with the glissando, which works quite nice.

Another addition should be the possibility to add a vertical line between two notes of the same chord or notes in the same segment. This is not possible currently - a "margin" also would be necessary!
Or is there a possible workaround also?

In reply to by MLutz

It's not clear what problems you mean about adding slurs, but it seems it would be better to simply solve those than to try to turn a note-anchored line into a slur. Which is to say, the margin setting makes total sense to me, but not so much the curve. Although a full-featured multi-segment line drawing tool in general would also be, totally separately, also a nice thing, could be used for all sorts of things.

Anyhow, if there isn't currently an open issue for the slur issue you are encountered, I'd go ahead and submit one.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

The slur problem occurs in tablature for lute, as normally the slurs should be reverted (downwards). This gives problem when there are more than one voice, as the slur will begin or end on the lowest not.
I attach an example from a Courante by S.L.Weiss.
The first 4 measures (2-5) show, how it looks without any adjustion. I have in m. 7+9 changed the lower notes to another voice, which works well as workaround for me. If you only adjust the ends that will end up in problems because if you copy it or if you extract parts, the slurs will again be reformatted to the original place ... or even if the whole piece will be reformatted automatically ...

In reply to by MLutz

Assuming those notes on the bottom string are bass notes, use of multiple voices seems correct anyhow? Anyhow, best to start a new thread on this, and if a consensus develops that there is a problem, or missing feature, then a Suggestion to the issue tracker would be in order. A related issue for keyboard music is that occasionally for whatever reason editors will show slurs from individual notes within chords rather than for the chord as a whole - not standard, but sometimes seen anyhow. So making that possible has been requested already and would hopefully be implemented at some point.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

Yes, that is true - multiple voices are possible, but a little bit problematic for the rhythmic notation of tablature. In fact multiple voices are an inherit feature of tablature (in Renaissance times vocal compositions with up to 6 voices had been set to the lute), but only the start of notes are marked - so the length of a note is free to the player or the sounding time of a string.

If there would be the possibility to use bows from one note to another, that would help very much. I would support this idea!

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