Move notes left or right, insert/overwrite modes, play note while dragging with a mouse, play instruments on selection

For the first one, you can move notes and rests to a different measure using copy and paste .

I like some of these ideas, particularly these two:

After just a few hours using MS, I found that I wanted to be able to hear notes before placing them on the stave. My suggestion was going to be something like this: change the method of mouse note entry, or provide a second method, where the mouse can click on previewed note pitches (the shaded images of the note when hovering) to play the note without doing anything to the score, and then a second action (right click, click with a moderator key, hit a key, etc.) would fix that note. This suits composers who aren't so great at sightreading, but have a good ear, and so can't predict the interval they want accurately until they hear it - it would greatly speed up note entry and also avoid a lot of undo items created when I place a note and then have to nudge it up or down. Tsst's suggestion might be better - that the previewed notes play automatically as you hover - but obviously this ought to be an option, as I expect some people will hate it doing this, the sound interfering with the sound of their composition in their heads. A third method would probably be the least difficult to introduce - simply allow a particular key press (or right mouse, which at the moment does the same as the left, creates the note) while hovering to preview-play that pitch. I really would appreciate this idea being implemented in some form.

I also thought it would be good to be able to shift notes sideways by drag-and-drop or selecting and then some keyboard control. I also agree that while copy and paste is fine sometimes, it could be a great additional feature. However, most of the time this operation would be to move notes without changing their properties, pitch in particular, and dragging and dropping isn't too useful for this as it would be too easy to move vertically as well and change the pitch. This could be overcome with shift-drag or control-drag, etc. as some graphics programs do, or, probably more conveniently, with two key combinations (or single keys), which simply move selected notes left or right (probably by the value of previous/following note/rest). There is another reason why it might be better to have this stepping back or forward with a key press - you can't drag and drop a note horizontally beyond the end of a line or page very easily to change its position: you have to drag it vertically up or down a line as well, which might be difficult to write programmatically. The destination might not be on-screen, so it would have to scroll the music somehow as you dragged. Only the programmers could assess how useful and/or difficult this is to implement. Stepping notes or phrases back or forward, however, shouldn't present too much difficulty, I would think. A very important benefit of this over copy and paste is that the latter does not have any temporary store. Unless I've misssed something, if I want to swap two phrases, for instance, I can copy one and paste it on the other, but the second is then deleted, so I can't copy it to the first location. If I don't want to have to write one of the phrases again, it seems I have to create some empy bars to shuffle things about. There may be something like "Insert passage" (I'm a noob), but this will mess up the other notes and make it harder to find the second passage you wanted to shift.

I made some files to easily and quickly preview instruments by heaing a short sample of the same notes played by each instrument (but the octave may vary to match that instrument's range for note pitches) I did a document for for wood wind, then a document for free reed and brass, and a third document that covers all the pitched percussion, keyboard, and electronic instruments....hope it helps. I have yet to do string instruments (plucked and bowed)