Copy measure with markings and text

• Aug 28, 2011 - 18:06

If I have a measure that contains not only notes, by dynamic markings and staff text, and any other "non note" data, the copy of the measure does not take along anything but the notes. I have tried selecting the full measure by clicking in empty space and then copying; and I have used shift-drag to select everything including all the text/annotations. Same result - that only the notes show up when I paste to an empty measure.

Is this just a limitation, or is there another method? Thanks for any help.


Comments

In reply to by aeLiXihr

I think it is working the way it is designed to work. More control over what exectly gets copied or otherwise manipulated when working with selections is kind of an open feature request. Although I don't know that there is a specific issue in the tracker for it yet. I think those of us interested in such a feature would need to discuss and flesh out how we would want it to work first.

In reply to by aeLiXihr

Obviously. Of course, in other situations, you don't want the extra markings, so if the default were to copy them, it would be extra work to delete them. We could quibble about what the defaults should be, but long term, control is what we really need.

2.0' will have customizable palettes that you you define elements and easily assign them to as many staves as you want - at least, I think that's the idea. So even they don't copy, it will at least be easier to assign markings.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

We could then discuss a kind of "Collage spécial" option , in addition to the régular "paste" working as it does today.
for example, when calling this function after selecting elements including notes and rehearsal markings, dynamics, ties and so on, a panel would ask the user to select (checkmarks) individualy which kind of elements are to be copied and which ones to discard when pasting.
What do you think ? Judging from the numbers of persons on this forum who notice that dynamics aren't copied with the notes and have no working method at the moment, this would be a nice addition for 2.0

I must add, as I experienced the "corrupt score because of tuplets or whatever" problem, that one of my workarounds for this problem is to enter each instrument on a separate file first, before compiling all of them on my main score file. So, choosing to copy notes only or everything that is on the score would certainly prove very useful in this case.

In reply to by laconcombremasque

Yes, something like that would be great. Although there's a bit more to it than that - I think you'd also want a way to control what would be affected by a Delete operation, possibly others too. I'm wondering if maybe a "filter" that you set globally and that would be applied to all relevant operations on selections wouldn't make more sense. Or something like that. We're probably talking post-2.0, though.

BTW, some of the corruptions involving triplets and other things have been fixed in 1.2, so you might consider skipping your sepaate files workflow and trying to build your scores directly - things might go more smoothly.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

Yes, a "filter" floating window seem to be a great idea, to select what is affected by either copy, paste, or delete. In this last regard, it could also be another way of achieving what I'm referring in this post: http://musescore.org/fr/node/15578

Let's start thinking, while working with musescore, about our needs and how such a solution would make them solved more easily, or allow to do things that are not currently possible. So we can start thinking which shape should this function have, and later we can post a more precise feature request.

PS: I'm looking forward to say goodbye to my triplet problems with 1.2, but as you say "some" of the corruption problems have been identified, I'll still be careful for a few weeks more...

In reply to by laconcombremasque

I must add that the "configurable undo" function addressed in the other thread would still be needed even with such a 'filter' (to filter also which voices are selected/copied/affected by the way!) implemeted in a next version : basically, to erase an operation done some steps ago, which doesn't involve the changes made in between.

In reply to by ChurchOrganist

what I mean (adressed here : http://musescore.org/fr/node/15578 ), is
- I transpose some elements selected together, let's say individual notes in a complex polyphonic rythmic pattern (I take a 'long selection process' example for you to understand when such function would save time)
- edit something else in my score, add bars, drink coffee, do whatever.
- I change my mind about what I've done twenty minutes ago, this transposition thing. In the 'undo menu', I undo just that operation, "which doesn't involve the changes made in between." ->that's what would make it possible. Again, such a behaviour is possible I guess, and the suggestion to include WHAT will be undoed or restored, in the EDIT menu, just like Microsoft Word does, would be a first step.

In reply to by laconcombremasque

Right, what you're talking about is the ability to delectively undo indivudal operations, rather than the entire stack of things done since the selected undo point. What you describe is completely impossible in the general case - too much may have changed to allow undo asi gle operation to make sense. Programs that implement this sort of"non-destructive editing" (eg, some photo editing programs) achieve it by severely curtailing what sort of editing operations you can perform in the first place, limiting it to those sorts of operations that *can* be selectively applied in this fashion, and/or by requiring you to anticipate what operations you might want to selectively undo and create a special "layer" for them. There's a reason essentially no programs let you just randomly undo anything you like at any time.

In reply to by laconcombremasque

Yes, I thought those suggestions from your other thread were very good! Lots of programs implement such an "undo stack", and obviously, MuseScore does internally as well, since you can undo operations one a time. All that is needed is a way to expose this stack in the UI. Fantastic idea, probably pretty easy to implement.

In reply to by laconcombremasque

Usually, discussion of the general idea in the forum is good to make sure there isn't already such a feature and you just don't know about it, and to let the idea develop a bit. But once it seems solid, submitting it as an official Feature request in the Issue Tracker is the best way to make sure it really register and stays visible.

You still can't copy bars and move and them around in Musescore 3 - which makes it really hard to reorganise a piece. Even though the selection filter includes "other text" it doesn't copy over rehearsal marks, tempo marks, barlines, or breaks. I think the default should really be to copy everything now that we have a working selection filter.

In reply to by Richard Cooke

Oh my goodness, it also doesn't allow you to copy different types of text at the same time, like rehearsal, expression, and tempo - so now I have to scroll pages and pages and pages to the right, copy an individual text, scroll pages and pages and pages to the left, click the note, paste, repeat, repeat, repeat.

And even pasting a lot of bars doesn't work properly. After two bars rest suddenly my notes were pasted a beat early, and my clef change wasn't pasted either. This really needs addressing. Please please.

In reply to by Richard Cooke

You cannot copy system items, that is anything that appears on all parts when you create parts. FYI, expression text is not one of these (or shoudn't be) since it is nothing more than a specially formatted staff text.

Copying rehearsal marks and tempos seems to be meaningless. You almost always have to change them after you paste them. Who wants multiple H rehearsal marks? In the case of tempo, what's the purpose of changing the tempo from 93 BPM to 93 BPM? That's what happens when you copy and paste a tempo mark.

If you want multiple rehearsal marks or tempo changes at once, you can select multiple notes and double click the item in the palette and you will get multiple items. In the case of rehearsal marks it will even make them unique according to the current pattern.

Your notes were pasted early? That's because you chose the wrong destination. Pasting works properly if you use it properly. As for the clef change, it will copy unless it is the start of the selection. I find that a minor nuisance, it does get copied in the middle or at the end of a selection.

In reply to by Richard Cooke

The problem is that in most cases, you wouldn't want system elements copied. Consider copying a flute part to an one part for the same measures, or in a 32-bar AABA song form copying the first right bars to the second and last eight, you don't want new tempo markings etc.

It's really only this very special case where you want it - the vast majority of copy operations would not. So it probably should be a separate command. Doing it with the filter alone is problematic because the default would be some elements selected, others not. I guess if there was "Default" button though to make it easy to return to defaults after tweaking them, that could be OK.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

I strongly strongly disagree that this is a special case. Have you tried just moving a single section of a piece you have written from somewhere near the end to somewhere near the beginning? You have to individually copy and paste all rits, a tempos, tempo changes, barlines, clef changes, and breaks. These are things that are absolutely integral to the music. Not copying them is like buying a car and having it delivered without an engine because it's a "system element" and people don't usually want those.

So instead I was now scrolling, zooming, aiming, clicking, copying, scrolling, zooming, aiming, clicking, pasting for every single item in the original - not only that but you have to carefully compare each bar in the original and destination side by side for every instrument in the orchestra to see that you haven't missed anything.

I think the example you suggest, copying the first 8 bars of a song somewhere else and getting the intro text twice, is the special case, not mine. It's not hard to click delete once when that happens, or just filter it out in the selection filter. I feel like I'm taking crazy pills even speaking about this. It took me 15 minutes right now just to move a section of my six page work from the back to the middle.

In reply to by Richard Cooke

Yes, I have done what you mention, probably around once or twice a month. It's thing, to be sure. On the other hand, normal copy and paste I do probably 100-200 times a day. Think, just writing out "Mary Had A Little Lamb" you probably want to copy the first two bars to bars 5-6 to save time, but you certainly don't want a new tempo mark. And you don't want to have to delete the unnecessary ones 100-200 times a day, either, or to constantly fiddle with the selection filter.

As I said, the vast majority of copy/paste operations are simply repeating some notes we want to use again, not completely rearranging an entire song. And in those cases we definitely do not want other system elements copied. Most copy/paste operations are not buying a car, they are buying gas, or changing oil, or replacing windshield wipers.

But I do get that you happen to be involved in project at the moment that does require moving entire sections of a piece around for some unspecified reason. And indeed, copy/paste is not optimized for that case. But please do realize that even though it's what you are rnning up against at this particular moment, it really is not what the vast majority of copy/paset oeprations are. They are copying a brief passage to re-use melodic material, or copying a passage from one instrument to another in the same measures. That's why this issue comes up only once every few months rather than thousands of times every single day - it's because the way it works now really is best for the vast majority of cases. And someday, it will indeed be nice to also support your particular special case better.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

In the list of possible shortcut definitions, I see "collage spécial" (special paste).
I tried to assign Ctrl+Alt+Inser as shortcut, but this special does not seem to differ from the normal paste.
Normally, you would expect a selection of options for a "special paste".

Or has it a different meaning than in Word, Excel or other windows applications?
I did not find a definition of "collage spécial" in the user manual.

In reply to by Flying Roger

Bonsoir,
The "Special paste" has been added in the version 3.1 by Marc Sabatella in his Pull Request 4875.
This feature is not documented in the Handbook because Marc think it is quite "experimental", but fully usable,
Following, it is an extract of it's comment about this : "I have also added a "paste special" command, not currently exposed in UI but you can assign it a shortcut, that uses the toolbar duration as described above to select alternate ratios."
In Preferences / Shortcuts you will find the assignable shortcuts as "Paste special" ou en Français sous "Collage special"
Bonne soirée

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

Hi Marc,

thanks again for all your contributions and help with this software and on this forum. I would like to give a very common everyday scenario where a special paste function would be so incredibly useful. I play in a band where we have several medleys. My charts are relatively simple. Either just a grand stave or maybe just one staff with treble clef to notate chords and some melodies here and there. Very often I may have to change the order of the songs in a medley or even copy a song or two from one medley to another medley in another musescore file. However when I try to copy paste, it only copies notes and chords but not the repeat marks, time signatures, repeat barlines or rehearsal marks. Would be great to have an option to copy/cut and a paste special dialogue where you can see what has been copied to clipboard and then tick off which elements you want to paste. All or just the ones you select. Similar to the special paste function in Final Cut. I'll attach an example score. I have a lot of scores like this. I'll also attach a screenshot of the paste special function in Final Cut.

Ma den teliwsame.mscz

Screen Shot 2020-02-13 at 23.12.44.png

Something like this. Right now I have to move some songs from one musescore file to another but I'll have to redo many elements because only chords and notes are being copied. Not even repeat barlines or time signatures are being copied. This is my real-world scenario. We play 2-3 hour gigs weekly where medleys evolve over time and we might see that some songs work better at the end or beginning of a medley or in an entirely different medley. If it's too much work to make a special paste function, at minimum, if it's possible to simply do some kind of Global copy or cut and then Global Paste/Insert at the playhead similar to what most major DAWs allow you to do.

Thanks again,

P.S. I'm on:
OS: macOS High Sierra (10.13), Arch.: x86_64, MuseScore version (64-bit): 3.4.2.25137, revision: 148e43f

and for the past 2 versions (3.4.1, 3.4.2) I'm unable to easily de-select a selection by clicking in any empty white area. Didn't have this problem in 3.3.0. Work-around for now is to press Escape to deselect.

In reply to by pmzilfo

Yes, this would help in that case, although what would help even more would be an improved version of the Album feature from MuseScore 2.

A small number of other Mac users have reported issues with clicking to deselect. I don't know that any of the developers have been able to reproduce this, though.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

I just read up about the album feature.. I can see how the album feature can be useful however while working on a chart I often run into a situation where I want to do a "global" copy paste. When performing live we turn pages on our tablets by just tapping to go to the next page. As a result I rarely use Al Segno or coda marks because they usually involve a lot of page turning so I prefer to just copy paste entire sections that will be repeated. Better to just go to the next page than go page jumping. And this copy pasting is made even more difficult when I have scores with traditional greek music with meters that change every bar because the time signatures aren't being copied. Right now even in its most basic form, a global copy and paste function that copies and pastes all elements connected to a selected bar or range such as time signatures, rehearsal marks, any text, 1st and 2nd repeats, right and left barline repeats, would really take the load off.

Here's a great example. I need to either copy this to another musescore file or maybe change the order of the 3 lines. Each one refers to a different song. Maybe I want Koritsaki to be last after Ekripsa to.. that's greek btw hehehe..

Screen Shot 2020-02-14 at 01.16.00.png

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