Alignment Grid - Does this feature exist?

• May 8, 2018 - 15:58

Does Musescore have a feature that allows (temporary?) grid lines to make it easier to align items when moving them about the score? Too often I find that I disappoint myself by mis-aligning a elements, which for clarity and aesthetics should be visually connected.

Also, while on the topic of alignment, am I somehow missing a setting that prevents elements from overlapping on a score? I sometimes miss an overlapping note or dynamic marking. I am aware of the settings under the Style menu, but I still find collisions of notes, dynamics, texts, etc.

Thanks in advance.
Tom


Comments

I made some experiments with existing wallpapers in musescore and added a new one
- created myself with paint - see attached .png file.

You may copy this file into musescore's folder of wallpaper first
and then chose it in the preferences.

Attachment Size
squared6.png 507 bytes

I disappoint myself by mis-aligning a elements, which for clarity and aesthetics should be visually connected.

As there are many different types of elements, the visually connected ones are usually of the same type -- for example, volta lines, or dynamics, or chord symbols, etc. -- which is why group selecting them and making adjustments (via Inspector) is more exact than moving each separately about the score.

https://musescore.org/en/node/121316#comment-548401
https://musescore.org/en/node/101126#comment-450801
https://musescore.org/en/handbook/align-elements#snap-to-grid

Regards.

Indeed, the lack of being able to position and size elements absolutely is quite a PITA.

As an example, take an SATB score, 4/4, and put differing rhythms into the first measure, for example half + fourth + fourth in the first line, fourth + half + fourth in the second line. Then try to create a hairpin starting on the second beat and align them so they have the exact same size and position in both lines.

I know the offset/position XML tags in the .mscx file are relative, but it would rock if the insprector could show “position from top of page (y)”, “position from left of page (x)”, “total width”, “total height” options that, when changed, update these relative adjustments. Then I could just copy-paste from the one MuseScore creates correctly (second line) to the one I have to manually adjust (first line, in this example).

In reply to by mirabilos

I'm confused - the hairpins will automatically be the same physical size and position if they have the same "logical" start and end point. I guess in your example, there is no note on beat two for the hairpin to attach to in the second line, so it is not obvious how to make that happen, but there are ways, and it's definitely the way to go if you care about alignment, because anything we did to allow you to make the adjustment manually in a way that happens to align today will fail the moment anything changes about the layout of your score changes (eg, an edit elsewhere on that same system changes the measure width). If you care about alignment, you won't be using manual adjustment for this, period.

One way to get the hairpin to align correctly would be to enter the desired rhythm in another voice, then hide it.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

No, tricks like using hidden voices are evil. Besides, adding a voice really changes the layout, too (e.g. pauses).

I normally apply the hairpin at beat 1 or 3 in those cases, depending on which fits better, and change start and length so they visually line up. Playback doesn’t handle during-a-note {,de}crescendo currently anyway.

What I want is, basically, to influence the physical size and position in the UI, to make Inspector change the logical position/offset that actually gets stored in the score to create the physical size/position I want, at any given moment. (That means, of course, that, on layout changes like stretching, the physical (or better “absolute”) positions change, even if I had previously entered some, as only the logical (or better “relative”) positions are actually saved, while the absolute positions are recalculated on the fly if needed for the inspector, or, possibly, a new dialogue.)

In reply to by mirabilos

OK, what I think you are describing is pretty significantly different from what this thread is about. I agree that needing to adding hidden voices isn't ideal, although it's hardly "evil" if it works better than anything else, and right now I think it does. Not sure what you mean about them really changing the layout - they shouldn't, at least not in any significant way. Whereas your method of attaching to beat 1 or 3 and then manually is "fragile" in that it depends on the measure width. It's OK as a quick and dirty hack, but it won't be as precisely aligned nor as robust over time as hidden voices. Still, I recognize hidden voices is a hack too.

Ideally, I'd simply like to see the ability to see the start and end position of lines to arbitrary beat positions, just as we can do for chord symbols and figured bass. For that matter, we might as well also support the ability to add text this way - internally, it's attached to the "segments" rather than the chords. Probably other symbols could easily be made to work this way too.

It seems you are suggesting that when making manual adjustments, we should convert physical positions them to logical positions where appropriate, so that if you drag a hairpin start point to the vicinity of where beat 2 happens to be given the current measure width, we detect this and actually change the attachment point. This would actually not be the right thing for many adjustments, but would for cases like this. So I could imagine an explicit button in the Inspector that says "convert current adjustment to logical", and it would locate the nearest segment, move the attachment there, and then rebase the offset to there.

But this would still be imprecise, unless we actually threw away the manual adjustment rather than rebasing it. To me, better would be to implement the Ctrl+duration commands for edit mode as we do for chord symbols and figured bass. Right now, in chord symbol edit mode, pressing Ctrl+5 advances the cursor position to the next beat. What if, in edit mode for other elements that are attached to segments, it actually detached the element from its current segment and attached it to the specified segment instead? We could also borrow the ";" shortcut to move beat by beat, Space to move to next note or beat.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

"Not sure what you mean about them really changing the layout - they shouldn't"

The truth is that they do. If you put an accidental in a hidden voice, MuseScore makes room for it so it will not be trampled by another notation if "Show Invisible" is checked. The entire layout is set so that toggling show invisible only shows and not shows invisible without doing a re-layout. The accidental is but a single example. There was, in another forum, a discussion of using invisible 16th notes to ensure all measures are the same length. It was a hack but it worked because invisible voices DO affect layout.

In reply to by mike320

Indeed, a subtle effect on spacing. I thought you were implying the hidden rests were having a more profound effect - like forcing stems up in voice 1, or notes to be obviously displaced to make room for a hidden element on the same beat, etc. This is what we specifically don't do.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

| OK, what I think you are describing is pretty significantly different from what this thread is about.

Admittedly, yes.

| I agree that needing to adding hidden voices isn't ideal, although it's hardly "evil" if it works better than anything else, and right now I think it does.

Hm. Can I set hairpins on hidden-voice[234] pauses? That would make it somewhat usable. I do not wish to add notes that are not actually used.

| Whereas your method of attaching to beat 1 or 3 and then manually is "fragile"

Yes, but hairpins jump all through the page on relayouting (e.g. temporarily making a hidden instrument visible again) anyway, so I rely on git diff to find the unwanted changes.

| Ideally, I'd simply like to see the ability to see the start and end position of lines to arbitrary beat positions

That would fix this problem for hairpins, yes.

| It seems you are suggesting that when making manual adjustments, we should convert physical positions them to logical positions where appropriate, so that if you drag a hairpin start point to the vicinity of where beat 2 happens to be given the current measure width, we detect this and actually change the attachment point.

No, not at all!

What I mean is: currently, the Inspector has “horizontal offset” and “vertical offset”, but these are offsets from the automatically calculated position. (Interestingly, it lacks a “width” property, but the Pos, Pos2 and Offset2 properties in the Debugger map to what I mean.) I wish for two added fields in which the current offset from the page is shown, and, when changed, it affects the existing fields’ content. No change in file format, and especially no change in attachment points.

| imagine an explicit button in the Inspector that says "convert current adjustment to logical", and it would locate the nearest segment, move the attachment there, and then rebase the offset to there.

That’s not what I mean at all, sorry.

I have the attachment points correct and wish to only change the visual representation, based on the visual representation of another element (in this example), by means of having comparable physical inspector changeable fields.

(In fact, there’s no such thing as “length” either, just Pos2 and Offset2, which are also relative to the automatically calculated ones, so we need three added fields.)

In reply to by mirabilos

Hmm, I guess I'm not understanding how the new fields you propose improve anything. If it's still a physical offset only, then how it better to have it display based on the page rather than what it actually displays on? To me, it's very significantly worse, because as soon as the layout changes for any reason (a measure gets wider, or moves to another system) those offsets either change or they become meaningless.

If you just want to make sure the horizontal position is the same, just attach them both to the beginning of the measure and use the same relative offset. I'm not getting what you mean about having the attachment points "correct" - one is on beat one, the other on beat two? or both on beat one? If the former, then as mentioned, the relative offset already does the job. And if the latter what I'm saying is, this won't work, because as soon as the width of that measure changes, the physical position changes.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

"...use the same relative offset" is fine when you're using items which share the same offset characteristics, but a little more difficult when trying to align items with different offsets. For example, aligning Staff Text to Lyrics.
Staff Text normally resides above the staff, so aligning with Lyrics will require double-digit offsets. One offset for verse one lyrics, another for verse two, etc., and entirely different offsets if you decide to change the font size of either Staff or Lyrics text.

That's a lot to keep in mind when you would prefer your thoughts are primarily about the music itself, and not trying to remember which offset agrees with a given situation.

In my mind it would be easier to have a virtual crosshair appear when you click and move an item. This would give a visual horizontal and vertical alignment without having to know the values in advance. The corresponding values can then be copied to all relevant items.

My current (and more time consuming) method is to offset the Staff Text directly ON the Lyric, so that I can see that they are in fact, vertically aligned, and then adjust the horizontal to clear the collision.

Regards,
Tom

In reply to by toffle

The much easier way to do that is to simply assign the Lyrics style to the staff text. You might also want to change the lyric top margin to 0 and then make the corresponding adjustment to the text style. The point being, manual adjustment should be seen a last resort - the first line of defense should always be to find out how to let MsueScore do the work for you.

But this leads to another question - what limitation in the lyrics facility causes you to resort to staff text in the first place? Addressing that is perhaps the more direct solution.

As it is, talking about making it slightly more accurate to laboriously adjust things manually one by one is kind of like talking about dealing with a dead car battery by cutting a hole in the hood to make it easier to connect jumper cables. Sure, it makes it easier to jump start the car, but better to actually fix the battery :-)

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

The reason that I'm using Staff text in this instance is that I'm writing parts where more than one singer is shown on the same staff. I'm indicating the change in singers by Staff text. I can't use Lyrics, because I'm indicating the change at a place where there are no notes in the part. (Besides, I don't want them singing their own names.) Is there a way to do this using Lyrics that I am unaware of?

I considered assigning the Lyrics style to the Staff text, but I use the staff text for other things in the score as well. Changing the style affects the text globally. (Doesn't it?)
I think of Staff Text as a versatile "use as needed" text.

Thanks for your response.

In reply to by toffle

My suggestion is to create a new style, and assign that new style to just those particular words (do this using the Inspector).

Meanwhile, it could indeed be valuable to add a facility to lyrics to support "free-floating" words like this, also other things like verse numbers etc. It's something that's come up before but so far no concrete plan on how to best design this.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

Just following up on this thought, and I may be mistaken in this assumption, but doesn't this mean that I would have to create a new style for each verse of lyrics and for any change in font size? (I wouldn't change font size within a piece, but different situations for which I transcribe music require other sizes.)

In reply to by xavierjazz

Thanks for all the suggestions folks.

FWIW, if I'm doing something as simple as adding verse numbers, I usually attach this text to the first word of the verse.

eg. 1.[ctrl space] lyric.

This has minimal effect of the horizontal spacing of the lyric under the note, and guarantees that the text is vertically aligned. I agree, though that a free-floating Lyric Text option would probably be preferable.

It's when I have to add character names or other text that I find other means necessary.

Thanks again.
Tom

Do you still have an unanswered question? Please log in first to post your question.