Score comparison tool
This is for discussion of #287708: The "Score Comparison Tool" tool should revert from "Documents Side by Side" to whatever mode had been set before
I'm still learning the quirks concerning the score comparison tool. I want to understand it, so we can assure it works as expected.
I will admit, I didn't read the handbook concerning it until just now.
Here are some problems I see.
When you have the two versions being compared, the first time you click an item that is different than the previous version, the change is made bold in the Comparsion window. At some point, this no longer happens. I'm making sure I'm clicking notes an dynamics that were not in the previous version.
The MuseScore window becomes wider than the screen, even when the MuseScore screen is maximized. You can tell this if you have enough documents opened that you can see the left and right arrows to scroll through the open documents. When I open the score comparison tool, the window grows and I can no longer see these arrows. The only way to see them is to un-maximize the window and move it to the left. (I'm on Windows 10 doing all tests on 3.1-beta) If I undock the score comparison tool close and reopen it, only the score comparison tool is too large for the screen. If I undock the
If you close the comparison tool, then open it again and choose the same file to compare it to the file is opened again, so you now have two copies open.
These are oddities I have found with the tool.
Comments
In the referenced bug report, Marc asked why not just leave the comparison tool open while doing this comparison against the last saved version I think the words in the comparison tool are rather useless to the average user, except to identify which measures have changes. In the forum post (https://musescore.org/en/node/288397) that led to this discussion, the OP wanted an easy way to identify accidentally moved or deleted items. I thought this was the perfect tool to help with that. If the user wants a visual comparison, then the tool's window takes up too much space in my opinion, but I'm almost blind and keep my words and notes rather large. I have discovered that the compared version remains open, so there is no issue with the users stacking documents themselves. I guess the bug should be fixed.
In reply to In the referenced bug report… by mike320
I would say if the goal is "an easy way to identify accidentally moved or deleted items", then the score comparison tool should be exactly that. So if some aspect of the design of that tool somehow makes one want to close the tool even when your actual goal is consistent with the goal of the tool, that's maybe a UI design issue for the tool itself, worthy of a separate discussion. But note, like other windows, it can be resized or undocked, maybe that helps?
In reply to I would say if the goal is … by Marc Sabatella
The score comparison tool would have too much info. Reading through the list of changes doesn't make sense for the most part. When you change a measure rest to a 1/4 note it tells you
Measure 41: removed element Chord
Measure 41: Rest: Markup Changes: durationType
Measure 41: Rest: Markup Changes: duration
Measure 41: removed element rest
Measure 41: removed element rest
No where does it tell you a note was added. Adding a note to the chord (using shift+n) didn't change the change log at all. To help matters even more, when you then add a note to the second staff, you get each line doubled like
Measure 41: removed element Chord
Measure 41: removed element Chord
Measure 41: Rest: Markup Changes: durationType
Measure 41: Rest: Markup Changes: durationType
Measure 41: Rest: Markup Changes: duration
Measure 41: Rest: Markup Changes: duration
Measure 41: removed element rest
Measure 41: removed element rest
Measure 41: removed element rest
Measure 41: removed element rest
It totally reads left to right with no indication that a new staff has been used. This is not very useful.
Some things would be helpful, like it tells you that an articulation somewhere in the measure on some staff has been modified. I think adding some of the status bar info would be usefult, like
Measure 39, Beat 1: Slur: position distance changed from 7/8 to 15/16.
When I changed the slur, it literally omitted all measure info and started "Slur:..."
I haven't looked at all of the messages, but this tool can definitely use some improvement to make it more useful. In the mean time, I would say it's most useful with the info box turned off so you can visually compare the differences between versions.
In reply to The score comparison tool… by mike320
I think you are comparing backwards - from the current to the last saved. That's why it tells you a chord was removed. Put the last saved first, then the current, and it will tell you the chord was added.
It's true if you convert a rest to a chord, it doesn't tell you about each note. That's a reasonable suggestion, although some would probably find that excessive info. I also agree more specifics about what aspect of an element was changed could be nice too.
Not sure which "second staff" you mean - an attached score would help - but my guess is, the score has parts, so you are finding out about the change made there as well. But when I add a staff, I do get that info, right at the top of the list.
In reply to I think you are comparing… by Marc Sabatella
My score I was looking at didn't have parts created. I added a note to one staff, then added a note to a second staff (a different instrument than the first) on the same beat and got the crazy readout for measure 41. Chord add/removed is just a matter of which score is listed first. It makes sense to me that the one I'm working on is on the top of the stacked scores. That's something that would be easy enough to get used to since MuseScore has no way of truly knowing that my intention is to edit only one of the scores.