MDL Sticking?

• Apr 19, 2019 - 21:15

There should be an option is the pallets that gives you "R" "r" "L" "l" "B" "b" "1" "2" "3" "4"and other possible stickings. It could just automatically place it below the notes, and be tied to customizable key strokes, treating it like an articulation mark. This would make writing drumline music a lot easier, especially since the 3 update. The update took away the ability to paste, next note, paste, next note (ctrl+v, right arrow, ...) when using staff text, and also made it a lot more difficult to place the text after putting it into the score (had to turn off automatic placement, and the letters bottoms wouldn't line up with the same vertical placement). These could be placed in the MDL workspace under text.


Comments

I'm not sure what problem you are having with paste, nothing should have changed in that respect. Feel free to attach the score you are having trouble with and describe the problem in more detail

As for adding text, Ctrl+T for staff text works, so does fingering, so do lyrics, each has its unique advantages. One of the great new features in MuseScore 3 is the ability to press Alt+Right after typing text to automatically move to the next note, so you can enter staff text or fingering much as you otherwise would lyrics.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

I used to be able to be on note A, do ctrl+v, then press the right button, which would take me to note B, and so on. I would copy my sticking for "r", do this for all that used "r", then go back and repeat with "l" "R" "L". I would have to format these all individually to appear in a way that is nice to look at and read as you play. (https://imgur.com/8Shtd3S - screenshot showing formatting issue compared to ideal). If there was just a built in sticking feature (or even it's own text style) that had a nice font (normal staff text font would be fine), wasn't very far from the bottom of the staff, wasn't horizontally spread, and had shortcuts it would be significantly easier and better.

Attachment Size
Test.mscz 8.75 KB

In reply to by hunter_grembecki

Again, this is precisely what 3.0 now allows, just hit Alt+Right while in edit mode and you go right to the next meeting where you can type the stick for that, hit Alt+Right again, etc. Or use lyrics, so you can just use Space to move to the next note. Have you tried it? It really is as simple and amazingly fast as that, a huge improvement over 2.x.

But you're right that there seems to be a bug in 3.0 where your old method doesn't work because the selection gets lost on paste. Can you file an official bug report on that? Support / Issue tracker, above.

In reply to by hunter_grembecki

Regarding the formatting, that's just a matter of setting your style settings how you like. Eg, Format / Style / Text Styles, set the font, alignment, and the offset however you like, also on the Lyrics or Staff Text tabs, set Placement and "Autoplace min distance" how you like. Everyone's ideal is different, that's why we provide options. In your case, try using staff text and setting the default to below, offset 2.0sp, baseline alignment. Then everything is perfect, no manual adjustments required, just entering your stickings as fast as you can type.

In your sample file, you made the mistake of disabling autoplace and then manually adjusting the position - don't do either. If you want to move something from above to below the staff, don't disable autoplace - just press "X", or, as I said, set the style the way you want to begin with.

Just tried it, I'm definitely having a problem with the Dynamics:

(1) enter some notes
(2) enter Lyrics on each note
(3) enter some Dynamics
(4) in Format>Style, set the Y value of Lyrics to 1 and that of Dynamics to 10

I get this:

Msforum_Yvalues.png

MSforum_sticking.mscz

I would want the Automatic Placement to move the Dynamics below the Lyrics once the difference between to two Y values reaches a certain value. Instead the vertical order is taking priority no matter how large the difference.

The result with Staff Text was even worse.

Same with both 3.1 Beta and 3.0.5

In reply to by kacattac

It doesn't work that way indeed. The default relative order of elements is fixed according to standard rules of engraving. If you want the sticking information closer to notes than the dynamics, don't use staff text; simply use a text type that is normally placed closer to the notes, like fingering. It's easier to enter, anyhow - you can type a letter, hit space to move to the next note, etc, just like lyrics.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

I can't seem to make Fingering go below the staff without disabling automatic placement. Enter a Y value in the teens and the automatically placed Fingerings stay above the staff even as unplaced Fingerings are now several staff heights below them.

If Dynamics are toggled to "Above," then the desired order can be achieved above the staff: Fingerings closest, then Dynamics. But not below...there is no Above/Below dropdown in Format>Style>Text Styles>Fingering (or any of the text styles that are subsumed there?).

In reply to by kacattac

Simply press "X" to flip fingering (or most other elements) between above/below staff. The reason you can't set a default placement is it actually depends on the staff - for a two-staff instrument like piano, fingerings go above the top staff, below the bottom. So a way to trick MuseScore into putting fingerings belong your staff is add an invisible one above, we're not smart enough to ignore that :-). Still flipping after the fact is probably the way to go.

In reply to by kacattac

Interesting! Here the fact that this isn't quite the intended use case is indeed an issue. It will be tricky because of the need to support stacked fingerings, but somehow we do need to figure out a way to support other alignments. Maybe the solution will be to introduce a new subtype of fingering specifically for this purpose, it wouldn't support the stacking but would otherwise behave similarly.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

FWIW, it was tricky indeed, but I do have code implemented and working. Right now I have it without the need for a new fingering substyle - just setting the vertical alignment for fingering to anything but centered makes fingering work more like staff text in this respect. My thinking is, even without a new fingering substyle, we could simply add R, r, L, and l elements with baseline alignment to the palette - if we could agree on whether they are better added as above staff or below.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

Entering this stuff on every single note using the palette sounds like a royal pain (in the wrist).

I'm seeing many past discussions of making keyboard shortcuts applicable to palette items, but this doesn't seem to have happened yet? Even with shortcuts, I would prefer being able to use a text style like Fingerings or Chord Symbols. (The space bar is a bigger/easier target than alt+arrow.)

I apologize that I am ignorant of programming/coding concerns.

In reply to by kacattac

You don't need to enter fingers on every note using the paette - just enter one, edit it (or assign and use a keyboard shortcut that allows you to type a fingering) and from there just type a letter, hit Space, type a letter, hit Space, etc - just as efficient as entering lyrics. Alt+Right/Left is needed only for plain text (eg, staff text) where space is a normal / legitimate character so we can't treat it specially.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

I think I'm not understanding your previous comment (the one before this). You said you found a solution to make the Fingering text style behave better, but also proposed adding elements to the palette. I took those to be two different fixes, and that you were leaning toward the latter to the exclusion of the former.

In reply to by kacattac

No, not at all - the PR I submitted does both. It implements different behavior for bottom/baseline/top alignment so that it becomes possible for them to be aligned note to note, and it adds palette elements that are preset to use that alignment. The palette is there for people who like clicking, the quick entry mode exists also. But the quick mode would probably require you to set the alignment when done, as it inherits the default text style settings. That could conceivably be changed (to also copy manually applied properties), or we could conceivably add another text style specific for this as I mentioned. Whatever, as you say it will be good to have more input from people who would actual use this. But the point is, the underlying implementation is done and ready to build upon.

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