Add a new break within a measure in Breaks & Spacers Palette
Sometimes a measure is just too long to fit in the space between the page margins. It would be very useful to have a new type of system break that could be inserted anywhere within a measure. The first part of the measure would end without a bar at the place where the break has been inserted. As a preference, two short diagonal lines mid-stave at the end could be inserted or not. The measure number on the second part should be in parenthesis.
Note 1: See discussion here: https://musescore.org/en/comment/943256
Note 2: The documentation should strongly encourage to use this break only if strictly necessary and at whole beats
Comments
I like this idea, but would just add - if we're going to add a new break type, it would not be backwards compatible, so we should probably make any other incompatible improvements to breaks at the same time. I know I've tossed a few out in the past, some I'm probably forgetting, others have occurred to me I may not have mentioned, but here's some off the top of my head:
1) option for section break to not do a line break
2) option for line break to not fill (eg, treat it like the last system)
3) option to force all measures until the next line break to fit on one system
4) option to space measures evenly on that system
1) and 2) seem almost no-brainers to me, 3) and 4) less so, while the functionality seems useful enough, it's not clear that break properties are the way to implement it.
In reply to I like this idea, but would… by Marc Sabatella
3) we has a 'no-break' in the development code at a time. Similar to the no-breaking-space in HTML, so a "don't break here"
In reply to 3) we has a 'no-break' in… by Jojo-Schmitz
True, but it wasn't quite so smart - instead of forcing an extra measure to fit on a system, it simply forced both measures (the one before and after the break) to the next system. Plus, even then it didn't work correctly, which is why it was removed from the palette. Code is still there, but, meh.
In reply to I like this idea, but would… by Marc Sabatella
Thanks!
Anything that is optional is OK for me. However, 2) should be used with caution since if I'm understanding correctly, you mean ending the system before reaching the right margin. This in general means that the available space has not been fully exploited and somewhere the staves are more crowded than would be possible, at the expense of legibility. Regarding 3), any idea of how to proceed when the notes come too close to each other or even overlap? As to 4) Isn't it the normal behavior? Or do you mean equal width regardless of their content?
In reply to Thanks! Anything that is… by fmiyara
For 2), the use case is often educational materials where we want control over the page layout, this just saves us the trouble of frames. For 3), I figure it's the users responsibility not to overcrowd. For 4) I indeed mean regardless of content. This is a common layout for fakebook and also for children's books.
In reply to For 2), the use case is… by Marc Sabatella
Thanks for the clarification, you are right!
In reply to I like this idea, but would… by Marc Sabatella
The 4 options make sense and will be useful for me.
I would really like a manual mid-measure break, for a different reason.
A lot of my music has pickup notes throughout the music.
I really appreciate putting a break before the pickup note... i find it makes the score much easier to read
(note that the first measure of the score consists only of the pickup notes, and the last measure is shortened
by the length of the pickup notes).
I've been accomplishing this by breaking measures the hard way... ugh!
In reply to I would really like a manual… by TeoMerrill
Select a note, press Ctrl and double-click a barline in the barlines palette, voila
In reply to I would really like a manual… by TeoMerrill
Not sure which hard way you mean, but note you can define a keyboard shortcut for Tools / Measures / Split Measure Before Selected Note/Rest, or pretty much any menu command. Just use Edit / Preferences / Shortcuts. I have this set to Ctrl+Alt+S.