Fingering Substitution Arc Below with MScoreBC
Tucked away within MuseScore is the font entitled MScoreBC. This font has the Old-Style numerals that are often found in older professional scores for page numbers and fingerings. They're also found in fonts like Bravura, Emm. etc with the distinction that Bravura & Emm have a huge spacing below them (which works fine for page numbers but not for fingerings or text with numbers of course).
This suggestion here is a mentioning of the fact that this type of font is very prominent in finger-text. Because of this, it makes sense to utilize it for that purpose. And now to the point.
The Special Characters dialogue is used for the Finger-Replacement symbol of the slur-like character for above and below (arc above/below). This works just fine, but if MScoreBC is utilized, the arc below will be too close to the numerals by a few points. The arc above works just fine though.
Here's a screenshot:
And although this might not be something that can be important to most, if there's anyway the MScoreBC font, or the way it is dealt with in this situation could be updated in some fashion to allow for that [arc below] to be spaced well, it would be worth doing. Of course it's something minor and not on the main hit-list, but it definitely wouldn't hurt to some how fix this, and it is worth at least an issue tracker post to keep a tab on it on the side.
P.S. More information about fingering-melismas/slurs are found in an older discussion at [https://musescore.org/en/node/61721]
Comments
Pretty sure that font is only intended for use with figured bass, it probably shouldn't even be shown in any other lists.
In reply to Pretty sure that font is… by Marc Sabatella
Is that to say MS doesn't intentionally provide that numerical font for standard use? Maybe that should be a feature request if this is a workaround rather than intentional, since those numerals have been used extensively in scores for fingering.
For what it's worth, in the Special Characters section under fingering, the same numerals - or pretty close to them if they're not equivalent - are provided, but these aren't provided in a way that can be entered easily in finger-text entry unless they can be part of a style of some sort, which should be implemented in some way, and so far that font has worked well (save for the fingering-substitution)
MScore BC is not a full font, it only has the small subset of characters needed for figured bass. Feel free to request a more generally font be built around that base. Chances are some already exist though.
Bravura does indeed provide similar characters, and you can easily these to a custom palette as well, but no way to enter via shortcut.
In reply to MScore BC is not a full font… by Marc Sabatella
Yeah, using Bravura works well for the palette entry method, but then that lacks the nice functionality MS3 provides with the fingering-text entry implementation.
Even if a font were requested and created specifically for these numerals as default entry rather than special characters, it would still need to be double-checked for the appropriate placement of the above/below slur markings that are found in the Special Characters dialogue. Maybe a [Feature Request] shall be in the works.
Aside: There might be some font out there on the web that will work for this, but the nice thing about using MScoreBC as a workaround is that the musescore.com website will recognize and use it, whereas if someone were to find a font online randomly, it may or may not work on the .com website.
In reply to Yeah, using Bravura works… by worldwideweary
Actually, if you put a Special Character onto a custom palette, you can enter it with a double-click while in edit mode. Not perfectly ideal, but can be easier than the Special Characters palette itself.
But yes, if a full font were created, the idea is that it would have the eillision character itself and it would be properly sized and positioned. The problem is that character isn't there in MScore BC, so a version from another font is substituted, no surprise they don't match up well.
Also, if a good open source font is found, it could conceivably be included in MuseScore.