Cross-Staff Slurs: Enable Move function through current shortcut
Reported version
3.2
Type
Functional
Frequency
Once
Severity
S5 - Suggestion
Reproducibility
Always
Status
active
Regression
No
Workaround
No
Project
The current method for utilizing a cross-staffed slur is to select with the mouse two notes on different staves, and then enter a slur. From there, the user can edit the slur graphically to taste.
The suggestion here is to allow, while editing a slur (like extending it via shift+right), allow the user to cross a grand staff just like it is done with notes. The shortcut commands are "Move up/down" for notes. Let that also work for a slur's node that is currently being moved along. This would most definitely be a +1 and can't think of any reason not to implement such an ability. It's a little idea, but could go a long way in notation editing/transcription for the keyboard user.
Comments
My knee jerk reaction is that this will not necessarily be a good thing. If there is a 1/4 note on the top staff and you want to slur to an 8th note on the second half of the 1/4 note in the bottom staff, you will never be able to reach the 8th note directly.
After some thought I realize that the slur should be moved to what ever is on the same beat as the 1/4 note in the top staff and the user could then use shift+right arrow to move the end of the slur to the other 8th note. It's an added step, but no need to grab the mouse to select different notes. Using ctrl+shift+arrows to move the end point of the slur to the other staff is so logical it should have been done a long time ago. I would extend this to allow alt+arrows to move the endpoint to other voices (this is the shortcut to select a note/rest in another voice) because currently you must use the ctrl+click method to select the two ends of the slur if it crosses voices as well. I agree this would be a plus for keyboard users.
In reply to My knee jerk reaction is… by mike320
Re-iterating Mike's mentioning not only cross-staffing but also voices. Many times slurs move from one voice to another, especially between measures, and it would be really nice to quickly do this with the keyboard rather than relying on the mouse. I would think it would be a fairly simple upgrade with the code to allow for such a thing, and hope it gets implemented sometime soon.
In reply to Re-iterating Mike's… by worldwideweary
Hold your horses.
This functionality exists already. Maybe it didn't back in 2.3 or something and so I had the idea that it didn't work. [Move] functions (cross-staffing notes) don't do this, but the simple Shift+Up/Down does in 3.3.x
It doesn't work on all staves, but only on staves of the same instrument. 99% of the time that's all that matters. I seem to recall some scores that have used slurs across instruments to convey a sense of unity of a passage, but that doesn't seem to be regular activity. That can be done, of course, through the mouse: [Ctrl + Notehead selection].
So, to reiterate, if there's anything to change, it would be to allow cross-instrument slurs via keyboard as with mouse. As it is, the original intention to have cross-staff slurring already exists.