Drum Voice/Voicing input

• Dec 12, 2019 - 01:53

I recently updated (December 11, 2019) to whatever version we're on now, and suddenly the Note input window at the bottom of the screen is just a sliver with no legible information. I can't manually make it larger, and I don't know the keyboard shortcuts to get me to the general editing window (I don't even know what that area is called!).

I use MuseScore mostly as a percussionist, and the way it was up until this point was just fine. But this software update has closed off to me the only way I knew how to edit voicing inputs. For example, say I wanted the keyboard key C to be a Cowbell, or a Ride Bell, or whatever. I can't get to the area to edit the keyboard shortcuts, because the only way to get to that area was through a button to click in an area that is now hidden to me.

I understand that software developers can't always produce the perfect application every time, and that sometimes there are bugs. But this bug is preventing me from doing what was so intuitive before. It really just seems like a pretty crappy update. The GUI here seems unintentionally terrible, and I'm hoping that someone can help me get to the note input area so I can transcribe something.

Hopefully I can learn something about this bug that'll help me understand the software in a larger sense so I won't be road-blocked by something like this in the future.

Btw, attached is a screenshot of the area I always used, but cannot use no longer. If I could describe what this area was in a google search, maybe I could help myself, but because what this area is called is not intuitive, I cannot. Thank you in advance.

Attachment Size
MuseScore3NoteInput.PNG 2.16 KB
MuseScore3NoteInput2.PNG 12.33 KB

Comments

My guess is you have some sort of non-standard monitor configuration, so MuseScore is having trouble understanding it. We did make some changes to how this works that improve the palette sizes for people with high resolution monitors or with low resolution monitors when MuseScore is able to detect the resolution, but for systems connected in unusual ways (eg, TV sets connected via VGA) sometimes this could possibly go awry.

Anyhow, if you explain more about your system - what OS you are on, details about your monitor - we can probably help you figure out how to tell MuseScore what the OS is failing to tell it. Also it might help if you posted a picture showing the whole window, including a Letter- or A4- sized score viewed at 100%, and the key signature palette open.

But do try the revert to factory settings, it could be you had previously customized the size of the drum window and that old size isn't making sense any more with the new improvements.

Actually, when I see that other thread you started a few months ago showing similar sizing issues, I'm now 100% sure the issue has to do with whatever your non-standard monitor configuration is. And it could well be that whatever workaround you employed to fix the problems you were seeing back in March now need to be updated. So do tell us what you are doing - using -D or -x command line options? Playing with Qt environment variables for scaling? Changing icon and font sizes within MuseScore itself?

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

Thanks for the response.
I'm embarrassed to say that I don't remember what I did back in March. I must've played around and stumbled on something that worked, then forgot about it.

What you said is almost definitely the problem, because my main monitor is an older 720 TV monitor connected by HDMI. I also have a square Dell computer monitor, but it looks the same when I move MuseScore over to that one. I'm running Windows 10.

When I try Windows+R:
"C:\Program Files\MuseScore 3\bin\MuseScore3.exe" -F
nothing happens
"C:\Program Files\MuseScore 3\bin\MuseScore3.exe" -D 300
nothing happens
"C:\Program Files\MuseScore 3\bin\MuseScore3.exe" -x
"Missing value after '-x."

Maybe I'm doing something wrong here?
Also, I reset factor settings using Help > etc. but things are the same.

This may be unrelated, but a day or two ago my monitor's borders were out of whack, so it was zoomed in, cutting off most of the tool bar. Apologies for the premature criticism of the update when this is almost certainly a problem on my end.

Screenshot attached.

Attachment Size
MuseScore3screenshot.PNG 186.41 KB

In reply to by theoldludwigvan

Thanks for the screenshot. It confirms that MuseScore is not understanding the resolution properly - at 100% view, that default score should have been the same size as an actual piece of paper. BTW, when I asked about the key signature palette, I actually meant, the main palette at left of the screen, not the separate "Master Palette" dialog. But I have no doubt it would have showed me the same thing - everything is way too small.

I'm a little surprised you say the TV is connected by HDMI, I would have thought any TV new enough to have that would also be able to communicate its resolution. But maybe not.

Anyhow, I also don't understand what you mean when you say "nothing happens" when you type those command lines. Do you mean MuseScore starts up but looks no different? Or it doesn't start up? You do have to first close it if it was already open. But the second command listed should have definitely made a very noticeable difference. If not, I guess you try 600 just to be sure. BTW, on the last command listed, you need to supply a number after the "x" to represent a scale factor like "-x 2" (without the quotes).

Meanwhile, how have you been starting MuseScore before the update? From the program icon, or another way?

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

That's it! I had MuseScore open when I was running the commands. Tried it with -D 300 and it was...clearly different. Screenshot attached. Reset it at -D 100 and that's definitely how it's supposed to look.

I've been opening it from the icon in my toolbar. After I closed it this time with dpi 100, I clicked the icon and it's back to the tiny layout. Same thing for opening it from the windows menu and a desktop icon. Not a big deal, I'm just happy that the -D command line lets me open it at different dpi. I can just use that from now on.

I'm not surprised about the TV...it's some brand I've never heard of. "Viore", about 24" and 720p. It's...not great, but I got it for free and it's perfectly fine as an extra monitor so I normally don't complain. But it's definitely not standard, and will do weird things, as with our problem here.

Anyway, thank you for your help. Running MS from the command line + -D does the trick.

Attachment Size
MuseScore3dpi300.PNG 141.81 KB
MuseScore3dpi100.PNG 126.95 KB

In reply to by theoldludwigvan

Great! In that case, you should be able to fix the icon too. Right click it it again, if you see Properties click that. if you don't see Properties, maybe you see another MuseScore 3 in the menu? Right click that. Now you should see Propertie,s so click that. In the dialog that appears, enter the "-D 100" at the end of the line under "Target". Now that option is added every time you use the icon. Only time it won't be is if you start MuseScore by double-clicking a score. Someone who knows more Windows tricks than I do may know how to get that to work too. Well, I could make it happen using a .BAT file I guess, but ideally that shouldn't be needed.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

Perfect. The desktop shortcut opens correctly. Unpinned the toolbar icon, opened the desktop shortcut, then pinned that to the toolbar. Thank you.

What's odd is that opening the file location of the desktop icon brings you to the .exe file in \bin, but the properties of that .exe don't give you the target... and searching through cortana gives you the same thing.

But, whatever, I just need the toolbar icon, so I'm good to go.

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