Adding instrument visibility toggle to mixer
Hi,
In order to edit score, I spend a lot of time making instruments visible / invisible by going the menu route...It would save a lot of time if the visibility tick was, in addition, in the mixer? Does this make sense? Possible?
Cheers
Uri
Comments
As it is entirely not playback related, having it in the mixer makes no sense.
If you need to switch often between certain (sets of) instruments, consider extracting parts for them.
In reply to As it is entirely not… by jeetee
The parts solution doesnt work for me.
Maybe if we consider the mixer as something not only related only to the sound, but also to the instrument / track... I dont know where it would make more sense to have it...
In reply to The parts solution doesnt… by urisala
Or how about an instruments panel...
In reply to Or how about an instruments… by urisala
Like if pressing I? There you can not only add/delete instruments but also see all existing instruments and make them visible/invisible
In reply to Like if pressing I? by Jojo-Schmitz
Yes but whi is "i" a menu that I have to open / close the whole time, and not a panel I can leave open the whole time, and avoid realising I made invisible the wrong instruments upon pressing ok...It's just cumbersome
In reply to The parts solution doesnt… by urisala
What goes wrong when you use parts/ Should work perfectly.
In reply to What goes wrong when you use… by Marc Sabatella
I am not sure what parts even have to do with what I am asking...Let me clarify. Lets say I have 15 instruments. I want to, on the fly, be able to see instruments and unsee them in the score. Different combinations all the time. Parts are fixed
In reply to I am not sure what parts… by urisala
The reason we suggested parts as a workaround is that many users that feel they need to switch visibility often have a use case that is solved more conveniently with parts: That is, they are working on an orchestral score and wish to focus on working the strings/brass/percussion/vocals section. So for them it is often easier to set up parts with the desired subsets and work that way.
Of course we are completely unaware of your workflow (or of why you need to switch visibility that often). Aside from knowing that in the UX review a more convenient way of doing so is being taken into account, it would be interesting to learn more about your use case. That way it can be taken into account for future updates as well.
In reply to The reason we suggested… by jeetee
The parts method can work if you know what particular instruments you need to focus on for a certain period of time, but just doesn't cut it to do things fast, on the fly. I use MS at school, and suddenly I realize that out my 12 parts, it is just the xylophones and and the flutes that are not playing correctly, so I want to FAST be able to focus on those. Maybe I can do a part, but that takes more time. Ok if it happens once. But this might happen 20 times in one hour, at least. Therefore the possiblity of having some sort of VISIBILITY panel, og INSTRUMENTS pannel, with tick boxes Tantacrul seems to be working on is the only true solution.
In reply to The parts method can work if… by urisala
I mean that the combination of instruments happens all the time, and its changing. One minute is "ok I want to hear flutes and djembes" and 20 seconds later its "ok i need to hear xuylophones and ukuleles. And I cannot predict what I want to work on. If for every combination I have to stop and make parts, or open / close menus, with the danger that I might click on the wrong instruments and have to open the menu again, chaos will ensue
In reply to I mean that the combination… by urisala
Currently the instruments dialog is but a single key press away though (I). But yes, a more integrate way could be useful. Also note that changing the visibility of the instrument does not change the playback inclusion of it. And then parts indeed might become more cumbersome given the continuously changing groups of focus.
For that the mixer (which can be docked) is available with solo and mute buttons (but that one can stand improvements to usability as well..)
In reply to Currently the instruments… by jeetee
That is why I suggested adding that visibility tick box to the mixer, so you could hide / and mute from the same panel
In reply to That is why I suggested… by urisala
To expand on this idea...
Out of your 12 parts, to hear only the xylophones and the flutes, you would have to select 10 instruments to hide/mute.
Perhaps another choice - something like "solo, while muting and hiding the others" - would allow selecting only 2 instruments, xylophone and flute.
In other words, as the Mixer currently works, one can "solo" more than a single instrument (which essentially mutes the rest). The muted ones would then need also to be hidden in the score.
In reply to The parts method can work if… by urisala
Makes sense, although I personally can't imagine wanting to actually hide instruments for that purpose. For you it happens 20 times in an hour, for me it's maybe 20 in a decade :-). I was thinking more along the lines of knowing you'd want to work with just the brass in an orchestra score for a while - that's something that seems more common. but anyhow, as you can see, it does look like some new interfaces will be coming along in the future to facilitate use cases like yours.
Hi Uri. Although this won't be implemented for the mixer - I'm right now designing a system that allows you to quickly show or hide an instrument by ticking / unticking a box in one of the panels. It's part of a larger interface update I'm creating. May take a while to get implemented but it's coming!
In reply to Hi Uri. Although this won't… by Tantacrul
Great news, looking forward to it!
Cheers
Uri
In reply to Great news, looking forward… by urisala
I just discovered it is already possible to hide/show individual instruments with a single click from the time line [accessed via the view menu or f12] and documented here: https://musescore.org/en/handbook/3/timeline.
If you hover over one of the instrument names in the left hand panel, you will see a circle with a dot in it. if you click on that it will toggle showing/hiding that instrument in the score.
In reply to I just discovered it is… by SteveBlower
Omg you're right! That is very much along the lines I was suggesting.
A bit buggy, though? If you click on the eye of an instrument that has been set to invisible in "i" (instruments menu), then all instruments disappear...
In reply to Omg you're right! That is… by urisala
I don't see any buggy behaviour. If I hide instruments from the instruments menu, clicking on the eye just toggles visibility on/off as expected. I am using the latest update 3.4.2. Perhaps something got fixed.
In reply to I don't see any buggy… by SteveBlower
Wow!
Looks like it's time for me to update.
In reply to Omg you're right! That is… by urisala
No buggy behavior in 3.3.4 either.
What version do you have?
In reply to No buggy behavior in 3.3.4… by Jm6stringer
I am loving the ability to hide instruments, incredibly useful in the classroom. I find it curious that no one suggested it before, not 1st time I express my with for this feature. Maybe it was not the use it was intended for? Now I just with I could hide just linked staves only, and not the staves they are linked to. If I click on the eye, both are hidden / shown. Sometimes, if the class is advanced, or some people start knowing their parts, I like to hide all tabs and similar linked staves.
In reply to I am loving the ability to… by urisala
"If I click on the eye, both are hidden / shown."
Well that is because the buttons hide instruments and if an instrument has two staves, both get hidden. You don't have to use linked staves for a piano part, but if you don't, some features like cross staff beaming and part-wide dynamics will not be available (but can be achieved with workarounds, some more kludgy than others). If those features are not important to you then just create unlinked staves for the instrument (e.g. Piano RH and Piano LH), and you can hide them individually.