Inconsistent behavior of selection after palette insertion by double-click

Looks like a good idea on the face of it.

This is by design. When inserting an element from a palette, the element is selected so that the user can change its properties. When the user press esc in the score view, it just remove the current selection.

If you want to see this behavior change, please bring it to the feature request forum for discussion. It's not a bug. https://musescore.org/en/forum/7

When inserting an element from a palette, the element is selected so that the user can change its properties.

This is true for articulations and ornaments, as well as breaths and pauses, noteheads, grace notes and bagpipe embellishments, fretboard diagrams, and all text-based elements—but not for lines/spanners, accidentals, barlines, key and time signatures, brackets, tremolo, or frames. In all of the latter cases, the note remains selected.

This should be sorted out and made consistent one way or the other.

"A foolish consistency..." should not be the goal. The goal to me is efficiency. I think for some symbols it makes *sense* to leave the note selected - ones not especially likely to need manual positioning, or symbols attached to ranges where you don't want to lose the selection. Offhand, it kind of seems to me like we're doing it rightr, although in the case of fingering of course there could be arguments both ways. Sometimes you want to manually position, other times you want to move on to the next note. But I think we have the best of both worlds right now. You can position manually using the arrow keys, or use Ctrl+Alt+Shift+Left/Right to navigation to the previous/next note.

A problem with too many options is that is this in itself becomes overwhelming to the user, and it makes the user experience different for each user, making documentation harder (different sets of instructiosn depending on option settings settings) and multi-user use more awkward. I can't think of any program I have ever used that provides an option to control what happens to the selection after adding an element - can you?

Yes, I would definitely not advocate for making this a configurable preference.

Yes, I was going to point out the same thing about Ctrl+Alt+Shift+Right (or Left). So it's a single keystroke to move selection from a fingering back to the note.

The advantage of having the marking selected is, as I said before, that you can then *move* it directly with arrow keys without havign to reselect it. So presumably *moving* a recently-added marking is more difficult in Capella than in MuseScore. Meaning, Capella makes it easier to add multiple markings to a single note, whereas MuseScore makes it easier to move markings. I suspect the latter is a more common case - wanting to move a single marking as opposed wanting several markings on one note. But I can't prove that.

I think it's possible to have it both ways, though. If there were a shortcut for adding fingering (or other markings) to a note, we could make it so it also worked if a marking rather than a note is selected. So, select a note, press shortcut, that adds one fingering and leaves it selected, then press another shortcut to add another marking to the same note. We already do this for grace notes. Press "/" to add a grace note and this adds the grace note, leaving the grace note selected, but then presisng "/" adds another grace note.

"We already do this for grace notes. Press "/" to add a grace note and this adds the grace note, leaving the grace note selected, but then presisng "/" adds another grace note."

Yes, great idea to assimilate the operation of adding grace notes and this one of adding fingerings. Ideally too, I would like to have the ability to navigate into the fingerings, for being adjusted easily, without having to re-click each time.

I mentioned this to the addition of two fingerings for a single note, very long ago in another way, ie the note remains selected (see below, the mentioned thread, I think there is others, I can not find them from now), but the idea of grace notes is much better.

https://musescore.org/en/node/36846#comment-158141
Extract (more or less at the end of the previous linked comment): "BTW, cadiz - here is a case where I think you'll be happy that adding a fingering leaves the newly added fingering selected. That means you can adjust its position immediately with the arrow keys."

Insert one bar (measure in US usage) is another candidate for changing the selection behaviour after insertion by clicking a pallet item. Currently nothing is selected after using "insert one bar" from the Frames & Bars pallet. It would be useful if the inserted bar remained selected after the insertion. This would provide a quick way to insert several bars as it would allow further bars to be inserted immediately just by repeatedly clicking the pallet item. Currently one has to select a bar, click on the pallet, click in the inserted bar, click on the pallet, click in the inserted bar, click on the pallet ... vamp until ready.

I agree maintain a selection would be useful here. However, clicking is never necessary to restore a selection. Shift+L will return you to the most recently-selected note or rest. Also, Alt+Left or Alt+Right will resume navigation from that point. You might need to press Esc after clicking in the palette to return keyboard focus to the score.

Unfortunately, it does not seem to work that way for me. None of the shortcuts you mentioned produce the range selection necessary for the insert bar pallet item to work.

However, the INSERT key does work in a useful way, even if a list selection is made in a bar, pressing INSERT inserts a bar and makes the starting bar a range selection. In fact, perhaps the insert bar pallet item is superfluous. The INSERT key does it much better. If the pallet item is retained, then it would be better if it just replicated the INSERT key behaviour.

True, they just select a single element. But then Shift+Left/Right does. Also, if the goal is to insert a bunch of measures isn't it a ton more efficient to just use the direct command for that? That is, Ctrl+Ins, or Add / Measures / Insert Measures. Or, if you prefer doing it one at a time for whatever reason, just hit Ins as you mention.

The point, yes, it's good to keep something selected at all times where possible, but the actual downside of the current behavior in this particular case in real world practical use is much smaller than it might have appeared if literally the only way to add multiple measures were to use the palette and constantly clicking backing and forth.

I must admit, I have never used the insert bar pallet item in anger, I was intrigued when I noticed it and found its behaviour of some relevance to this thread. But its usefulness seems fairly limited. I can remove it from the pallet. INS does it so much better.

:-). Actually, I'd love to see some larger-scale reorganization to all this - combining the frames & measure palette with breaks & spacers and maybe a few odds and ends from elsewhere (like staff text change from text palette) and calling it the Page Layout palette. Perhaps MuseScore 4 will be more radically redesigned still. Anyhow, if someone wants to improve the selection-after-insert-measurefrom-palette semantics for 3.6, they certainly have my blessing.