Better search - better index in handbook?

Absolutely! Just to be clear, I'm not blaming users for not knowing what to search for - some of the terms are indeed quite arcane. Nor am I blaming MuseScore - no matter what you call certain certain features, people will try to looking for the feature with a different description. I suspect no matter what term was used for "stretch", most people wouldn't think to search on it. Which is why I think some top down structure would be nice. If there were a few high level categories, like "entering notes", "playback", "layout", etc, you'd usually be able to figure out which category your issue fell into. Of course, that is exactly how the handbook is organized. The problem is that the next level after the top level is the very specific terms, and you often don't know whch specific entry will have the info you need ("voices? I'm writing guitar music, not vocal music, so clearly that doesn't apply to me!"). So part of what I'm suggesting might look like a new table of contents. But of course, an index is absolutely a great idea too, especially if organized as you suggest. And links to music dictionaries - great idea, too.

Now, as for ways of doing things collaboratively, I do have one idea that I think would be very cool. I've made mention before of the "visual index" that Finale provides. I believe it may have once been paper only, but now it's online. Check it out if you are not familiar with it:

http://www.finalemusic.com/usermanuals/finale2011win/content/finale/Vis…

Hover your mouse over items in the score and they highlight, then click to get the documentation on how to do it. I think this brilliant in principle, but the old paper one at least was so cluttered in attempt to get every feature in that it was all but unusable. The one linked above is more streamlined, but still looks strange because it is so artificial. This makes it harder than necessary to find the feature you are looking for, and it just doesn't look good as a sample score. Plus, the effort to squeeze in a bunch of features that lots of people might be interested in means that some important genre-specific stuff is missing.

What I think would be great is a series of use-case-specific visual indices that were actual *good* examples of specific types of scores. One of solo piano music, one of a jazz lead sheet, one of a Renaissance motet, one of piano/voice/guitar pop "sheet music", one of a string quartet, one of an SATB choir with piano accompaniment, one of an orchestra score, etc. These would double as advertisements for MuseScore as well as documentation. Sure, there would be some duplication - basic note entry, things like adding repeat signs - but that's fine. The repeat signs in each of the indices could link to the same snippet explaining how to do it. Ideally, I think the targets of links would be "snippets" (or whatever they are going to be called in the future) created for the purpose, but existing handbook entries would do in the mean time.

Some things don't quite fit in this model - like for instance, how you'd represent the idea that stretch had been used. An extreme case where you've clearly fit more or fewer than the default number of bars per line, perhaps. Also, some process oriented things fall through the cracks, like "how do I add more measures", or "how do I control playback". But that's OK; the visual indices don't have to do everything. They are an adjunct to the manual and other tutorials, not a replacement.

Anyhow, the opportunity for collaboration should be obvious: people could volunteer to produce specific indices for score types they are familiar with. Someone - and yes, I'm volunteering - could be responsible for maintaining the set of actual features that the indices would link to, so that if someone develops a snippet to explain how to do repeat signs for one index, the other collaborations know that is available and can link to it as well rather than needing to do their own.