Visual feedback that Plugin was Applied
Just started using this plugin now, and I'd like to say how useful it's become for me. Being able to hear the cres. and dim. lines I wrote reflected in the MIDI output really makes me feel better.
The functionality is essentially there, and it really is pretty simple, so I can't think of much else to improve on that front. Saying that, though, I feel there is a lot more room for improvement in the aspect of usability (I specialize in it, so I know a thing or two).
Specifically, I as the user would like to see some form of feedback on the sheet itself whether or not a certain sequence of notes has been cres.-ed or dim.-ed e.g. an automatic line attached to the start and end notes and opening in the right direction. This would also provide me an easy way to undo the cres./dim. intuitively. Additionally, it might be better to lock the start and end note velocities for as long as the plugin-generated line is still in place.
There are some big problems with not having persistent visual feedback of the plugin's effects on the spreadsheet. Because you can't see on the sheet itself that the plugin was run, if you make changes to dynamics and forget about the parts of the score where the plugin was used, you would either have to check each note for its velocity, or simply reset the velocity of all the notes. Being able to tell and manipulate the plugin's effects directly through the sheet makes the plugin's usefulness much greater, and makes it much more scalable to large projects where a composer may be working with thousands of notes and complex dynamics.
Comments
I'm not sure it is possible with thw 1.2 plugin framework to add such a line.
One thing that could be done is coloring the notes it changed velocity on, and once you're done you use the blacknotes plugin to color them black again.
That would be quite an easy change, have a look at the attached
With the upcoming 2.0 this is en entirely other story, I'm not yet sure whether a plugin for this is needed at all, but if, it would have more options to possibly achive what you sugest
Sorry, it didn't post as a reply to the first comment. Please delete this.
It's interesting that you brought up 2.0, and if this plugin becomes a feature in the upcoming release, I'd love to get that on day 1. However, it doesn't look like a stable release will be out for at least a good while, and lots of people might still want to stick with 1.2 for its current level of maturity.
I'll take a look at any documentation there is of the capabilities of 1.2's plugin arch., but changing the note colors of a changed note sequence sounds interesting. The only usability requirement anyway would be for the user to know the plugin did something to the note velocities, and to make it easy to directly undo that change.
One option for undoing the cres./dim. would be to simply delete one of the framing note (start/end) velocities, either manually or, if it used a dynamics symbol, by deleting that symbol. Another would be to delete whatever the plugin put onto the sheet as visual feedback, but in the case of changing note colors, this wouldn't work out.
As for printing, would it be possible to make it only change color when editing, and turn back to its original color when it's printed out? I dunno if the plugin arch. allows for it, but it would work like invisible notes/symbols/text, where it's grey when editing, but transparent when printed.
By the way, thank you for making a prototype of the feature request at such short notice, and so quickly, too. I'll do what I can on my part to see if I can't try to do something meaningful with the code myself.
EDIT: Sorry, I really can't seem to make it stick as a reply.
reply in the issue tracked is linerar, not nested like in the forum...
To revert the coloring, you'd need to use the blacknotes plugin.
I don't think adding any ornament is a) possible (with the 1.2 framework) and b) usefull to revert the velocity changes.
For reverting the velocity changes the resetvelocity plugin might be usefull.
Instead of the coloring the note head one could probably add some stafftext to the chord and mark that invisible, so it won't print., but deleting that text won't revert the velocity change.
For now I stick with the blue coloring (commited to GitHub and available in the plugin repositiry now), but have it disabled in the code, so you'd need to change the variable 'colorit' to 'true'.
making text invisible does not seem to be possible in the 1.2 plugin framework.
Nor is adding any other invisible stuff, except another note (possibly with velocity 0 so it doesn't play) but I'd regard that way to coplicated (e.g. it should not overlap with any other existing one, but how to fine a free spot?) and clumsy to be usefull.
So I think coloring the notes is as good as it can get.
Wow, the functionality of the plugin architecture really does seem pretty limiting if it can't add invisible notes. You're right; simply coloring the notes would be the best way to go in this case. It would just have to be included in the readme & plugin description that that's what it does to show it's made a change to the score, and to just a) use the blacknotes plugin before printing and b) use the resetvelocity plugin to undo any changes.
Although what you get is still a manual process instead of a logical (automated) one, the addition of a few helpful lines of instruction can really make a significant improvement in the usability of the plugin. New users will at least know how it works, and how to use it in the context of their compositions without worrying that they might have broke the tempo of some notes somewhere.
Thank you for your work, and for your continued contributions to this plugin. I'm sure a lot of people use it as part of their regular workflow. To get any further improvements, let's just hope the plugin arch. in 2.0 will expose much more functionality for people to take advantage of.
(Thanks for the heads up on issue posting behavior. I'll make sure not to make the same mistake in the future.)
Seems I didn't make myself clear enough: notes are the only elements that could be added and hidden via the current plugin framework. But to be usefull in this plugin, they'd need to be in places that are not used by other notes, this would be difficult to implement (not impossible though), and it would be cumersome to get rid of them once no longer needed.
So I regard this solution to not be worth the effort..
And yes, the Readme and/or description in the Plugin repository needs to mention
a) how to enable that coloring of notes that had been worked on (the code itself mentiones it)
b) the blacknotes plugin to revor that coloring
c) the resetvelocity plugin to revert the velocity changes
Will do, as soon as find the time for this and leave this issue open until then, as a reminder ;-)
For 2.0 I'm not sure this plugin would be needed at all ( I think crescendo/diminuendo are supprted by 2.0 directly, but need to investigate more on this), but if it is, there is better functionality available in the new plugin framework.
A first experimental 2.0 plugin is included in the archive already, not yet functional though.
Automatically closed -- issue fixed for 2 weeks with no activity.