"Add Score" in the Album Manager should allow to load all files supported by MuseScore

• Apr 13, 2013 - 15:48
Type
Functional
Severity
S5 - Suggestion
Status
won't fix
Regression
No
Workaround
No
Project
MuseScore

"Add Score" in the Album Manager should allow to load all files supported by MuseScore, currently it only allows for .mscz, .mscx and (strange enough, as the plain open does aoolow for these anymore) .msc files.

Also is should be possible to add multiple files in one go, currently you can select more than one, but only the last ones is added to the album.

Comments

• Apr 14, 2013 - 21:27

- MSC is removed
- Ability to add several scores is fixed

I don't think it's a good idea to let users add any type of files in the album manager. Other formats always need to be fixed before being ready to print.

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• Apr 14, 2013 - 21:39

Thanks.
.mscz and .mscx is a good default but I'd like to have a choice, and if I understand your changes correcly not even the 'all files' option would work any longer.

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• Apr 15, 2013 - 10:33
Status (old) fixed ⇒ active

Tried it and found my suspicion confirmed.
Esp. with the 'all files' option still being available, but not working -> back to active.
I believe simply dropping the 'if(fn.endsWith (".mscz") || fn.endsWith (".mscx")) {'
and the correponding '}' should fix this.

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• Apr 15, 2013 - 11:18
Status (old) active ⇒ fixed

The all files option is a "tradition". It lets you see the "context" of the files in the same directory. I don't see it as a problem.

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• Apr 15, 2013 - 11:21

Well, you fixed 2 bugs I mentioned in a side note, which is good, but actually this issue here is a feature request and not fixed at all, on the contrary, your fix IMHO deproved the situation (like in taking away something usefull that was possible before) and without a real pressing need.

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• Apr 17, 2013 - 13:49
Status (old) fixed ⇒ active

I don't see my feature request as being fixed, just the 2 side issues.
Instead it took away the feature to allow for other files to be included in an album.
You might change to 'won't fix', if that's the intention. although I won't like that too much either ;-)

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• Apr 17, 2013 - 14:49

Fwiw, I think it is a mistake to think of MuseScore as "supporting" any file types other than MSCX and MSCZ. It doesn't, not really - it merely importa them, then converts to MSCX or MSCZ. This import and conversion happens on every load - album or no album. The MSCX or MSCZ is the native type, and we should be in the habit of thinking on those terms. For instance, my expectation is that an "album" feature would include a "save all" command, and this would assume all files in the album are in an actual native format that can be saved directly. If imported/comverted files were allowed, then a "save all" command woild need to stop and ask for file names to save to for the impored files, and then the original file woild be left unchanged, so next time you loaded the album, you wouldn't see the changes you just made. I don't see that as a desirable situation.

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• Apr 17, 2013 - 15:27

I'd like this as a means of 'import a whole bunch, join, save as one file, then format and fixup to your needs'.
I don't see a 'save all' saving all the files in the album, just the album itself and maybe the joint file it may create, I don't think after the join it has any means of separting them aagain.
It is not the same a linked parts, where changing (and saving ) either a part or the full score influences the other.

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• Apr 17, 2013 - 15:52

Not having used the album manager, maybe this is naïve, but I was imagining an "Album" was something along the lines of a "master document" in Word. That is, not a full document in itself containing all the content of the included files, but a small file that is mostly just a collection of links to the individual documents within it, along with various formatting instructions to possibly override settings on the individual documents (thus ensuring consistency of formatting even if the individual files differ) and maybe some extra stuff placed between the individual sub-documents. As with Word's Master Documents, I'd expect any change in one of the sub-documents made by opening that file directly to also be reflected in the Album next time it is opened, as again, I'd expect the Album is mostly just a collection of links to sub-documents. And similarly, I expect a "save all" command while working with the album would save each linked file.

Even if an album is not *currently* implemented this way - if scores added to an album are actually copied in rather than simply linked - I'd expect this was just an undesired temporary situation, and eventually, it would move to a link-based model. And hence, I'd completely expect the scores added would need to be native MuseScore files. not foreign files that need to be continually re-imported and re-converter and that cannot be saved from within the album.

Anyhow, maybe all this is naïve and albums really are nothing like this, but it does underscore the fact that there is very good reason in at least some situations to really make a hard and fast distinction between native files and foreign files that require importing and converting.

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• Apr 17, 2013 - 15:57

An album is just a list of filenames, with the .album file being a XML file containing that list.
And it has the ability to either print them all or to join them into one big score and save that as an mscz file.
At least that is the current situation.

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• Apr 17, 2013 - 17:46

"import a whole bunch, join, save as one file, then format and fixup to your needs"
I understand the need. But I think the workflow is not good. I would do it like

  1. Import a whole bunch of files in MuseScore (some may fail, need some changes etc...)
  2. Save them in MuseScore format
  3. Create an album
  4. Save in one document

Indeed, an album is just a list of files currently. There is no way to "work on an album". That would mean the ability to open all files in an album, save them etc... Not planned in the near feature.

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