Increase the ability to format individual staff sizes, systems, and margins per system.
I find myself editing so much with Musescore and doing workarounds to engrave my music. Yes, I still have lots to learn about Musescore, but it seems that using stave spacers is the only way to get the systems to workout they way they should. and sometimes I would like to set unique margins for the very first system, instead of the work around of inserting a bar. When I go to my page format page, it only gives me so many options with the odd and even pages and staff spacing applies to the whole score. I need to details, and I need more control over everything. Any one else feel me?
Comments
I agree the first system/page should have different settings than the rest of the score. There are some feature requests related to this including #124806: Allow "staff distance" on first page to differ from subsequent pages.
I don't know exactly what you want to do here: I use frames for this purpose--vertical or horizontal depending on the situation. I find this easy and quick and flexible so long as it is only required on one page.
In reply to I don't know exactly what… by azumbrunn
I usually want the scaling smaller on the first page to fit all of the instruments on it when I use Hide Empty staves and Don't hide empty staves on the first system. Spacers don't work for that.
In reply to I usually want the scaling… by mike320
I often find myself just dreading using the Hide Empty staves feature. And when I am dealing with a large orchestral score it gets very complex; some instruments have long rest periods, and having to input ghost notes to keep a certain stave visible across the score is tiresome and repetitive. I just want to be able to go to any stave, hide it, and move on. I understand the need to implement a hide all empty staves, but man does it get really tiring imputing ghost notes just so you have a certain system show, but want it empty elsewhere in the score.
In reply to I often find myself just… by Daniel Ani
You wrote:
...but man does it get really tiring imputing ghost notes just so you have a certain system show, but want it empty elsewhere in the score.
No need for ghost notes. See:
https://musescore.org/en/handbook/staff-properties#common-staff-propert…
From that very handbook link:
"Never hide this staff. This overrules any "Hide empty staves" setting in Layout and Formatting: Style → General... → Score."
Regards.
In reply to I often find myself just… by Daniel Ani
Just curious, why would you want a staff to show on some systems even though empty but not on others?
In reply to Just curious, why would you… by Marc Sabatella
I've occasionally done that if it would otherwise result in just a single system within a section missing that instrument, otherwise present in the entire section.
It is just weird to then have one oddball system in there.
In reply to I usually want the scaling… by mike320
I always put the title on a title page (not produced in Musescore) for scores--as opposed to parts. That way the scaling issue goes away. It doesn't look all that attractive to me when the first page is scaled differently from the rest.
As to the "hide empty staves" feature: I don't use it. I can only see one use for it: When so many staves are hidden for so long that you get two systems on a page instead of one. Then you save paper and a page turn for every time this happens.
But in practice things hardly ever line up this nicely. What you get instead is this: The system has a different height on each page as different instruments are silent; lines are jumping up and then down again at every page turn. I believe this makes the score harder to read--also not pretty. Our eyes are very good at spotting empty staves (mine anyway); jumping lines are more of challenge IMO.
In reply to I don't know exactly what… by azumbrunn
Yes, true. I only require them for simple things.
You shouldn't be adding a bar to get an indent on the first syste - that's what horizontal frames are for. That's not a workaround; it's how it is done.
Not sure what you mean about wanting systems to work out the way they should - sure, spacers are sometimes useful and that's why they are provided. What are you thinking should be happening that isn" Can you post a attach a sample score and describe your problem in more detail, so we can provide better help on how to get the desired result?