Is it possible to place colored lines under the notes?

• Apr 22, 2018 - 14:34

Is it possible to place colored lines under the notes? I tried to use the Layers function, but it only affects notes, but not such auxiliary elements as lines. And I need the notes to be on top (over, above) of the color elements (lines) I place. At present, the lines are arranged arbitrarily. Someone is under a note, some over it overlapping it.

I wish to use layers as in Photoshop to enable and disable them and change its order of priority. If there is no such function in the program, is it possible in principle to implement it as an add-on?

Возможно ли разместить цветные линии под нотами? Я пробовал воспользоваться функцией Слои, но она касается только нот, но не таких вспомогательных элементов как линии. А мне нужно, чтобы ноты были поверх размещаемых мной цветовых элементов (линий). В настоящее же время линии размещаются произвольно. Какая-то оказывается под нотой, какая-то над ней, закрывая её.

Я хочу использовать слои как в Photoshop, чтобы включать и отключать их и изменять их последовательность. Если такой функции в программе нет, возможно ли в принципе реализовать её в виде дополнения?


Comments

In reply to by Jm6stringer

Sorry, but your advice does not help to solve the problem. In both cases (see Figure), the notes are UNDER the colored lines and are covered by them. Covering the notes with colored elements makes the notes unreadable (invisible). How to make them readable (visible)?

Извините, но ваш совет не помогает решить проблему. В обоих случаях (см. рисунок) ноты находятся ПОД линиями и перекрыты ними. Покрытие нот цветными элементами делает ноты нечитаемыми (невидимыми). Как сделать их читаемыми (видимыми)?

In reply to by Jojo-Schmitz

Сan you tell more about "development builds for the master branch"? Is it possible for me (I`m not a programmer) to try it for one note and one color element (line) behind it? I can open a saved file and find some information about the note and about the position and length of the color line but how to "change the stacking order"?
Is it possible for some programmer to create a plugin that will change this stacking order?

In reply to by mike320

"What is wrong with it?"
Mike320, the Idea is in Colors! The color with transparency is not the same as the color without it. So I dont wish to change it.
If there is no simple way with available methods then I need to change the program (if it
s opened for developement and making a plugins). Or to find another program that can work with notes and color elements as Photoshop work with Layers. But at this time I didn`t find anything better than Musescore. May be you know if there is (in the whole world) an "instrument" that can help me to have the needed result??

In reply to by devol_J

MuseScore is open source, so you are certainly welcome to build from source - see the Development link in the Contribute menu above. All you need to do is change the "Z" order of the elements. As mentioned, a future version of MuseScore already supports this directly, but for now, you could just change the default in your private copy and generate PDF's or whatever that way.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

Thank you Marc. Is there any text or article where I can read about this "Z" order of the elements" and how to edit it? Is it connected with a sequence of elements (Chord, TextLine) in .mscx file?

"As mentioned, a future version of MuseScore already supports this directly"
You mean that in a future version I can place the colored element (line (TextLine)) 'stacked under' the note (score) to have what I need? I need colored elements with the coordinates and size to connect it with parameters (position) of each note. And color element should be 'stacked under' the specific note connected with it to be visually appealing in general.

In reply to by devol_J

There is no documentation for the source other than the source itself. In element.h, you'll see the definition of the "z" property; keep studying the source and you'll see how it is used.

In MuseScore 3 - for which you can already test experimental nightly builds via the Download menu above - you'll see "Stacking Order" (same as "Z") in the Inspector to set however you like. Just set it lower than the defaults for notes and staff lines and you can have full color lines in the bottom layer. You just need to be patient, as this is nowhere near ready for real use. But if you do decide to compile MuseScore for yourself, you can simply set the default "Z" for liens to be much lower in a 2.3 build and have a stable but usable build.

In reply to by jeetee

Yeah, but I need it all to be automated, so I cant work with colored elements as pictures. I wish to work with coordinates that I can find in .mscx file (if open it with Notepad).
I can place the "stacked under" elements in Photoshop for one page but I can
t do this for the whole piece of music. :)

In reply to by devol_J

What is your desired target format? PDF?
Then you could just add the lines in Musecore as you want, export to PDF or SVG and open in e.g. Inkscape and then push the lines back into the background. Inkscape can only work with single pages though and you would have to merge the single page PDF together afterwards.
(Of course you can also edit the SVG-files directly in a Text-Editor. )
I know this is a workaround.

In reply to by devol_J

Just keep in mind that the mscx format is purposefully undocumented and is changing during the MuseScore 3 development (it is versioned, so you can check on that in your processing).
FWIW, SVG is also a text format, but purely graphics, so you'd have lost the musical meaning of things. This all still doesn't tell us why you want this and what the end goal is.

In reply to by jeetee

Please, neither Gimp nor Photoshop are adequate tools to work on vector graphics. Use Inkscape (Open Source) or Adobe Ilustrator. But I agree with OP, that's only a clumsy workarround. And transparency doesn't work for mosgt colours or markings of colored notes and it will drive (real) printers mad since printing color over black is a big no-no ...

Depending on how many different colors you need and since transparency cannot suffice for your need for 'juicy colors', this might be worth your effort:

The only way I can do it without using transparency is to create the colored section by changing the color of the score paper itself. The score paper color is 'stacked under' the score. You would need to do this for each different color.
Then make an image of the colored section and paste into the score:

Juicy_colors.png

Regards.

In reply to by Jm6stringer

Thanks but I need more than one color for blocks. And I think if I paste it as an image (you mean "Export to .jpg?") then I will loose the coordinates of position of this element and cant work with its size and coordinates in a text form (file).

I love photoshop. tee hee... unfortunately, the closet I can get is by actually clicking the measure bars and making those different colors...doesn't underline the notes, but it can server as a bracket to (enclose particular measures of notes with colors for vertical lines around the notes. ) : S Or you can just color the notes themselves too (that's what I tend to do)

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