Palettes don't work
...or anything else, for that matter. I can't insert an accidental, edit a key signature, add a key signature or time signature, etc. I can enter notes and edit them.
About the palettes, the manual says: "click on the palette object to select it. The cursor changes (arrow up)." Well, the cursor does not change, and that's as far as I get. It doesn't matter whether I'm in note-editing mode or not, the cursor doesn't change. The object does change color when the mouse is over it, but clicking does nothing. Right or middle clicking doesn't do anything either.
Version 0.9.1, revision 646, installed by Synaptics Package Manager into Ubuntu Hardy. This is a vanilla system, with nothing missing. Little or nothing has been changed. I also have the common files, including the manual.
Was something omitted during the installation? Do I need the KDE desktop or something?
Comments
The manual is for 0.9.2 and above only. There has been a lot of changes in the meantime. So the best advice is to upgrade.
However, I think there is no version 0.9.3 made for Ubuntu yet. Don't know exactly why. Perhaps you could ask on the ubuntu forums http://ubuntuforums.org or on https://bugs.launchpad.net/musescore
Assuming the palettes work the same as version 0.9.2 or later you need to click and drag elements from the palette onto the score. See Palette for more details.
Oh, that's easier than it looks, isn't it? A lot of things are now working. But:
...how to I insert an accacciatura or appoggiatura?
In reply to Oh, that's easier than it by LaFolia
The [[nodetitle:handbook]] has lots of information for using MuseScore. If you type appoggiatura in the website search box it returns this page: Grace note
OK, thanks. After some experimentation I almost got it to work, but there appear to be some big problems.
1. The manual should state that you need to get out of Note Entry mode, and THEN drag a grace note from the palette.
2. The position of the grace notes is erratic. Immediately on printing, three grace notes jumped over to the previous measure. They printed in the correct place, except...
3. ...one grace note was printed under a time signature.
4. If you select a note before you drag a grace note, you can put the grace note before almost any note EXCEPT the one you selected.
5. Is there any way to change the time value of the grace notes? They seem to be limited to 1/8 notes.
6. Is there any way to put two or more grace notes together?
Well, maybe these are checked in a more recent version (although I just installed this a week or two ago). I'll check it out.
Thanks, 0.9.3 for Windows appears to solve those problems.
Just one more question, as long as this is going well. Is it possible to add notes in the middle of the score, like you can with a word processor? I want the other notes to just shift right, without replacing them.
In reply to Ah, much better by LaFolia
You can insert measures and the other measures shift right (see measure operations ). At this time you can not insert notes without replacing them.
In reply to Measures by David Bolton
I see, thanks.
I hope that's a high-priority feature request. Can you imagine if word processors worked that way?
In reply to Ouch! by LaFolia
Actually most scorewriters do not work the way you describe. Probably because time signatures and bar lines complicate the process. I can think of a couple of scorewriters that work this way (NoteWorthy Composer and Canorus) but they do not insert bar lines automatically.
In reply to Time signature and bar lines by David Bolton
Well, it would be OK if you could fix the bar lines semiautomatically, with one or two keystrokes or mouse strokes. But the alternative is having to rewrite every single measure, and that's unacceptable. It's one thing to make corrections; it's quite another to retype all the stuff that's right. I can do a lot better than that with paper and pencil.
I don't see why bar lines should or time signatures should be a problem. There are several ways of dealing with it, including: (1) adjust bars only up to a double bar or time signature change; or even (2) allow users to deactivate the feature.
I'll tell you how I write. I write in a hurry, so as not to interrupt the flow of music. Working on paper, I may put the bar lines in later, or I may put them in as I go. Either way, the bar lines are often almost incidental, and I can fix them later. If I have to go back and insert or delete some notes, I am NOT going to go back and rewrite a bunch of stuff.
So please consider it. Thanks for your help.
In reply to Well, it would be OK if you by LaFolia
I absolutely agree with LaFolia about bar lines and how frustrating it is that you can only overwrite, not insert notes.
David - you mentioned NoteWorthy Composer - I used to use that program and one of the things I most appreciated about it was the ability to write the music you wanted to write and then figure out the barlines afterwards. That program had a tool on it called Audit Measures or Audit Barlines (or something like that) so that you could check that it made sense afterwards.
I am just like LaFolia in that I often compose by writing down the music as I go and then afterwards I go through figuring out where the bars are and jiggling the notes around to make them fit. Personally I usually do this on paper and then transfer it to the computer, but even once I've transferred it and I'm in fine tuning mode, I sometimes change my mind about things so I want to be able to mess around with it easily.
Other than that I am really enjoying MuseScore - I've been looking forward to it for ages but it was only last week I saw that the stable download was available! I'm still finding my way around but in general it's great :-) Thankyou!!
In reply to Bar Lines by gabslambrick
Likewise in the lyrics - if you forget one syllable in the lyrics (very easy to do by forgetting to type a hyphen) you have to go through and retype them all, as far as I can tell. You should just be able to add the missed syllable or hyphen and it should all shift along by one note.
It would also be nice if lyrics automatically took account of tied or slurred notes - at the moment I am manually putting an extra space in, and if I forget, I have to go through and retype all the ones after the place where I made a mistake.
In reply to lyrics too by gabslambrick
Notes can be shuffled around using copy and paste . There is a feature request for this same capability with lyrics. See http://www.musescore.org/en/node/2987
In reply to Copy and paste by David Bolton
Thanks for your quick reply David, however, I can't copy and paste the notes without taking the barlines too. To give you an idea I've attached a screenshot of what I was doing.
The *second* line is what I had originally written. The *first* line is what I later decided I wanted. You'll see that in the new version the first note is in a pickup measure so the notes and the barlines have all shifted relative to each other, even though the notes and their durations have remained the same. I thought I'd try your copy and paste idea so I inserted some measures and tried to copy and paste the notes into their new locations. But if a barline was included in the selection it would still include the barline in the same position when I pasted it, and delete other notes or leave rests in the wrong places. So basically I could only copy and paste a maximum of two-thirds of a measure at a time, or just retype the whole thing.
It might sound like a really random request but I actually make changes like this quite a lot and it would be so much easier if note entry were more like a word processor in this respect, allowing you to go back and add notes in.
In reply to copy and paste doesn't do what I need it to do by gabslambrick
It is hard to tell why copy paste is not working for you without watching what you are doing. What does it look like after you paste the notes? Are you following the steps as outlined on the copy and paste section of the handbook?
In reply to It is hard to tell why copy by David Bolton
i tried again - don't remember exactly what I was doing before, but this time I put rests into the bar I wanted to paste into, so that I could tell it exactly where to paste, and that worked.
Thanks for your patience! I'm still getting used to this. It's great, a really good program. Thanks.