Tempo text font in 3.0

• Sep 14, 2018 - 00:05

Tempo text.PNG

Does this seem odd to anyone else? BTW, I can't change the font using either the inspector or text tool bar.


Comments

I'm also having trouble with tempo styles. The font used for the digits doesn't change, which is very frustrating since it's frankly rather ugly. Is there an option somewhere to change it?

In reply to by SolarGranulation

The problem I showed way back during alpha testing is fixed, kind of. The work around to change the font for the number is to double click the text, then drag select the numbers and change the font in the text toolbar, which is shown at the bottom of the picture rather than changing it in the inspector shown on the left side of the picture.

In reply to by SolarGranulation

By default, the digits should be using FreeSerif, the same font used pretty much everywhere else in MuseScore. And they do change if you change the tempo font using the Inspector, or Format / Style. The note character should be unaffected by these changes, so there shouldn't be any need to resort to the text toolbar to change the numebrs only, unless you've already applied custom formatting.

In reply to by mike320

Looks like you must have previously applied custom formatting explicitly using the toolbar, then. By default, adding a new tempo text using Alt+Shift+ or via the palette yield texts that do respond normally. Try the following:

1) new empty score
2) click first measure rest
3) Alt+Shift+T or use palette to add tempo text
4) Use Inspector to change text

Result: the numbers should change, and do for me

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

What I did in my picture is
1) Add a tempo (Alt+shift+T)
2) put tempo is edit mode and add the text before the note (pressed esc to exit edit mode)
3) Select the text and use inspector to change font (which does not affect the note or number)
4) Double clicked the number so you can see the font assigned to the number

I have made no changes to the default tempo text, except possibly changing the default offset.
Am I missing something? I don't see a way to change the text in the inspector.

In reply to by mike320

Adding the new text before the note is what triggered the text to get marked as having custom formatting, I guess. Because without that step, it works :-). Doesn't seem to matter if you add the text at the beginning or end or just change the number - any change to the default text marks it custom. But, you can then click "Remove Custom Formatting" and all is well.

Typo in my step4) above, BTW - I meant change the font.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

There is no custom font applied by the user when the only thing you do is add text in front of the note, which is very common. The default font for tempo text is bold FreeSerif, so the Remove custom formatting button shouldn't even become enabled.

I also made a mistake in my steps, when I add the text using alt+shift+T, the tempo is entered in edit mode with the cursor at the start. I typed the words into the tempo text (allegro in this case), without doing anything to change the font. This is what's crazy. If you want to change the font for the entire tempo text, you must first press the remove custom formatting button (which will turn the note bold for the first time in this process by the way), then change the font.

In reply to by mike320

I agree that editing text shouldn't mark it as custom; I was just describing the bug as precisely as I could. I assume it stems from the processing of the note symbol, which is potentially coming from a different font. Since we can render it correctly and not mark it as custom before editing, we should be around to after as well, but somehow we are failing to reproduce the magic that was in place originally.

In reply to by mike320

@mike320
I share your frustration with the way Tempo elements are implemented in MS 3: it's a complete mess compared with MS 2.

Having done a lot of transcription of old editions, I find myself changing the default bpm tempo into a tempo description all the time (e.g. Allegro ma non troppo) - and this now requires the extra step to Remove custom formatting. Your description of this default as crazy is no exaggeration...

In reply to by DanielR

BTW, are there other issues you are seeing with the way tempo elements are implemented? You characterized it as a "complete mess" - are you just talking about that extra click necessary if you decide to change a text style setting after editing the text, or is there more going on? I know during the beta and perhaps the very first 3.0 releases, there were other reported bugs with editing tempo texts where you'd get weird random-seeming fonts if you inserted characters at the beginning, and other similar glitches. As far as I know those issues are all fixed. But if you have others in mind, please make sure those are filed too.

BTW, if you do find yourself often changing tempo text style settings, for now probably best to just wait until you are mostly done entering the tempo texts. Then you can select them all (Select / All Similar Elements) and remove the custom formatting for all of them at once.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

Marc, apologies - my earlier post was not specific enough.

I have raised a new issue: #288874: Copying Tempo text to Stave text changes font used for the note image
This is a regression, because it worked fine in MS 2.3.2.

There is another real irritant about Tempo elements, but it's not a regression. I raised this point a couple of years ago and provided illustrations from various published editions to back up the suggestion (https://musescore.org/en/node/126786). But the problem is still there is MS 3.1 beta 2. This problem is the scaling of the notehead and stem in a Tempo element.

Per illustrations in Elaine Gould's "Behind Bars" (pp. 184-185), the stem should be a lot higher than the preceding parenthesis and the bpm numerals. But the default scaling in MuseScore is too small, so that the font size for the note (and augmentation dot if any) has to be manually cranked up from 12 to 18. And it's not just a style choice: if the font size is left at 12, the note stem often disappears when printed. Here is an illustration from "Behind Bars":
Height_of_note_stem_in Tempo_element__Gould_p.185.png

Surely it must possible to program the Tempo element so that the note's font size is correct by default? And I guess I should also raise this in the Issue Tracker?

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