Stopping Layout Stretch Impulses?

• Nov 19, 2018 - 05:30

It seems that every time I enter a note or delete a note, the "layout stretch" of the score increases and decreases. This is wildly annoying, because each time I go to enter a note, the entire sheet of paper moves and I have to redirect my clicks. This is also very annoying when I'm on a new page and the note then goes to a previous or upcoming page to the one that I'm viewing and I have to move my view around. How can I make it so that the score stays put when I insert notes? I just want to insert notes and have them stay put, like I'm writing them on paper. Is there a setting to de-check?


Comments

Layout stretch isn't the right term for what you are describing - that is about how much to stretch any given measure when its content don't change (eg, take a given measure and make it wider or narrower without adding or deleting notes). It is totally normally and correct that measures with more notes are wider than measures with fewer notes. This is a practically universal standard of music engraving.

When you enter notes, the view moves to make sure the cursor stays in view as it goes offscreen. Normally this is a good thing and you wouldn't want it any other way. But if you prefer having to move the score yourself when the cursor goes offscreen, you can turn off the "Pan score automatically" button on the toolbar (to the left of the metronome). But this has nothing to do with inserting notes or notes themselves moving around. Seems you might be mixing up a few different things here. Feel free to attach your score and describe more precisely what you are doing (inserting which note where, in which mode?), what you expect to see happen, and what happens instead.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

This isn't a great animation per se, but compare these two images. In the first image that note is an A. In the second it is an A#. When I made the note an A#, the measure widened. On page view this is horrible. I'm on continuous view right now so it's a little better. I'd rather work with the measure myself, letting the format go to heck while I'm working and widen or squeeze the measure as I need to through my own locus, perhaps after I'm done entering notes.

In reply to by Matt Tucci

As Marc said, widening the measure is necessary to make room for the accidentals, otherwise the accidentals would be on top of barlines or other notes. You don't want MuseScore to start with a measure wide enough to handle anything you put into it. I've seen some measures that are too long to fit on a single line unless you decrease the size of everything. You also don't want it to default to a single measure on a line. This would be worse than what it currently does.

As Marc also said, you can turn off pan if you don't want MuseScore to automatically adjust. The jumping is far more tolerable in continuous view for entering notes. I only use Page view to adjust items after they have been input in continuous view so the jumping of the screen when the measure width changes is better, and the last measure gets left on a previous page and it is extremely difficult to make visible.

In reply to by Matt Tucci

Not sure what the problem is in page view - as I said, it's normal and correct that a measure gets wider as it gets more content. The alternative is that you have incorrectly laid-out music, just as bad as pencil and paper when the whole point is to do better. Imagine a measure only wide enough for a whole note then you decide you want to add 16 sixteenth notes - do you really expect the measure to not widen as you enter notes? You wouldn't be able to see what you are doing.

Yes, on occasion in page view the widening from entering one note might be just enough to cause a measure to "wrap" to the next line, just as typing one character into a word processor might be enough to cause a word to "wrap" to the next line - no different, and no one insists that word processors not do this. But MuseScore does provide continuous view, so you can have the best of both worlds already

In reply to by Matt Tucci

Well sure, if all you are doing is adding an accidental, that might seem reasonable, even though the results will indeed look bad, they won't be completely unreadable. But now say you want to fill the measure with thrity-second notes. Still think the measure shouldn't widen? It's just not really a tenable way to work.

In reply to by Matt Tucci

Why would you not want the width of the measure automated? If you don't like how MuseScore automates it you can go back and adjust it afterwards. I realize this is not what your not happy with, but what you are asking for makes no sense. In Marc's example of filling the measure with 32nd notes, they would be on top of one another and unreadable unless you manually adjust them. When you have literally hundreds of measures like this in a symphonic score, the tedium would drive most people to subscribe to one of the expensive alternatives.

@Matt, you probably already tried switch in Continuous View (instead of Page View).
Reduce the Scaling value, then Ctrl+A and reduce stretch sometimes can help.

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