Order of deleting rests in voice 2 impacts on placement of rests in voice 1

• Jun 6, 2019 - 11:55

I was notating a part which was divisi with two voices and then mid bar reverted to a single voice after a quaver rest. I came across a rather odd behaviour so that depending on the order in which rests in voice 2 are deleted a rest in voice 1 may be visibly offset, but the inspector shows zero Y offset. See attached example.

A list of actions to reproduce is.

  1. Create a single stave with time signature = 4/4.
  2. In bar 1 enter crotchet, quaver rest, minim as voice 1
  3. In bar 1 enter crotchet on beat one as voice 2. Result: bar is filled with crotchet rest + minim rest in voice 2 and the quaver rest in voice 1 is displaced upwards.

This is all as expected. However, it is better practice for parts sharing a stave to share rests where possible. My first try to achieve this was:

  1. Set the rests in voice 2 to be invisible. Result: Rests in voice 2 are not visible but quaver rest in voice 1 remains displaced upwards.

My next try was to delete the rests in voice 2.

  1. Instead of step 4, delete the crotchet rest in voice 2 and then delete minim rest in voice 2. Result: Quaver rest in voice 1 remains displaced upwards.

The results after steps 4 and 5 are a bit strange; there is nothing visible that requires the rest in voice 1 to be displaced. I experimented some more and found how to get what I wanted but also found another even stranger behaviour with possible score corruption.

  1. Instead of step 4 or 5, select the crotchet rest in voice 2 and hit 4 to replace it with two quaver rests. Result: Voice 2 has crotchet, 2 quaver rests,
  2. Make rests in voice 2 invisible. Result: Quaver rest in voice 1 returns to non-displaced location. Notation is as wanted.

or instead of 7

  1. Delete 1st quaver rest in voice 2. Then delete remaining rests in voice 2. Result: Quaver rest in voice 1 returns to non-displaced location. Notation is as wanted.

BUT

If instead of 8

  1. Delete 2nd quaver rest in voice 2, then delete remaining rests in voice 2. Result: Quaver rest in voice 1 remains displaced upwards. Notation is not as wanted. (See example.) It seems that different results are obtained depending on the order of operations. Looking at the voice 1 rest in the inspector shows that the Y offset is zero, but looking at the score, its offset is obviously not zero. Does this indicate a score corruption?

I propose to submit this as a minor bug report, but I would first welcome confirmation that this behaviour is reproducible and that it is not as intended.

Attachment Size
Shared Rests.mscz 4.84 KB

Comments

While deleting rests in other than voice 1 is permitted, it's better to make them invisible, though I have not seen deleting lead to reporting corruptions in 3.1. One thing I do consistently is if I want my voice 1 16th rest centered on the staff in voice 1, I make a 16th rest in voice 2 in the same place and make it invisible. This of course works for all duration rests. I don't know the exact internal process for this, but somehow the order of deleting the voice 2 rests affects these results.

In reply to by mike320

Yes, making voice 2 rests invisible is probably more sensible than deleting them, but MS allows the user to delete them and unless they are deleted in a particular order the result is a rest with a visible offset but no offset showing in the inspector.

And the other point of my post is that making invisible a voice 2 rest that is longer than the one in voice 1 does not reset the position of the voice 1 rest even though there is nothing visible to require it to be displaced.

The first problem seems to be a bug. The second seems to be a "feature".

Do you still have an unanswered question? Please log in first to post your question.