Entering a line by double clicking has different results depending on number of staves in which notes are selected.

• Jun 20, 2019 - 11:48

The manual says:

"To apply a line from a note to the end of that measure #
Use any of the following methods:
Click on a note, then double click a line.

But

  1. Create a score with two staves, 4/4 time signature Fill first bars with eight quavers
  2. Click on first note in top stave to select it.
  3. Double click on line (other than slur) in line pallet

Result: line is entered and extends to the end of the bar.

However...

If after 2.
2a) Shift-click on first note in second stave
and then 3 as before

Result: depends on which line is double clicked:
Hairpin, Cresc, Dim - entered on both staves but extends only over first note.
Haripin with starting dynamic - entered on both staves but extends only over first note and has no starting dynamic.
Anything else - nothing entered in score

This seems somewhat inconsistent but it is not clear what the consistent behaviour ought to be. Should applying lines by double clicking be disallowed (as it seems to be for 8va, ped. etc. but not for hairpins and Cresc/Dim) if notes on more than one stave are selected; or should the lines be entered following the behaviour described in the manual when notes in more than one stave are selected? The latter would be nicer but I can believe that it would be more difficult to ensure that all potential cases are dealt with correctly.


Comments

Just checked the behaviour of MS 2.3.2. In this case nothing happens if notes in different staves are selected and then a line is double clicked i.e. the same behavious as in 3.1.0.7078 for lines other than hairpins and cresc./dim.

We do support adding lines to multiple staves at once, it works for all lines types. Not sure exactly what's going on in your score to make it fail for some, we'd need to see the score itself to say.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

In the list of operations in my original post. Where I had shift-click I should have had ctrl-click. Shift-click does indeed give sensible(ish) results. But ctrl click gives results that go against my expectations. An example score is attached. Showing the results of the following operations:

Bar 1 - click on first note in top stave, double click on plain hairpin
Bar 2 - click on first note in top stave, shift-click on first note in lower stave, double click on plain hairpin
Bar 3 - click on first note in top stave, ctrl-click on first note in lower stave, double click on plain hairpin
Bar 4 - click on first note in top stave, double click on hairpin with leading dynamic
Bar 5 - click on first note in top stave, ctrl-click on first note in lower stave, double click on hairpin with leading dynamic
Bar 6 - click on first note in top stave, ctrl-click on first note in lower stave, double click on hairpin with leading dynamic
Bar 7 - click on first note in top stave, double click on 8va
Bar 8 - click on first note in top stave, shift-click on first note in lower stave, double click 8va
Bar 9 - click on first note in top stave, ctrl-click on first note in lower stave, double click 8va

If the two notes are selected using shift click it is clear that the scope of the selection is one note and therefore it is reasonable to expect that the scope of the line added will be restricted to that scope. However, the hairpin with the leading dynamic gets reversed.

In the case of selecting two notes with ctrl-click this looks like an extension of clicking just one note in the top stave (both selected notes are highlighted blue) and therefore I expected that the scope of the line added would be the same - i.e. to the end of the bar. However, it only covers the first note in the case of the plain hairpin. In the case of the hairpin with the leading dynamic the scope is again only the selected note and the dynamic disappears. In the case of the 8va line, nothing is added.

I tried to attach a screen recording (mp4) of these operations but it didn't seem to work.

Attachment Size
Lines test.mscz 11.75 KB

In reply to by SteveBlower

Ctrl+click and Shift+click are indeed very different. The former creates a "list selection" (individually-selected elements), the latter a "range selection" (everything within rectangle). And some operations work differently on one versus the other. Certain lines have special behavior defined for list selections, others don't. The ones that do are mostly designed to handle cases where you've selected two notes in different voices on the same staff or some other special case like that - it wasn't really specifically intended to support what you did. But no harm in allowing it, either?

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