Entering Special Characters

• Oct 1, 2019 - 21:11
Reported version
3.2
Type
Ergonomical (UX)
Frequency
Once
Severity
S5 - Suggestion
Reproducibility
Always
Status
active
Regression
No
Workaround
No
Project

I enter musical symbols a lot and on Musescore I have to use that "Special Characters" window. On that window, I find that it can be very difficult to find the symbols I am looking for. The window basically has the left pane of categories/groups and the right pane for seeing/inserting the symbols.

The thing is, sometimes for certain symbols, I don't know what category they are in. I have to keep browsing different categories to look for the symbols.
I am just wondering this window can layout all the symbols in the same pane, while having the category names in between to separate them. Something like this:

Arrows▼
Symbol1 Symbol2 Symbol3 Symbol4 Symbol5
Symbol6 Symbol7 Symbol8 Symbol9 Symbol10
Articulation▼
Symbol1 Symbol2 Symbol3 Symbol4 Symbol5
Symbol6 Symbol7
Barlines▼
Symbol1 Symbol2 Symbol3 Symbol4 Symbol5
Symbol6 Symbol7 Symbol8 Symbol9

The symbols are of course still layouted in a grid form. With the ▼ toggle indicator beside category name, users can toggle showing/expanding and hiding/collapsing of the symbol grids with clicking of the category names.

I understand there is already one category called "All symbols", but that is quite difficult to use as I have to keep scrolling up and down to find certain things.

For example if I have to enter one of those triplet diagrams for swing timing. I may have to enter two note symbols, equal sign, beam group symbols, note symbol, tuplet symbol, note symbol and then a beam group symbol. See that I have to visit some of the categories more than once. With the toggling design I suggest above, users can collapse/hide some of the categories that they don't usually use and know roughly where to scroll to for categories that they use often.

Well, just a suggestion from me. I think other windows in the software like the Master Palette can also exploit this design to make it more user-friendly.... although I know Master Palette may be alittle more complicated than the Special Characters window.


Comments

The easy way to deal with this is create your own custom palette with the symbols you use a lot. It's possible as described in the Handbook, but starting with 3.3 to be released soon (in beta now), it's gets really easy.