Name of MuseScore on the websites

• Nov 12, 2019 - 15:13

Core developers, below are things that may upset you, but I believe this is the best way to get them clarified.

I don't know why but more and more places on the websites (both musescore.org and musescore.com) have "Musescore" instead of "MuseScore". It's not exaggeration to say that this is a completely bad idea: if we cannot get our own product's name correct and consistent, what else can visitors expect us to do? The notation program's name is combined by "Muse" and "Score", and since the current official name is still "MuseScore", changing that to "Musescore", if intentional, has no difference than changing to a completely different name, and if not intentional, is a stupid mistake.

What's worse, it's apparent that, when it comes to software development we always refer to "MuseScore", but web development uses "Musescore" on most occasions. I don't know if they are actually two separate departments in MuseScore company (MuseScore subsidiary of UG), but the different names make me feel so. I don't think a non-united community is impressive, but is MuseScore community really so? No, in my eyes we share a common goal, we support and help each other, we discuss when holding different opinions, we feel the joy of developing a digital product together. Really, this shouldn't be a problem, and like I said, I really don't know why this is happening.

I know maybe I'm merely a newcomer (of development) in your eyes, but the problem has been continually discomforting me and I feel like I really have to say this out.


Comments

In reply to by kuwitt

Shouldn't the correct name (in respect of history) be MusEScore, like Werner used to write it in his file licenses?

EDIT: Actually, I can't find any ocurrence in the codebase for it now. But I distinctly remember seeing it somewhere... Does someone know if I am having hallucinations?

I agree it would be good to achieve better clarity and consistency on this. However, I would observate that while the "product name" has long been spelled "MuseScore", it's never really been all that consistent across the entire ecosystem. The logo - as shown on the startup splash screen of the application, and as shown in the title bar of both websites - has, for as long as I can recall, been "musescore". The name of the actual program as installed has been at various points "musescore", "MuseScore", or "mscore", and "musescore" is what has pretty much always been used in terms of names of MIME types, other resources etc. And of course, a good chunk of things in the computer world simply aren't case-sensitive - you can type "musescore.org" or "MuseScore.org" into your browser and end up the same place.

It's also not uncommon for a product to be shown as lower case in its logo but then capitalized in the usual places you would expect to see it capitalized (titles, beginning of sentences, etc), although indeed sometimes people do keep such things lower case. For some reason "lyft" comes to mind, the logo is clearly all lower case, but on their website, they capitalize the name in most places where it is used as text.

So while "Musescore" might be fairly new, it's not like this is the one place that breaks from an otherwise consistent story. Still, I can't say I'm crazy about it, either.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

Logo doesn't even have to include the official name, it can be whatever is deemed good, and it's normal to have something new or different in it. But as long as we're talking about the name, the name should only have one form.

Take me for example, I can use Howard-C or whatever as my account alias, but on my ID card and passport the name can only be my registered Chinese name, apart from translated names on the passport. Musescore.org (the url of a website can have a capital letter at the beginning of a sentence) is just like a passport of MuseScore (it is the official channel of delivering MuseScore to users), writing something wrongly on its passport isn't a brilliant idea.

Also, I'm afraid "capitalized in the usual places" doesn't always make sense, if not only the first chracter is supposed to be capitalized (some unusual places should also be), capitalizing only the first one doesn't make any sense.

Casing might have differed for the purposes of internal use, but I otherwise see nothing wrong with 'MuseScore'.

Having it as 'Musescore' makes no sense to me (it suggests that it is one word).

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