Allow "Merge matching rests" to be default
Reported version
3.5
Type
Functional
Frequency
Once
Severity
S5 - Suggestion
Reproducibility
Always
Status
active
Regression
No
Workaround
No
Project
Version 3.5 introduced the option to merge matching rests on a staff by staff basis. It would be nice to have a way to set this as the global default since it seems most people would want it on for every applicable staff or off with little mixing between the two.
Comments
It is on for the closed score SATB templates, but only for the voice staves, mot for piano, where that setting would be rather unusual.
It is usual to have mixed setups, hence it is useful as a staff property
What I would say is that for piano, it's somewhat subjective, some matching rests should be merged, others not, depending entirely on the musical context. If there were an easy override to unmerge the matching rests (something better than manual adjustment), that might be OK. Still, it would be important not to turn this on by default, for compatibility. At least for older scores. Similar issue as for chord symbol playback, and a variety of other changes (including proposed ones not yet implemented, like a new music font). We really could use a good overall strategy here for such things.
I'm not asking for it to be MuseScore's default, I'm asking for the option to make it my default so I don't have to change 10 or 15 staff properties on the staves that hold multiple instruments. This would belong in the preferences window, probably in the advanced tab.
Understood. But I wonder - these are probably your wind instruments mostly, right? What is that were something that could be specified in the instruments.xml file. Or, if we even set the default based on the info already within the file (there are tags for MusicXML purposes specifying woodwind vs brass vs strings etc). Somehow this seems consistent with the other automatic things being proposed, like setting standard score order and bracketing for you.
If it could be easily personalized then I would be in favor of nearly any method that would allow the user to set this for all or even a section of instruments at once. I'm not sure I want it in instruments.xml. Though I normally prefer this to be turned on for wind instruments, I would like a simple method for universally turning it on or off in a specific score.
If it's part of the new score wizard (or whatever it might be called in v4) to make this decision that would be good. It would be even better if you could do it by instrument family as you suggest. I'm not sure I want this automatically turned on for the violins so that would be good. Of course changing one or two instruments is not unreasonable compared to 15.
To be honest, I'm not really sure what make sense either. But if it's generally agreed that this option should be on for winds by default, then we shouldn't need users to discover some hidden option to enable it - it should just happen. That's the whole thinking between the changes to instrument ordering and bracketing - do the right things by default, don't depend on users to know how. That way everything just looks right by default.
But, if there isn't general agreement that winds should have this enabled by default, then never mind. A preferences to force the property on for staves in a new score, or a global style setting and a corresponding "auto" setting for the individual staves, could make sense. I think there are going to be a whole bunch of settings come up soon where we need to make similar decisions, so best to think through the bigger picture I think.
Relates to #311175: [EPIC] Engraving issues and suggestions