Suggestions for smarter and more user friendly options in the choices of Page View

• Feb 16, 2021 - 22:16

Congratulations and huge thanks for version 3.6 with its very remarkable and very welcome improvemnts..

Here is one thing that you do not have yet, as far as I can see, which would be another really WONDERFUL improvement of Musescore.

Suppose I am playing along with the audio output of a musescore file. I have silenced one of the voices and I play it myself on my instrument. How WONDERFUL that I can do this. THANKS!
But....
...suppose that I choose "Page View" to be "Single Page". I will only see what is on the next page a microsecond before I have to play it. That's tough for amateurs like me.

Similarly, if I choose Continuous View there will be many moments when the view of the notes changes instantaneouly and I have to be immediately ready to play notes that I have not seen coming before.

  1. SUGGESTION FOR THE CASE OF "SINBLE PAGE"

It would be SO good if, when I choose Page View to be Single Page I could also specify a number, say N, and then, at the moment when the part of the music which is still to be played from a current page is situated
on the bottom N lines of that page, Musescore would change the view (either jumping immediately or perhaps smoothly scrolling? downwards) so that those remaining N lines are now at the TOP of the screen and I can also simultaneously see the next few lines of the NEXT page immediately below those remaining N lines. When those N lines have been played then the view would change again showing only the new current page, until only N lines remain to be played from it.. and so on.

I suppose usually most of us would choose N to be just 1 or 2, or of course a larger N for a piece with more staves.

Some other improvements could be made. Even in version 3.6 I see that, if I choose page view to be Single Page and I choose a rather large magnification in the box next to the Page View box, then that blue
rectangle which shows what notes are currently being played becomes invisible whenever it goes off the screen towards the ends of lines... so then those notes to be played are also off the screen and invisible.

  1. SUGGESTION FOR THE CASE OF "CONTINUOUS VIEW".
    Now suppose that I have chosen the Page View to be Continuous View. Maybe one can think "out of the box" here. Currently, the blue box which shows the notes currently being played moves along the screen through
    the currently visible line of music and, when it gets to the end at the right of the currently visible line, there is a sudden "jump" and the continuation of that line becomes visible, and the blue rectangle jumps back to the left of the screen.

I think it could be MUCH better if we had another option of having the blue rectangle stay IMMOBILE in the middle of the screen and instead the line of music would move past it, under it, so of course the notes being played at each moment are under it at that moment. This could be a new Page View option, named say "Continuous CENTERED view".

Better still, the user should have the option of specifying whether the immobile blue rectangle is in the center of the screen or in some other choosable position nearer the left edge or nearer the right edge of the
screen.

  1. ANOTHER LESS CRUCIAL ISSUE
    Suppose I am playing a musescore file and watching that blue rectangle. I decide to temporarily pause the playing, by clicking on the play "arrow" button. The blue rectangle becomes invisible, so I may have trouble remembering where I have paused the playing. I suggest that the blue rectangle should remain visible during such pauses. Perhaps it could have a different colour during those pauses.

Warmest thanks for whatever you can do to make these improvements!
Best Wishes,
Michael (mcwikel)


Comments

In reply to by jeetee

THANK YOU jeetee. I enabled smoothpan and indeed playing in Continous View now works wonderfully better., almost exactly in the way I requested. But I think I would never have found this option by looking at the online handbook. Perhaps the handbook should be changed so that the existence of this WONDERFUL and very important feature is easier to discover. There must be many users who would be DELIGHTED, as I am, to know about this option. In fact I strongly recommend that in the DEFAULT settings, smoothpan should be enabled.
Enabling smoothpan apparently does not solve the other problem that I mentioned when I use Page View
and a large magnification. But that is less crucial, since one can always change to Continuous View.
There remains the much less serious problem of the blue rectangle becoming invisible during pauses in a playing session.
Again, MANY THANKS.

In reply to by mcwikel

If there is a particular page of the Handbook where you feel it would be useful to add information about smooth pan, feel free to edit it - the Handbook is open source just like the software is.

I personally wouldn't recommend enabling this by default, though. I can see that it would be useful for people who are wanting to play their instrument while watching the playback, but this is not really something most people would ever do. For people who are using MuseScore more for composing / arranging / transcribing than as a practice tool, having the score constantly move is distracting.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

Dear Mr Sabatella, dear Marc:
Thanks! I am delighted to have your thoughtful and informative response. And I also enjoyed visiting
your facebook page
https://www.facebook.com/MarcSabatellaMusic/photos/a.2018523138175810/2…
at least briefly, and learning something of your many impressive activities.
You are a composer as well as a performer, and perhaps you underestimate the
possibly HUGE number of amateur performers like myself who are THRILLED that this
wonderful program MuseScore enables us to (try to) play or sing beautiful music in the comfort (and safety)
of our homes while being accompanied by very capable "robots", a pianist or harpist or guitarist
or jazz ensemble or the other members of a string quartet, or even a whole orchestra.

I cannot see how to edit the handbook. Maybe you can explain how. In any
case I very strongly recommend that someone (maybe me after I know how
to do it) should add a VERY VISIBLE entry in the table of contents which
leads to a chapter with a title like:

"Essential tips if you want MuseScore to provide a pianist or ensemble or orchestra to
accompany your own playing or singing."

Then the chapter with this title should explain or give links to several essential
features, in particular:
1. Where to find MuseScore files of the music that you wish to play.
2. How to silence some or all of the voices in a score.
3. How to make some of the staves in a score invisible.
4. How to enable smooth pan, and why it will help you.
5. How to change the instruments which will be accompanying you.
There are probably other relevant things that could be added to this chapter.
Obviously, for experienced users and creators like you, these things are all obvious and trivial.
But seeing all these things explained together in the same place will be a huge boon for newcomers
to MuseScore. (I suppose you also present them in your video courses, but not all
of us will be immediately aware of your courses.)

Thanks again. Take care
Michael

In reply to by mcwikel

I applaud your enthusiasm! I would encourage you to write such an article yourself, with whatever tips you think would be useful to others who are using MuseScore in this very special way. Usually the Handbook itself is just for explaining the nuts and bolts features, not going into detail as to creative ways of using the program to achieve particular results for particular use cases, but the "How to" section of this site would be a good place for that.

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