Can I stop automatic repagination when editing?

• Jul 26, 2023 - 17:32

Editing is becoming a nightmare when auto repaginate changes the focus of the screen, sometimes between editing adjacent notes within a bar, so my mouse cursor is now on a different line! How can I disable this? If I can't then it's a development request. Working on charts for my octet is taking twice as long as it should.


Comments

In reply to by HildeK

Yes - I'm deconstructing a single stave part with three part piano chords into three separate single line parts for soul band horns, so a horizontal view of 120 - 160 bars makes following the structure of the song near impossible. I spend a lot of time working on similar material so I'm looking for a system solution rather than finding the least bad option as a user. After thirty five years as a systems consultant and IT trainer I'm now on the other side of the desk!

In reply to by SteveBlower

No - I do need to move between lines; as previously explained I need the line to stay in the same place when I edit a note, rather than being shifted due to the system forcing a page repagination every time, to enable me to edit the next note without playing hunt the bar to select the next (often adjacent) note which is now in a different position on the screen. Please do not deliberately misconstrue me in order to post a sarcastic reply - if you can't help, say nothing.

In reply to by martinthebone

I am really not understanding the problem you seem to be having. Musescore can

a) display in discrete pages with fixed width and length that correspond to paper size
b) display in one long page with a fixed width but unlimited length
c) display in one wide page showing all visible staves but with unlimited length.

None of these seem to suit your needs. What would?

In reply to by SteveBlower

I am aware of the three display modes available, and have used them all when appropriate. As previously stated the issue is during editing where the automatic repagination can change the screen position of the bar being edited. The ability to suspend the automatic repagination until all required changes have been made, then manually repaginate would suit my needs, as I said in my original post.

In reply to by Malte_M

Thanks, I'm aware of this and all my scores have appropriate breaks set depending on complexity and expected usage - concert hall v big band stage etc. The issue is with screen focus shifting on repagination during editing, but I may experiment with changing the breaks and see if this reduces the problem. As you say its an easily reversible setting.

In reply to by martinthebone

> if you can't help, say nothing.
We are trying to understand what your problem is. Unfortunately, no one seems to have succeeded yet. Note: Steve Blower is an experienced user of MuseScore, so your criticism is misplaced!
When I am in one of the continuous views, there is only one page and so no page break! (I am not sure about the expression 'repagination')

Yes, if you are in the horizontal continuous view and come to the right margin when writing notes, the bar you are editing will jump to the center. How could it be otherwise, I don't want to write or change notes outside the view?
And you know that you can scroll horizontally with the ALT + mouse wheel to see the current measure in the center of the screen?

And yes, if you delete a measure with a lot of notes, it becomes much shorter and contains only a whole rest if there are no notes or only quarter or half notes in the other instrument lines. So all measures to the right of the current measure will be shifted to the left. Is this what you mean?

As far as I know, you can't set a fixed measure length. But you could create a dummy instrument line and fill it with e.g. sixteenth rests. Then they determine the bar width and it does not change when editing the other instrument lines, as long as there are not even shorter notes in large numbers.

In reply to by martinthebone

BTW, not sure what you mean about "hunting" for a note - the currently selected note should always be in view, and also, you can use the cursor keys to move back to the previous note if that's your desire. I think that's why normally the automatic layout isn't a problem. but maybe there is something unusual going on in your score where this doesn't work as expected for some reason? Or maybe you've turned off the pan score automatically option, which would indeed mean the current selection won't stay in view? In any case, if you attach your score and maybe also make a screen recording and post it somewhere and include a link here, we can better understand the issue you are seeing using page or vertical continuous view.

If the bars are shifting, that's because they physically won't fit otherwise given your current settings. Imagine a word processor that, instead of word wrapping, just had your text run right off the edge of the page where you can't see it any more. There's a reasons word processors don't have any such mode, and it's the same reason MuseScore doesn't either - it really wouldn't make much sense.

As mentioned, horizontal continuous view is the usual way people handle this in situations where it proves bothersome, and it works quite well for that purpose. But if you have some special situation that makes that not feasible, you can force a bit more stability within page or vertical continuous view by doing the following:

1) Ctrl+A to select all
2) go to Format / Add/Remove system breaks
3) select the option to add breaks at the end of each system and press OK
4) go to Format / Page settings
5) reduce the overall staff size

Now you'll have more room to work with as you edit, and the breaks will keep things from shifting. The more you reduce the staff size, the more room you have to work with. And of course,e zoom in an equivalent amount so you can still see. Then when you're done, set the staff size back and reevaluate the system breaks at that point.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

The OP wrote:
I'm deconstructing a single stave part with three part piano chords into three separate single line parts for soul band horns,...

At first, I thought to "explode" those three part piano chords into the three single line parts, but then this part of what the OP wrote:
... so a horizontal view of 120 - 160 bars makes following the structure of the song near impossible...
made me think that the piano part might be a printed copy which was being transcribed into MuseScore.
In this case your 5-step solution would likely work as it keeps the systems "stable" during note entry.
This way, for example, the 15th system of the MuseScore transcription for the three horns would jibe with the piano notes of the 15th system in the printed copy -- so much easier to follow/compare both scores.
Perhaps that is what the OP meant about "following the structure of the song" -- i.e., the structure of the printed version. Continuous horizontal view would not provide this, as measure numbers would need to be relied upon to compare the printed piano score to the transcribed horns, systems to compare being non-existent in continuous horizontal view.

If this is not the OP's situation, your suggestion is still a good one.

don't know about 4, but repagination cannot be disabled on musescore 3

my version of repagination problem
I once found myself comparing recurring phrases vertically, I resorted to a stupid method of colossal paper size + miniature staff scale https://musescore.org/en/handbook/3/page-settings + manual system breaks https://musescore.org/en/handbook/3/breaks-and-spacers
then I realized I want notes packed together, but cannot disable horizontal justification, I resorted to adding frames, resizing them one by one (which slow down my computer miserably) https://musescore.org/en/handbook/3/frames
finally I realized I wasted so much time achieving so little, I promised not to do that to myself again, wishing some clever coders who love musescore understand come along one day to address it.

myproblem_1.jpg
myproblem_2.jpg
myproblem_3.jpg

In reply to by msfp

I'm not sure I understand what it is you were trying to do, but it seems to me that you could add section breaks at the end of each system, which bypasses the normal right-justification (be sure to set the last system fill threshold high - like 100% - to prevent it from kicking in). Then it's just a matter of the right page to staff size ratio. That wouldn't have worked in MU3, but it does in MU4.

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