Template and setup conflicts with added properties changes
I am setting up a template for a SATB choir song in hymnbook style, and wish to use 7 shape Aikin noteheads for sight reading. When I set the score template, I fill in key, time signatures, etc, but there are no settings for Staff properties, or style preferences. After setting the template, I am ready to fill in my score, and only then, by selecting all (cntrlA) and right clicking 'Staff /part Properties' can I find, in the 'Advanced style properties' section, a selection of Notehead schemes. I select '7 shape (Aikin)', and at the bottom it asks if I want to 're-set to template'. I have a different result each time I click this button. Once, it set it in a template, which I used for several compositions, but that template disappeared when I upgraded from 4.1 to 4.2.1 Other times, it cancels the part of my score that was selected, meaning that it never gets applied to the score I am setting up. So I did not select that box, and just selected the setting, and clicked the OK, and all the notes I had already placed became shaped, as I had wanted, only when I moved into the next measure, they stopped being shaped. This happens randomly in some of my scores, where every few measures, I have to re-set the noteheads to shapes, and on other scores it works perfectly.
Comments
Here is the file that I am trying to fill in, and it does not keep the two properties I want most, no beams, (from the beams property palette), and Shaped noteheads, (7 shape Aikin, selected from the staff/part properties, advanced properties menu) I can use these properties for a few notes, and then they stop. I could notate the whole piece with notes all beamed together, and all round noteheads, and then select all, and change these two properties. But it is hard for me to do that efficiently, as I get confused with my note placement, and beams make the measures longer, and harder to follow as I go. I would like these properties to stay with a template, as custom defaults. And I have notated three songs where the program did that.
I also attached a sample score, which I set up from scratch, and which acts the same when I try to use these two properties.
There are some concepts here that are seemingly getting you confused, or at least lead to misinterpreting how MuseScore and Templates work. Hopefully some of the points I'll list out here can clear up that confusion:
A Template is in essence just a score which you save into your templates folder. The (only) way to update it is to overwrite the score file in that folder. You can do so either by opening the template file directly (using File > Open; not File > New) and saving it after making your changes. Or by having another file open and performing a Save As over the original.
When creating a score from a template, you'll start off with the Style Settings from the template and the Instruments as they were set up. You do not inherit any content (such as title/texts/notes/barlines/system breaks/time signature/key signature).
The option "reset to template" in the advanced staff properties is to reset your current staff properties of the staff you're editing by replacing them with those from the chosen staff template. This can provide you with a clean slate to start customizing from. It does not mean "save my current configuration as a staff template", which seems to be the impression you had; it's the exact opposite.
Shape note notation is a per staff setting. For an instrument with multiple staves, you have to set it up for each staff separately; likewise for multiple instruments.
This setting will be remembered and applied when creating a score from your template; but (as it is per staff) will only affect the staves initially available in the template. If you later on add staves and/or instruments, those will again use the default staff settings and you will have to reconfigure them to use shape notation.
Beaming as applied from the palette is a per-chord (including single-note "chords") setting. It does not affect future or past notes, nor is it a style or template setting.
Beaming as configured for a Time Signature only affects that time signature, but does affect current and future notes entered on the staff on which the time signature applies. You might want to Ctrl/Cmd+Shift+Drag your custom time signature into a palette to then be able to apply it to all staves at once and reuse it in the future.
Time signatures chosen during the New Score Wizard are always default time signatures; they will not contain custom beaming settings. So after score creation from your template, you will have to apply your customized time signature from your palette to get single beams.
So, in summary; you can set up a score with preconfigured instruments to use shape notation BUT:
* You'll have to reconfigure each additional staff added after score creation.
* You'll have to apply your custom time signature for no beaming after score creation.
In reply to There are some concepts here… by jeetee
I am not sure that you are following my problem. I do not make multiple scores or staves, as I am writing for voice SATB closed (double) score, so there is one score for the whole page. In MuseScore 2 and 3 versions I had, there was a limit of measures that you could apply Staff/Part properties to, and beams properties were limited to one measure only. MuseScore 4 specifically advertised to me that Any number of measures could be selected and have staff/part properties applied, as long as it was a single score, one page. It also claims that Beam properties can be applied to multiple measures.
I have been doing this, and it works most of the time, however, each score I create seems to react differently.
One score will accept the inputs at the beginning, and every note I place in that score has those properties. I emphasize in one score, set as SATB closed score, or as piano grandstaff score.
The next time I setup, using the same settings, one or the other of these properties stops being applied after each note, or when I move to the next measure. Since I am used to reading notation from older hymnbooks, with shaped notes, and the notes are specific to sung syllables, I have trouble reviewing my work as I notate if the notes are not shaped, or if there are beams that I do not place. So if I need to re-apply these two settings for every measure, and it takes three setting windows to set them, then the program is idiotically slow for my application.
But as I pointed out earlier, some scores accept these properties for a whole single score.
I suspected the 'reset to template' was, as you point out, making the settings blank, and ready to be changed, rather than imbedding them.
So I totally agree with what you said. If I start a new staff, or a new score, I need to apply the Shaped notes property, my problem is that when I apply it, the program changes back to 'normal notes' as soon as I push the apply button. Whether I have selected it for 1 measure, or selected all on a page.
Since some scores have accepted these properties over the whole score, I expect the program to do that every time, wouldn't you?