DAW like grid + auto filling the empty spaces with rests.
It is very common to start a line or a passage NOT on the first beat. So, right now in MuseScore to do so you need first to input/subdivide existing rests so you have a rest for the right place in a bar you want to input the note which takes a lot of time - you either usually need to switch lengths of the rests multiple times, so you get all the right rests before your note or regroup rhythms after each time of such approach.
But another way to do it could be having a DAW like grid (over a selected measure on a selected staff or over the whole session and with the switchable size of subdivisions) where you can just start from a beat or subdivision of a beat you want to start and MuseScore fills in the empty space with the rests automatically by simple rules (like the ones that are used for regrouping of the rhythms). For mouse note input notes could be just snapping to the grid like now to the rests and for the keyboard input it could be moving the "cursor" left and right by arrow buttons like again with the subdivided rests.
So, most of the time you won't have to think about rests and their subdivisions at all like you don't think about them when working in a DAW, you only focus on notes that sound, not the ones that are absent.
Of course, sometimes you might need custom rests which you still can input manually but more often than not the rests are placed by the simple rules. There probably should be also an option to choose whether to allow MuseScore to use doted rhythms for rests or not (e.g. three beats can either be a half and a quarter or a dotted half).
And another great feature becomes possible if the grid is implemented which is nudging selected notes left and right by grid subdivisions. It is super useful whenever you decide that you need to move a portion of part - like some runs a few beats or whatever else you need to move (which happens to me all the time).
P. S. Yes, it is basically how it works in Dorico, but since it is also how pretty much every DAW works I doubt they have any exclusive rights for this feature.
Comments
To be able to put a note on any beat of an empty measure without having to enter rests first has been asked for over and over again. And the stock reply is that music is written and read left to right. So you have to set up the rest first.
But Sibelius has been able to do this for at least 15 years. I input with a mouse (I know, I know, the slowest method on the planet. Oh well.) being able to click a note on beat three of an empty measure is very helpful.
In reply to To be able to put a note on… by bobjp
Alas. I'm myself a long term Dorico user and seeing the new MuseScore offerings with sample libraries from various well respected manufacturers I even considered to give it a try. But lack of the grid turned me off right away because I touched the rest button in Dorico only once or twice and in the MuseScore it felt like wasting a lot of time just inputting the rests. The competition showed that it is actually extremely useful.
I think the counterargument to the "music is written and read left to right" is that (apart from the fact that it is very common when you have a few ideas that then need to be stitched together afterwards, so it's not only not left to right it is not linear even) we don't play to the rests, we play to the beats and that's why it is usually pretty easy to automate input of rests because the rests just need to show how many beats you should wait as clearly and as explicitly as possible. So, the rule of thumb is to complete the beat if necessary and then go with the biggest length of the rest containing a whole number of the beats and then if your note is syncopated add a shorter rest to fill in the begging of the beat (e.g. an 8th note on beat 1 followed by an 8th rest, followed by a half rest and a quarter rest (or even better a dotted half rest), followed by an 8th rest and then an 8th note - the second half of beat 4). By this logic a good rest writing already snaps to the grid which makes it easy for a composer to only think about the beats and the rests are handled by the software (which is exactly how it works in Dorico).
What's more confusing is that considering how MuseScore recalculates rhythms with its regroup rhythms feature and how division of rests snaps to beats it seems to already have most if not all of the needed functionality under the hood but for whatever reason going straight to the exact beat or a subdivision of a beat isn't present.
Btw, the syncopation (which one of the most common uses for "not the beat one") is also in a way a contradiction to the "read from the left to right" concept because syncopations are usually played not as a part of a previous beat but as a lead up to the next beat. So, whenever I see an 8th note right before the next bar I'm not thinking that I should wait 4 and a half beats I'm just waiting for the moment before the next beat 1. If it's a 16th note, again it's not 4 and 3/4 of a beat for me it's just twice as fast transition to beat 1. Yeah, I should know that it is after beat 4 and not before, but all the rest of the beats aren't even that important for me here.