There are only 4 clefs displayed in the Clefs Palette in 2.0. In 3.1 there are 19. Some of them are very obscure but one -- treble transposed down 8 - is very commonly used for tenor vocal parts.
The basic palette is meant to be basic. We can't add all the clefs because they are commonly used by a given part of the users.
You can create your own workspace and add the clef. Press the + button near Basic/Advanced combo box. Give it a name, add the clef from Display->Master palette. Right click any element to delete from the palette.
I would say alto clef is at least as important as trebthinis, tenor maybe less so but maybe not. Alto is thenaming clef for viola. Tenor is more of an alnernate for bassoon and trombone. Treble 8vb is the common choice for guitar, bass, and tenor voice and is deserving of beings included for that reanern
Although in each is these cases, it is set up for you when you create the score, so having them in the palette is not as important as you palette first think. It's not like a staff for guitar or tenor voice is likely to *change* clef and thus be likely to need to change bacne. Whereas that *is* common for viola and bassoon.
I'd look at it this way: surely viola, guitar, and voice are common enough instruments that we should include their default clefs. I don't.think a similar argument can be made for any of the others. Tab and percussion are of course special and don't really do a lot of good on the palette.
I think that it is very hard to justify taking clefs out of the basic palate that appear in the templates. This would say that you should add the Treble 8vb, Bass 8vb, guitar TAB, and drum cleffs to the basic palate. At the very least Treble 8vb should be put back in. According to the templates, it is used for both tenor voice, and guitar.
I question whether the current implementation of basic and advanced palates is really something which makes use of MuseScore easier for the non-technically oriented user. It causes arbitrarily chosen items in the palates to be hidden from users unless they know to click on a box at the bottom of the palate window and switch to "advanced". I would at the very least change the names to "Full" and "Simplified" and make the default be "Full" so that users do not have to be aware of the feature in order to find a particular palette item they want to use.
Even this is dangerous. I do a lot of helping non-technical people with their computer problems. It is extremely common for such a person to have "broken" the program they are using because they accidentally clicked on an item and caused an essential feature to disappear. Just having the "Full" mode and the "+" button so that a technically-oriented user can create their own custom palate(s) would make it much more unlikely that MuseScore would become "broken" because a user accidentally hid palate items that they use.
I didn't deliberately change the status back to active when I submitted comment #5. I simply left the status field alone. Is it expected that you pay attention to the current status and specifically set the status to the current status if you don't wish to change it?
Don't forget that a composer may decide to add an instrument to an existing score or re-score a piece for different instruments. This would require that the composer go into advanced palette mode in order to assign a clef that was otherwise only available in the templates.
The basic workspace is not intended for a composer who would want to re score a piece for a different instrument. It's intended to the average musician who want to score something quick on a single line, probably for piano, voice, or guitar.
Don't get me wrong, I hear what you are saying here but I encountered several users who where overwhelmed by the number of options in the advanced palette (which is not the full palette btw, the full palette can be find in Display -> Master palette and contains even more options).
So we need a better solution for these users, which are not currently MuseScore users and so not used to 1.3 and don't need all the symbols from the advanced palette. The problem is that they might miss a feature... that's always the risk of simplification... So we need to draw a line for the basic workspace, and how basic it should be. Then we need to decide if we make it default or not.
For the moment, I think it's better to make the basic workspace very basic. I added Alto and Tenor clefs recently, but I'm ok removing them to keep G and F clef only.
My opinion is less strong about the default though...
The main reaosn for the palette is for clef *changes* within a single part. Realistically, that probably mostly applies to piano changing between treble and bass. So having those two clefs alone covers an awful lot of cases. Ditto with harp. This is the bare minimum for this palette.
The only other isntruments that typically *change* clef are viola, bassoon, cello, and trombone. Adding alto and tenor covers these instruments. So that is the next logical step.
Adding treble 8vb just because guitar and tenor voice use it sort of kind of seems to make sense, but again, since these instruments don't tend to change clefs, it really doesn't add much. Even if you originally write music for one instrument then *change* to one of these, the clef gets handled autoamtically when you make the instrument change.
So I see nothing wrong with leaving it as is and saying that more advanced uses require you to change to the Advanced palette. That choice sticks, so you do it once in your life and then you can forget the Basic palette ever existed. I do think if we do expand the Basic palette again,treble 8vb makes sense - also bass 8vb for bass. As I mentioned above, tab and percussion really make no sebse here, because they aren't just clefs - they are staff types. Add them from the palette accomplishes nothing. I have nothing against having them on the Advanced palette, but fooling users of the Basic palette into think they can create tab just by dragging this clef is not good.
I should say I continue to have reservations about the Basic palette in general, as I am sure we'll be fielding similar questions on a daily basis. I still wish the existence of the Advanced palette were better exposed.
This whole thread got started because I failed to notice the "basic" in a pulldown menu at the bottom of the palettes window. I would have been more likely to have noticed it had it been at the top of the window.
Even more noticeable would be a radio button pair with "basic" and "advanced" as the choices. Choosing "advanced" could then expose the pulldown menu with any custom palettes the user had defined.
Comments
You just need to switch to the Advanced workspace using the control at the bottom of the palette.
This one could possibly be added to Basic, though.
The basic palette is meant to be basic. We can't add all the clefs because they are commonly used by a given part of the users.
You can create your own workspace and add the clef. Press the + button near Basic/Advanced combo box. Give it a name, add the clef from Display->Master palette. Right click any element to delete from the palette.
So you think Alto and Tenor clef are more common than Treble 8vb?
I would say alto clef is at least as important as trebthinis, tenor maybe less so but maybe not. Alto is thenaming clef for viola. Tenor is more of an alnernate for bassoon and trombone. Treble 8vb is the common choice for guitar, bass, and tenor voice and is deserving of beings included for that reanern
Although in each is these cases, it is set up for you when you create the score, so having them in the palette is not as important as you palette first think. It's not like a staff for guitar or tenor voice is likely to *change* clef and thus be likely to need to change bacne. Whereas that *is* common for viola and bassoon.
I'd look at it this way: surely viola, guitar, and voice are common enough instruments that we should include their default clefs. I don't.think a similar argument can be made for any of the others. Tab and percussion are of course special and don't really do a lot of good on the palette.
I think that it is very hard to justify taking clefs out of the basic palate that appear in the templates. This would say that you should add the Treble 8vb, Bass 8vb, guitar TAB, and drum cleffs to the basic palate. At the very least Treble 8vb should be put back in. According to the templates, it is used for both tenor voice, and guitar.
I question whether the current implementation of basic and advanced palates is really something which makes use of MuseScore easier for the non-technically oriented user. It causes arbitrarily chosen items in the palates to be hidden from users unless they know to click on a box at the bottom of the palate window and switch to "advanced". I would at the very least change the names to "Full" and "Simplified" and make the default be "Full" so that users do not have to be aware of the feature in order to find a particular palette item they want to use.
Even this is dangerous. I do a lot of helping non-technical people with their computer problems. It is extremely common for such a person to have "broken" the program they are using because they accidentally clicked on an item and caused an essential feature to disappear. Just having the "Full" mode and the "+" button so that a technically-oriented user can create their own custom palate(s) would make it much more unlikely that MuseScore would become "broken" because a user accidentally hid palate items that they use.
I didn't deliberately change the status back to active when I submitted comment #5. I simply left the status field alone. Is it expected that you pay attention to the current status and specifically set the status to the current status if you don't wish to change it?
This inavdvertent changrs can happen if posts cross.
Andyway, I think 'active' is the correct status, given the discussions here.
Don't forget that a composer may decide to add an instrument to an existing score or re-score a piece for different instruments. This would require that the composer go into advanced palette mode in order to assign a clef that was otherwise only available in the templates.
The basic workspace is not intended for a composer who would want to re score a piece for a different instrument. It's intended to the average musician who want to score something quick on a single line, probably for piano, voice, or guitar.
Don't get me wrong, I hear what you are saying here but I encountered several users who where overwhelmed by the number of options in the advanced palette (which is not the full palette btw, the full palette can be find in Display -> Master palette and contains even more options).
So we need a better solution for these users, which are not currently MuseScore users and so not used to 1.3 and don't need all the symbols from the advanced palette. The problem is that they might miss a feature... that's always the risk of simplification... So we need to draw a line for the basic workspace, and how basic it should be. Then we need to decide if we make it default or not.
For the moment, I think it's better to make the basic workspace very basic. I added Alto and Tenor clefs recently, but I'm ok removing them to keep G and F clef only.
My opinion is less strong about the default though...
The main reaosn for the palette is for clef *changes* within a single part. Realistically, that probably mostly applies to piano changing between treble and bass. So having those two clefs alone covers an awful lot of cases. Ditto with harp. This is the bare minimum for this palette.
The only other isntruments that typically *change* clef are viola, bassoon, cello, and trombone. Adding alto and tenor covers these instruments. So that is the next logical step.
Adding treble 8vb just because guitar and tenor voice use it sort of kind of seems to make sense, but again, since these instruments don't tend to change clefs, it really doesn't add much. Even if you originally write music for one instrument then *change* to one of these, the clef gets handled autoamtically when you make the instrument change.
So I see nothing wrong with leaving it as is and saying that more advanced uses require you to change to the Advanced palette. That choice sticks, so you do it once in your life and then you can forget the Basic palette ever existed. I do think if we do expand the Basic palette again,treble 8vb makes sense - also bass 8vb for bass. As I mentioned above, tab and percussion really make no sebse here, because they aren't just clefs - they are staff types. Add them from the palette accomplishes nothing. I have nothing against having them on the Advanced palette, but fooling users of the Basic palette into think they can create tab just by dragging this clef is not good.
I should say I continue to have reservations about the Basic palette in general, as I am sure we'll be fielding similar questions on a daily basis. I still wish the existence of the Advanced palette were better exposed.
This whole thread got started because I failed to notice the "basic" in a pulldown menu at the bottom of the palettes window. I would have been more likely to have noticed it had it been at the top of the window.
Even more noticeable would be a radio button pair with "basic" and "advanced" as the choices. Choosing "advanced" could then expose the pulldown menu with any custom palettes the user had defined.