Historic tablature: 'grid' of beamed values mixed with symbols.

Ok, as far as fret marks are concerned, there are 'Italian' tablatures (numbers, bottom up strings, ...) and 'French' tablatures (letters, top-down strings, ...) and we all agree on this (let's leave German tablatures aside...).

But as far as mensural value symbols are concerned, also it is possible to discern two main groups (with a greater variability perhaps): the 'sticky' systems (if you prefer to avoid the label "Italian") using '|', '|\', '|\\', ... and the 'real note' systems, using 'regular' note symbols (in some cases, parts of them). The Dowland example above employs a 'sticky' system; your Corkine example employs a regular note system.

In the 'sticky' systems I have seen, the equivalence '|\' = minim seems largely prevalent (if not universal; probably in tablatures there is nothing of universal!); in the 'regular note' systems, each note symbol has its own 'usual' value.

So, in your example, I do not see a '|\' = crochet equivalence, as I do not find any 'sticky' symbol. I see minim shapes which count as minims, crochet shapes which count as crochets and so on.

Currently, MuseScore (the last released version) includes three styles of mensural symbols: one 'sticky' style (to be found under the label "Italian") and two "regular note" styles (under the labels "Modern" and "French").

The glyphs of the first are encoded for the '|\' = minim correspondence and then, with it, the implementation of this "beaming grid" proposal will use single beam for minims, double beams for crochets and so on.
OTOH, the glyphs of the latter two are encoded for the 'nominal' correspondence (a minim shape = a minim value) and then the beaming will use single beams for quavers, double beams for semiquavers and so on (as 'regular notes' do). All will be hard-coded in the style definitions. The possibility to 'shift' this correspondence up or down might come in the future (but I would hold my breath in this...), the hard-coded values becoming (customizable) defaults.

Does this clarify my plan somehow?

Anyway, thanks for your observations which help me in focusing my plans!

Maurizio

EDIT: I forgot to reply to a point. Removing all beaming will be easy: select all the relevant notes and double click the "AUTO" beam setting. Adding all the beaming is less easy, as it is not self-evident which values should be beamed and which should not. Or you had something different in mind?

Yes, there might be reasonable short-cuts, however the possibility of an 'automatic beamer' for this kind of scores remains complex (for instance, does it apply only to same symbol repeat setting at "Always" or also at "New measure", "New system" or "Never"?).

Your position about time signature is of course sensible and shared by many others; I personally try to always keep the original form, as early time signatures -- even once prolations had run out of use -- may combine time and tempo hints or (potentially) reveal habits or stylistic / geographic implications; so I prefer to choose a sensible (hopefully!) bar lining, hinting at the (modern) time signature concept, and keep the original form (of course, however represented, the underlying time signature in MuseScore does always follow the modern concept).

I do not feel this to be antiquarian or to forbid access to modern players: anybody interested in these genres, after a few pieces, will get the hang of it. Or at least, will be encouraged to make his own decisions (even wrong), rather than relying in mines (which can be equally wrong!).

This applies to most aspects of old score re-edition and I personally see a big point in duplicating most aspects of original prints; coloratio and ligaturæ are hard to achieve in most modern general-purpose music notation programmes, so I can stand replacing them with the modern values bracketed by the relevant symbols. Other aspects can be achieved with little effort and for me it makes sense to keep them; for instance, the usage of accidentals or the beaming (in late XVII c. prints, once moveable types have been replaced by engraving): by careful use of editorially marked accidentals, it is possible to give a text readable with the modern conventions, but at the same time faithful to the original....

Even under this perspective, re-edited scores have solid advantages over fac-similes: correction of errors, as you said, but also score layout (instead of separate part-books) and measure indication and numbering (which makes studying and rehearsing much less cumbersome), use of more used clefs (once the original clef is related in the incipit) and, last but not least for aging eyes like mines, the clarity of modern engraving and printing technologies.

Of course, both positions are worth, the important is that the programme allows both as far as possible.