Need to be able to change local staff abbreviations for instruments
3.0 supports transposed instrument changes mid-staff and using voices to generate parts, which is awesome, but we need to let staves equal the awesome.
When I change an instrument - flute to piccolo, oboe to English horn, clarinet to Alto sax, or even Cl I in Bb to Cl I in A, the staff instrument abbreviation remains the same, and incorrect. This is a major problem for conductors, especially the ones like mine who can transpose and will notice it's wrong.
When I - or anyone - uses voices to keep different parts on the same staff, it is industry standard that the labelling of that staff changes according to who it is playing. If it's a2, label should be Cl I& II. If it's clarinet solo, the label should be Cl. I.
Without any voice or staff changes, if a string part calls for 2 soli, the staff should reflect that. Same if it calls for Solo.
Easiest way to fix the problem - I think - is to simply allow users to change staff abbreviations for local staves.
Thank you!
Comments
See #88861: Option for editing abbreviated staff names in instrument changes. I have a pending fix to at least automatically update the staff names, which was far easier than inventing a new UI to somehow allow user-specified change. Someday we could definitely consider that, though. As it is, you still won't be able to custom names like "Cl I & II", but at least flute will change to clarinet etc.
In reply to See #88861: Option for… by Marc Sabatella
That's good, but I don't think it quite covers this? We need to be able to edit staff names outside of instrument changes.
For the record, I don't think a fancy dialogue is necessary here. Why can't we just click on an instrument abbreviation and edit what it says in the inspector? Is it the XML layout? I'll have to go look at that when I get back home.
But yeah, it's not just official instrument changes - it's voices, tutti vs. Solo, all of that. I don't think it's quite a duplicate, because it's a larger scope of request.
I'll hold off changing the status back until you decide, though.
In reply to That's good, but I don't… by Laurelin
We can already edit it by double-clicking the text (at least in 2.x) but then it changes everywhere.
If the change would just stop propagating past an Instrument Change, that would help.
But I doubt this can happen without a change for the file format, which is too late… :|
In reply to We can already edit it by… by mirabilos
I was thinking double click editing would be a nice way to implement this in version 3 since there is currently no way to click an instrument name at all in version 3.
The linked request is also larger, and I know my PR only partially addresses it.
Right now the Inspector has no way to edit instrument name, and there is also no way to click much less double-click instrument names. So making that possible would indeed be some work. Not impossible, but we'd have to re-look at whatever it is that made us disable this in the first place. Might be easier to add fields to the Change Instrument dialog.
In reply to The linked request is also… by Marc Sabatella
Might be more natural, anyway. Either would work.
Making this a duplicate of an issue with "Needs info" as the status doesn't work, so I'm reopening it.
Came up again in #282750: MuseScore 3.0.1 - Changing instrument is changing part name
Wait, now I'm cofused. The needs info thread seems to only be addressing instrument changes, right?
But really, we need it per system, regardless of whether there is an actual instrument change or not - things like your usual grand staff cello part going from simple divisi to Cello 1,2 on top staff and gli altri on the bottom. Or labeling a staff in a score as Fl. I when only Fl 1 is playing, and Fl 1, 2 when both are.
In reply to Wait, now I'm cofused. The… by Laurelin
There was a change in the results when you change instruments. The short instrument name is changed to the instruments.xml default, so doing another instrument change back to the initial instrument voids any modifications you made to the instrument's name. If you want to make the name at the beginning of the part invisible and use staff text for the name...forget it. It can't be done. The only workaround is to make a staff text with a white background large enough to cover the unwanted name. Staff text defaults to transparent background and "C.A." won't cover "OB. III." without some extra spaces.
Still a duplicate, just provode the needwd info in that other issue