Continuous View—part names overlap

• Mar 8, 2015 - 01:33
Type
Functional
Severity
S4 - Minor
Status
closed
Project

See attached screenshot: Continuous.png

A bit of a hopeless mess, yes?


Comments

ZackTheCardshark, did you change the font size?

I see the continuous panel don't show up with the same font size, so maybe just with the same size, it would be fine. I could have a look at that later.

I'm not sure if I did change the font size (though I did change the staff size), but I just now did some experimenting with the some of the default templates (Classical Orchestra and Big Band). The part names will overlap if the font size is made larger, or if the "Short instrument name" is made longer. In the case of the Big Band template, there's some very near collisions with no changes at all. Try it.

Screen Shot.png

Was the score from 1.3 and saved in 2.0?

I don't think instrument names resize in accordance with scaling (in Page Settings) in 1.3, and is carried over in 2.0.

It's from 1.3 some months ago, but since then it's been revised and saved in successive nightly builds as I've continued to work on it. (Yes, I blanked the score before uploading.) The point, though, is that this also happens if the name of the instruments is too long. See the default Big Band template, for example.

The fact that it started life in 1.3 is the basic problem, then. Scores from 1.3 have their text formatting "baked in", so unless you clear out the instrument names and re-enter them (or simply change instrument back to themselves) all sorts of issues like this appear. It's a bigger issue than just the continuous panel.

It is true that names can overlap or at least come close, even in 1.3 scores, if the scaling is small enough or the names are large enough. On my system, a couple of staves in the Jazz Big Band template do come close to overlapping.

But even if the score was first created in 2.0, there's no protection against this kind of thing. I took the Big Band template and changed only the "Short instrument name" of the two tenor saxes so they were the same as their "Long instrument name." Enter hopeless mess again. Is this by design?

Attachment Size
Untitled.mscz 17.15 KB

You're missing the point. Forget 1.3. Make a brand new score in 2.0. Make the "Short instrument name" too long, or make the text too large, and the part names overlap in Continuous View. This problem exists in 2.0, with scores created in 2.0. Maybe the answer is just "don't make the text too large or the names too long," but this problem exists.

Considering that the score could be displayed arbitrarily small, there just might not be room for the vertical display. Of course, horizontal display would be worse - long names would take up too much screen real estate. I suppose automatically scaling the text to fit could work, but no idea how feasible that is. To me, it just seems natural that trying to fit too long / too big text in a fixed space isn't going to work well, so I don't see this as a big deal. It's just on on-screen (in)convenience; scores themselves are not affected.

I see that presently, the text in the continuous panel isn't shown with the same font and font size. I didn't take that into consideration when developing the panel. Maybe we should draw it the same (I guess it's the short instrument name style). Though, I don't know how to get that font style.

My recollection is, we *started* * with a horizontal display, but the complaint was it took too much room if to the left of staff or collided with score elements if done as shown in picture above.

Not sure if this is what you are asking, but the text style for short instrument name would be

score->style()->textStyle(TextStyleType::INSTRUMENT_SHORT)

I'd much rather have it occasionally collide with score elements—if it does, you just scroll away a little. It would also be easier to read anyway, especially because the gray shadow of the staff showing through the blue field interferes with the sideways part name.

Why would we use the style of the short instrument? To me the panel is more a UI component of MuseScore, the content should not be dependent to the style of the score. Also, we could hardcode a small font size and a readable font instead of relying on the font size of the style.

Yeah, I was debating that. But I decided to submit a patch for consistency. The continuous panel already use the short name. So why would the instrument names in continuous panel have different style then the ones elsewhere?

The continuous is supposed to let the user know what was at the beginning. So I think it's good to show the same thing/style. If someone chooses a hard-to-read font for his instrument names, it's his choice/problem.

In continuous view, long instrument names are shown following the styles. I think it's normal the we do the same within the continuous panel.

Before my patch, there was no way to let user set the size of the font for the continuous panel. Hence, having no control over the instrument names overlapping. Now, if needed, people can adjust it with by changing the font or the size of the short instrument name. And at the same place we can adjust other styles.

Anyway, this little patch wouldn't make any difference for the common user. But for the ones that need special adjustments, or having overlapping issues, it offer a simple solution.

You made me think further about it but no, I disagree. I don't see why a user would modify the style of the score to make a UI element better. The continuous view uses the style for long instrument because they are part of the score not the continuous panel.
To solve the OP problem, the best thing we could do is something like in #13. The second last thing, choose a font size to make sure the instrument names don't overlay but it's probably as hard to implement than #13.

Considerations should be put on linked staves (ie. bass and treble staves for piano). would the name be repeated on only show on the first stave? The advantage of vertical alignment is to have the name centered betweens links staves.

Other thing, if using horizontal text, should longer names overflow the continuous panel or be cropped at the end? How about when the continuous panel is wide or very narrow?

We were talking about overlapping names, but how about names overlapping with clef or key signature symbols?

While I'm continuing to enjoy a 30-day trial of Sibelius I downloaded for no good reason (I'm never going to want anything other than MuseScore), I went and had another look at how they do their "panoramic" view. The way they handle an accolade:
Piano-ab.png
Seems all right to me.

As to the second question—I think it's fine for a name to extend past the edge of the blue field. You definitely do not want it to be cropped. A forced smaller text size might help to mostly avoid the issue.

It shouldn't overlap with the clef or key signature of the continuous panel, but if there's some kind of clef change or something in the course of the piece, I can't see anybody minding if the part name might temporarily roll over it.

Hello,

This is my work

I did some choices
- Measure number is scaled regarding scaling in page layout
- Instruments name are also scaled
- If instrument name is to long, i make choice to expand continuous panel
- All instrument name are displayed even for grouped staff ( ex : piano )
- Name in this position seems to not overlap continuous panel objects

I don't figure on how to implement bracket view. But i think it's not very important

An other thing, i think continuous panel must be opaque.What do you think about it?

I like being able to see through the panel to what's behind it, myself. But this last picture is wonderful! Vastly superior to the current setup. It's a shame that it's probably too late for the change to make the release. But do you have some code to share with the team on GitHub? This would be nice for MuseScore 2.1, or whatever the next update is.

Personally, I'm not a big fan of a large continuous panel changing size with the instrument name. Especially if we end up with empty space after the time signature. I think it will get in the way.

Even though I preferred the vertical layout, having to choose, I'd vote for the way Sibelius do it with the name outside the panel.

Hello.
Large panel occur in a very few case. The shortnames are used. I try it with all my conductor and it never occur.
for less opacity or opacity. Maybe a devteam can talk about it.
vertical alignement of text seem to me less readable.
i put a PR soon with this version and do modification after if needed.

Hi @Gai-Luron,

Are you interested in coming back and finishing your work? I really liked your changes, and I'd love to seem them implemented.

The downside of this approach, as mentioned previously, is that for multi-staff parts like piano, the name could not be centered between the staves. Not the end of the world, but worth considering. FWIW, I have a fix for #43181: First instrument names misplaced in continuous view when barlines are joined, which makes the centering actually work correctly (centers based on the part definition, not just how the barlines happen to be extended).

As a reminder, the score we have been focusing on in this issue was created in an earlier version and therefore has font information hard coded into the instrument names that is making the continuous panel look worse than it should. For new scores created from scratch, the issue is not so bad. But admittedly, it doesn't go away entirely; there will be some combinations of layouts and staff names that cause overlap.

Status (old) patch (code needs review) fixed

lasconic implemented an adaptation of the previous PR. I think it looks quite good. So I'm closing this.

Just downloaded a new nightly, I am absolutely delighted! Only I feel like there has to be a better shade of blue than that one. ;-)

There is actually a very small issue present in the new implementation. It would be nice if it was possible to allow an offset in cases of an instrument name of more than one line: Screen Shot 6.png