Introducing MuseScore Connect

• Iul 16, 2011 - 14:58

With the MuseScore 1.1 release , a new feature is being introduced: MuseScore Connect. It basically connects MuseScore with the two MuseScore websites, http://musescore.org and http://musescore.com. Technically, MuseScore Connect is a panel in MuseScore which goes online and pulls in content from both websites.

The initial driver to implement MuseScore Connect was that many people download MuseScore from other websites and thus, they were never introduced to our websites. This is a pity especially for first time users since musescore.org now hosts a serious amount of videos, tips and tricks which can help them through the steep learning curve. So a task (#8263: Exposing musescore.org to (first time) users) was submitted in the issue tracker and we started to brainstorm how to implement it.

The first question was what we wanted to expose. The video tutorials and the news stream were obvious candidates. But also a editorial pick of scores made with MuseScore that are being uploaded on musescore.com. That was already good enough to get started. If we wanted to include more later on, this would always be possible since MuseScore Connect is basically web content so it can be altered at any moment.

We tested a few ways how we integrate the content in MuseScore and finally settled with a panel at the right. This is how it looks.
Introducing MuseScore Connect

Once you click Start, MuseScore goes online and fetches the connect.html from the MuseScore servers. That file is hosted on a CDN so serving time is extremely fast. Currently, you will find three tabs: Sheet Music, News and Learn & Support. Currently this content is not translated yet, but that will soon become possible via the translation server.

MuseScore Connect tabs

Enjoy this new feature!


Comments

Is there a way to turn this off? I seem to recall that you were offered a way to turn it off when you first installed this version, but I didn't take that option. I'd like to now, but there doesn't seem to be a way to do it.

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