make default page size locale-dependent

• Jan 9, 2012 - 17:45
Type
Graphical (UI)
Severity
S5 - Suggestion
Status
closed
Project

Default page size in MuseScore for scores newly created from scratch is always A4 unless you change it in the Preferences. It would be nice if installation could somehow detect the locale setting and change this to Letter for countries in which that is more common. Unfortunately, it's not as simple as switching based on language. See this thread:

http://musescore.org/en/node/11587

Some OS's have a concept of locale that is separate form language, and it used to set defaults for units of measurement (eg, inches versus cm),display of date (eg, "Month Day, Year" versus "Day Month, Year"). et al. I don't know how universal that is across OS's or how easy it is to access it or act based on it during installation, but ideally, this is how it should be done, I think.


Comments

Would be nice to see this straightened out. If there is no way to make it automatic based on locale, maybe an installation scripti option?

FWIW, templates are probably an unfortunate case of somethig not easily fixable. A template created for one paper size will probably remain fixed to that paper size.

For a while it appeared this was actually a regression against 1.3, in that 1.3 contained a preference to set the default page size whereas 2.0 does not. But 2.0 *does* provide a preference to set a default "style". I have verified it *does* work to create a style called "Letter" containing nothing but the page layout settings and to set this as the default style - newly created scores get set to Letter size but all other styles setting are the program defaults.

So this suggests a possible implementation: ship Letter.mss and A4.mss, and at either installation or first run of the program (or first run after factory reset), copy the appropriate one to "Default.mss". Have the Default.mss preconfigured to be the default style in Preferences. Or, if we don't want to change the defaults for A4 countries, have the installation/first-run code simply set the default style preference to "Letter.mss" for the appropriate countries. Or, if we don't want to decide for ourselves how to set this, have a first-run dialog that asks the user to select.

I don't like this *better* than alternate implementationss that don't use an actual style file - such as adding back the preference and having MuseScore automatically pop up the Preferences dialog already set to the Score tab on first run. But assuming the preference was removed for a reason - because the "default style" mechanism is designed to replace it - then my proposal above allows us to respect that decision and still fix the situation for US & other users.

I know other programs use the dialog box approach - either on installation or on first run, they ask me the default paper size. I think Scribus may be one of these programs?

Canadian user here. Deleting the prefs, and creating a new score indeed set the paper size to LETTER. Yes! Another feature I've been waiting for, for a few years!

Windows 8.1 64-bit, with default printer being HP LaserJet 4350 networked. I will try at home tonight, also Win8.1 64-bit, HP LaserJet P3005 networked. At home I just setup a laptop last night to test Win8.1 update 1, no printer, so I can try it there also.

Yes, it works, thank you!!!! I saw a different commit that got me wondering the other day ("regression: fix initial page size") but it didn't look like it could be what I was hoping it was.

I am on Windows 7, and I do indeed have a printer set up with Letter as the default page size.

I believe Windows will usually install a printer for you - "Microsoft XPS Document Writer" on my system - when you first set up your computer. From the code, I see why you'd wonder what happens if not printer is installed though. Does Mac generate give a PDF pseudo-printer by default too? Might not be many cases where people *don't* have a printer installed.

Could this end up being an issue only under Windows XP? Vista, Win7 and Win8 all create the XPS default "printer", and with the proper regional paper size.

That won't prevent people from using XP. Even here at work we will have the odd use of XP, just off the network from now on. As long as the tools support XP, MuseScore should still work.

Can we call this issue fixed, then? Seems like it works out of the box for all *supported* (by their own manufacturers) OS's, and even for obsolete ones like XP, it sounds like it may only be an issue for people who have not installed a printer.

Or is this still potentially an issue on MacOS and/or Linux?

Would the paper size still be defined to some reasonable default like A4, if system paper size detection failed? If so, then it seems good enough for now.

In reply to by System Message

I'm really late here, but it seems this fix doesn't work on Linux. I've tried clean install from both Musescore2.x and 3. Tried setting default printer to letter. Tried choosing English/US as default locale. Tried changing /etc/papersize. And as soon as I create a new score, it will be set back as A4. Should I open a new issue for this?