MuseScore Studio 4.4.3 is now available!

Hi everyone,

We're pleased to announce that MuseScore Studio 4.4.3 is now available.

This update addresses multiple crashes and resolves various issues related to interaction, playback, and engraving. Additionally, it includes a critical fix for Windows users, resolving several graphical problems.

Windows Qt 6.2.9 update

In this release, we're switching to from Qt 6.2.4 to Qt 6.2.9 on Windows. This resolves a number of issues:

• Graphical issues of various natures, for example where the main window looked transparent (#24857, #24579)
• Popups appearing on the wrong monitor or not at all (#24232)
• Problems in certain older dialog windows, such as the Format > Style, directly after changing the accent color (#24667*)
• A crash when opening and closing the Mixer panel very quickly (#23505*)
• Unexpected score dragging when double-clicking an instrument name to open the Staff/Part properties dialog and then clicking Replace instrument (#24613*)

Issues marked with * also occur on other platforms than Windows, where we could not yet apply the Qt update; on these other platforms, these issues will be fixed in MuseScore Studio 4.5.

Stability fixes

Crashes were fixed that occurred when

• joining measures (#25257)
• opening a score with a hidden staff containing grace notes whose beams were modified (#24862)
• opening some specific scores (details not known) (#24802)
• using the on-screen piano keyboard or an external MIDI device with percussion instruments (#24679)
• hiding staves containing Voltas or similar objects under certain circumstances (#24657)
• dragging slurs (#24726)
• adding title text to certain scores (#24795)
• deleting staves and then selecting a tie (#24841)
• opening the Measure properties dialog using a custom keyboard shortcut (#19425)
• when opening part scores in some files (#25192)

Score interaction fixes

• Entering notes in voice 2, 3, or 4, at a rhythmic position that overlaps with an existing note in the same voice, no longer corrupts the score (#24809)
• Problems with dragging/resizing images, frames, and tuplet numbers were fixed (#24791, #24608, #24738)
• Lyrics text styles are now also applied when moving to the next syllable (#24742)
• Slurs can be extended to the next system again using Shift+Right arrow (#24803)
• Staff/system text can now be dragged from the Palettes onto multi-measure rests again (#24758)

File saving/reopening fixes

• On small staves, modified stem lengths are now correctly preserved again (#25004)
• Hairpin height is now preserved again when closing and reopening a file (#24737)

Text layout fixes

• For lyrics, the placement of dashes between syllables has been changed back to match the behaviour of MuseScore Studio 4.3.2 and older (#24621)
• The vertical placement of lyrics above the staff has been fixed (#24549)
• Extender lines no longer unexpectedly extend to the end of the score (#24519)
• The sizing of Segno and Coda symbols has been reverted, so that they now follow the font size again (#24330)
• When using the MuseJazz style, Segno and Coda symbols no longer have a frame around them (#24899)

Other engraving fixes

• Enabling pitch name note heads via Staff/Part properties > Advanced staff properties no longer causes augmentation dots to disappear (#24610)
• Dynamics centred between staves no longer interfere with harp pedal diagrams (#24225)
• Vertical alignment of tempo markings and gradual tempo changes now also works when multi-measure rests are enabled (#24738)
• The minimum tie length setting is now respected at the beginning of a system also if it starts with a forward repeat (#21667)
• When using the experimental "Display note values across measure boundaries" option, no more spurious stems are rendered for whole notes (#24717)
• The "Show first" setting in Style > Bar numbers" is now respected again after section breaks (#24809)

Playback fixes & improvements

• The niente dynamic now works as expected (#22812)
• Hairpins in combination with compound dynamics (e.g., fp) now produce better playback (#24569)
• Audio devices with more than two channels are now supported on Windows too; the first two channels will be used, i.e. stereo audio is produced (#17648)
• Fermata durations are calculated correctly again (#24852)
• Newly added parts are now muted as expected in existing part scores (#24985)
• The playback cursor no longer disappears when switching between the Score and Publish tabs during playback (#24769)

MusicXML import fixes

• MuseScore Studio failed to parse XML files containing comments in certain locations; this has been resolved (#24704)
• Accidentals in chord symbols are now imported correctly from MusicXML files created by Cubase (#24865)
• Various issues around ottava markings have been fixed (#24729)
• The import of ties under certain circumstances has been fixed (#24620)

Accessibility improvements

• Screen readers now announce the group name when navigating between menus on Windows and Linux (#24151)
• Orca properly announces pressed shortcuts in the Preferences > Shortcuts > Define shortcut dialog on Linux (#22637)

Miscellaneous fixes

• The Linux AppImage now contains libopengl.so.0 as a fallback library, which should enable it to run on systems where this library is not installed by default
• MEI export of invisible rests has been fixed (#25106)
• In some templates, the instrument numbers were fixed (#25046, #25124)
• Some issues with (custom) keyboard shortcuts on macOS were fixed (#24177, #24938)

Facilitating fixes in third-party distributions

While we are not responsible for distributions of MuseScore Studio via FlatHub or OS-specific package managers (most relevant on Linux), we are happy to accept changes that facilitate fixes in such distributions:

• On distributions where MuseScore Studio is built with Qt 6.5 or higher, the menu bar and the Home/Score/Publish toolbar were missing; this has been fixed. Thanks GitHub users @Vogtinator and @kbloom for the fix! (#24097)
• A case of undefined behaviour that led to an assertion failure on certain distributions has been fixed; thanks @Orivej! (#20878)

A known issue on distributions that build with Qt 6.5+ is that the Mixer panel, or any other dock panel, fails to open, because the version of KDDockWidgets that MuseScore Studio uses is not compatible with such Qt versions. This is tracked at #24866, and will be solved in MuseScore Studio 4.5.

Get involved!

We would like to thank everyone who helped us making this release possible, either by contributing fixes, or, also importantly, by testing pre-release versions and reporting their findings.

This was the last release in the 4.4 series; the development of MuseScore Studio 4.5 is already in full swing! If you ever find yourself bored waiting for the next update, you could consider contributing to MuseScore Studio yourself. For example, you can help translating MuseScore Studio into your own language, or if you know a bit about programming, you can consider fixing an issue yourself. See this page for more information: https://github.com/musescore/MuseScore/wiki/Contributing

Soon, we will be back with an announcement about the Handbook for MuseScore Studio; and we're planning to post an update about MuseScore Studio 4.5 and beyond. Stay tuned!