Formatting issues and questions about Ux
After formatting my page for 4 measures per system I end up with this: (see attachment)
And is there any plan to be able to interactively drag the page view arround like Sibelius does?
If I wanted to create an instructional book utilizing musescore, I think it would be very difficult. This is something that is relatively easy to do in finale or sibelius
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Comments
What's wrong with that?
Last system fill threshold maybe?
In reply to What's wrong with that? Last… by Jojo-Schmitz
they should all be the same width. Is there a setting for correcting that?
In reply to they should all be the same… by Jack A. Zucker
They are all the same width, except for the 1st system due to the time signature (and the note you already entered, entering more and of different durations will make them more different in width and there is no setting to change that), and the last system due to last system fill threshold (this can get set)
In reply to They are all the same width,… by Jojo-Schmitz
Your comment is confusing. starting on measure 29, the width of the system is 1/2 the width of the page.
Are you saying i need to select "last system fill threshold"? How do I do that?
In reply to Your comment is confusing… by Jack A. Zucker
Yes, Format > Style > Page
In reply to Your comment is confusing… by Jack A. Zucker
Except as mentioned, as soon as you put actual notes in there, you'll discover you didn't need to do that at all. And it would turn out to be the wrong thing if the last system had only a single measure, for example. The defaults do actually work quite well, best to not mess with them until you've put your music in, or you might end up making decisions that prove counterproductive later. This is particular true of the measure "stretch" settings, where people get themselves into all sorts of trouble by trying to stretch measures to the size they think they should be before they've complete their note input and then realize everything is completely wonky.
In reply to They are all the same width,… by Jojo-Schmitz
my concern is that a lot of the editing in musescore seems to be geekware and extremely non-intuitive. Are there any plans to make layout more interactive by dragging handles and such?
In reply to my concern is that a lot of… by Jack A. Zucker
Why?
Just familiarize yourself with it, read the handbook at least ones front to back. There's an entire chapter about layout
In reply to Why? Just familiarize… by Jojo-Schmitz
Just keep in mind that you'll likely save yourself a bunch of work if you first start by actually entering the music and only worry about the layout of it afterwards.
In reply to Just keep in mind that you… by jeetee
i know, i'm just getting a feel for it. I've written 4 books in finale and considering making the jump full time but so far it feels a bit on the geeky side - kind of like finale (except I already know finale really well). My concern is that it seems like a lateral move so far. I haven't found anything really great to make me consider a full time switch other than maybe the midi import works better...
In reply to i know, i'm just getting a… by Jack A. Zucker
Don't forget the price tag and this wonderful forum here ;-)
In reply to Don't forget the price tag… by Jojo-Schmitz
True although one thing I often see in forums like this is that people say they know what they like but they really like what they know so often times, forums are self-defeating because people tend to fight against change even if it's change that might make the product better. I find that forums are really big on defending the status quo and sometimes it works against product improvement.
In reply to True although one thing I… by Jack A. Zucker
Don't confuse explanations how it works with MuseScore and why (which indeed happens) with defending status quo.
In reply to True although one thing I… by Jack A. Zucker
While it may seem that way at time - and this might even be true a tiny fraction most of the time - I think what newcomers often don't see is just how many discussions and how much input from thousands upon thousands of users went into making some of the design decisions in a piece of software, and how many millions of users may now be relying on that behavior. So it's really natural and frankly a good thing that the design of the software doesn't change immediately with each new suggestion, but that people instead point out why things are the way they are and why changing it at this point might not be as great an idea as it looked at first. Over over time, as more and more new users come on and more and more new features get implemented,, some of those older design decisions do get revisited. but it's necessarily a relatively slow process, otherwise the software would prove almost impossible for people to use as things kept changing all the time.
In reply to While it may seem that way… by Marc Sabatella
you can't legislate good Ux design though. Getting 10,000 opinions about the way something should work is the wrong way to design software. The proper way to design software is to get people in a room and observe how they work utilizing various models of Ux and drawing conclusions about the most efficient way to allow them to get their job done.
I work with Ux all the time in my day job and that is how we do things.
The problem with designing Ux in a forum is that you can't separate the wheat from the chaff. New users have a requirement that the software be intuitive and easy to use and often times, what's intuitive and easy to use makes for a cumbersome Ux to someone who's experienced. We're only new users for a short time and when we transition over to being experienced users, we want the most efficient way to work which requires the minimum of keystrokes to get the job done. And getting opinions about Ux in a forum is about as useful to designing Ux as asking what the best picks are or who was the best bop guitarist in a guitar forum. If you wait long enough, you will get every possibility that exists.
But one thing that's a unversal Ux flaw is having a Ux that depends on moving your hands between the mouse and the keyboard. Having to use ctrl-arrow keys for example in combination with mouse clicks on disparate parts of the user interface. This is an example of Ux that might be good for a beginner but is bad for efficiency.
In reply to you can't legislate good Ux… by Jack A. Zucker
Right, and that’s why we have world-renowned designer Martin Keary aka Tantacrul) doing exactly that for us. But it’s not just about ideas from a one person or even a team - actual usability studies are also a big part of it.
Not sure what you mean about mixing mouse clicks and keyboard, I’d say everyone agrees that isn’t ideal, but that not what this thread is about, is it? Maybe I missed something - could be, I read so many threads every day. Anyhow, we’re completely committed to having both good mouse-based interfaces optimized for new users and good keyboard interfaces for power users but also blobs users - we take accessibility extremely seriously. So if you have specific suggestions on these fronts, feel free to start a new thread!
In reply to they should all be the same… by Jack A. Zucker
Systems containing actual music should be and are the same width, with the exception of the last system,. which is sometimes not justified to the right margin in published music. MuseScore tries to get this right by default - if the last system is sufficiently full that stretching it won't look silly, it does; if the last system is most empty, it leaves it unjustified,. This is pretty standard practice.
So as mentioned, it looks kind of odd because you are looking at an empty score and of course,e that's not what actually gets published - what gets published are scores with notes in them. And then you'll see the right thing happens by default most of the time. You only need to mess with that setting if you want to quibble with how full that last system should be in order to be justified like the others. And it's true that educational materials often have their own unique formatting requirements that different normal music - lots of systems might need to be indented from one or both margins. So we provide frames for that. It actually works extremely well - I find it far easier than Finale, personally, as someone who used Finale for more years than I have now used MuseScore.