disable mouse input

NO, it is the way I use and the only I'm capable of using.

Well, an Option to disable it, off by Default, might not harm too much though

It's trivial to simply move the pointer out of the way if it is distracting. But I too would appreciate a way to disable it.

Adding my vote to this -- I feel like note entry is also danger mouse mode. I would like to be able to use the mouse to change focus (select a different location or staff) instead of add pitches. It's so ingrained to use the mouse to select and manipulate things that I often try to use it that way reflexively in note entry and add mistakes to the score.

Mouse input is not mentioned in the manual of course it is, and I'm very sure it was back in 2016 too.

I use a midi keyboard for input. There's basically no scenario in which I want the score to be affected by mouse inputs. But it is quite often when I want to move the play-ahead to a certain spot, then slightly move the mouse while clicking and drag a note off the correct pitch. This is very annoying as the new error isn't immediatly obvious and may only be caught on subsequent play though. This is very annoying. Please fix.

3 is still few and it still isn't a bug but a missing feature

+1, the mouse pointer is annoying in note input mode, can cause accidents, and could still be used for moving the score position.

I’d suggest the following: keep the default as-is but create a new option “disable mouse note input”, disabled by default, and show an option to enable it in the Tour the first time the user inputs notes. (Could also be a distinct note input mode in the dropdown, for example, as long as MuseScore remembers it across sessions.)

Adding a humorous observation to this -- the mouse input remains active even when MuseScore is not the active window, so stray clicks while in other apps will add notes to MuseScore (and bring it to the front). This led to a few added pitches in something I'm working on as I went between (textual) notes and calculators to the score. Fortunately, in that section I was using chance operations to create the music in some voices, so I kept the strays and they work just fine.

??? That only happens if you OS has a bug that causes clicks to be routed to the wrong application; MuseScore itself doesn't and in fact could not do this itself.

FWIW, I like the idea of a way to disable mouse input during note input, at least for clicking. Scrolling wheel should still be honored. This could be on the toolbar like the MIDI input or pan score buttons.

Oh, yes, I didn't mean to imply it was a MuseScore bug, exactly -- I assume the sequence of events is that the Win10 interprets the mouse click as a request to change the active application, and also sends the click to MuseScore, which interprets it as not input (as it would have to do).

As a workaround, I've been tinkering with mouse settings to have a Note Entry mode profile that changes the left click button to a macro that says "N+click" and that helped avoid goofs, but as you can imagine, also led to all sorts of other hilarity/frustration.

So yes, have a setting that lets the user do something like toggle note entry mode mouse behavior on/off or between select/input would be nice!

Yes, I had already submitted some years ago what seems to me as a big bug: when you want to click on MuseScore to give it back focus, you have to carefully click in a blank zone otherwise you modify the current score. But masters of MuseScore had refused to consider that as a bug.

Maybe I’m misunderstanding, but neither MuseScore nor any other program would normally know the difference between clicks you want to enter notes and clicks you made for any other reasons. The OS hands us a click, we process it. We can’t read minds about why you clicked.

Now, your OS may have a setting to disable the normal click processing when switching windows that way. I’ve never thought about that because I virtually never use the mouse to change windows when the standard Alt+Tab is so much easier. But I doubt it would even be possible to implement it at the application level. Nor do I think it would be desirable for applications to act against your OS settings.

Maybe I’m misunderstanding, but neither MuseScore nor any other program would normally know the difference between clicks you want to enter notes and clicks you made for any other reasons. The OS hands us a click, we process it. We can’t read minds about why you clicked.

Well you're misunderstanding because as I said 4 years ago:

give the focus to MS-Word by clicking on the "Bold" button, MS-Word gets focus but doesn't put the selected text in bold.

Probably best to continue that discussion in that other issue then. Still doesn’t really seem like a bug to me. Could be some unique quirk of that program or your OS I guess, I just did a quick check of half a dozen programs and could find any that failed to respond as I expect.

when you want to click on MuseScore to give it back focus, for this reason I use the last 25 years an option Focus follows mouse, then there is no need to click in any window, moving the mouse to that window is enough.

I experienced this frustration again today and came to see if there was a way to disable note input via the mouse, and found this thread instead. In my experience, having mouse editing on during any editing mode causes problems in two cases:

First, when I am editing with MIDI input, and therefore don't want any mouse input at all. Since I am not using the mouse for note input, I attempt to move around the page around with a middle-click between staves, as I can when not in edit mode. Instead I place rogue notes out in the middle of nowhere. It's easier to scroll horizontally with middle click than with Shift-scroll, because one hand is on the MIDI keyboard, and I have to move my hand back over to the computer keyboard to hold shift just to scroll, then find my place on the keyboard again. This is not the end of the world, of course, but when repeated many times over an editing session, it gets tiresome. It would be much nicer to be able to scroll around with middle-click and keep my hands where they are.

Secondly is the issue frfancha mentions, which is clicking into the window to give it focus again. I don't necessarily agree with frfancha that MuseScore shouldn't respond in this case if mouse input is enabled. I imagine it's possible to do so - the issue is not reading minds, but rather treating a click received at the same time you gained focus differently. But I don't think it needs to - programs differ on how they behave in response to the click that gives them focus, and MuseScore's behavior is reasonable and common. Fortunately, the same fix - disabling mouse note input - would also let me click in the window to give it focus without having it do anything.

I also don't think that "use focus-follows-mouse like I do" is an adequate solution, that's a bit the classic of telling a doctor my arm hurts when I lift it, and the doctor telling me to stop moving my arm. Focus-follows-mouse is certainly a reasonable way to use a computer and I'm glad it works for some folks, and it is also an option that I intentionally turn off because it makes certain use cases I have impossible, and in general is not how am used to computers behaving for the last 25 years or so of my life. And it shouldn't matter why - the answer to a feature request shouldn't be "stop using a very common feature of your operating system and change a fundamental thing about how you interact with your window manager".

Distractions around weird clicks aside, I think this is a reasonable feature request - the fact that when I am in note input mode, moving the canvas with the middle-mouse button is impossible (and attempting to do so results in misplaced notes) is probably most frustrating to me, followed closely by having to carefully make sure to avoid the note canvas for the focus-click. Adding an option to disable mouse editing would solve both of these problems.

"I’d suggest the following: keep the default as-is but create a new option “disable mouse note input”, disabled by default, and show an option to enable it in the Tour the first time the user inputs notes. "

Yes! Please! Please!!

This issue tracker has been discontinued: re-request on GitHub

Hi Marc. Maybe it's the fact that I'm originally a word-processing user, but to me the primary function of the mouse is to click where you want to go. I too would prefer to be able to choose when I want to use the mouse to enter notes, even if I'm using the keyboard to enter them.

"It's so ingrained to use the mouse to select and manipulate things that I often try to use it that way reflexively in note entry and add mistakes to the score."

I agree completely. One should be able to choose whether the moue is a note input device regardless of whether one is in Note Input mode or not.

I agree that this is not a bug but a missing feature. But as a new user coming to MS from many other applications, it seems to me that it should be a basic one. Having the mouse change functions when you use the keyboard is counter-intuitive.

Again: This issue tracker has been discontinued: re-request on GitHub