Automatically open palettes relevant for selected object

• Oct 25, 2020 - 20:37
Reported version
3.5
Type
Ergonomical (UX)
Frequency
Once
Severity
S5 - Suggestion
Reproducibility
Always
Status
active
Regression
No
Workaround
Yes
Project
MuseScore

One may gain a lot of time in scoring if, when any object from the score is selected, the specific palette of objects (corresponding to the “family” of that selected object) to be automatically opened (concomitantly or not with closing all the other palettes): for example, when selecting a clef from the score (by left-click), it would be excellent to automatically open and focus on the palette of clefs.

Comments

• Oct 25, 2020 - 20:49

May work for clefs (but what about ambitus, from the lines palette?), time sigs, key sigs, barline, beams, stems and flags, but what palette should open for a note? Noteheads, accidentals, ornaments, articulations, dynamics, text? All of them?
What about custom workspaces?

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• Oct 26, 2020 - 13:34
Title A potential update of MuseScore which may spare a lot of time in scoring ⇒ Automatically open palettes relevant for selected object

I could imagine a dynamically-generated "Suggested" palette whose contents change as the selection does. Then it would simply be up to you as to whether you keep this palette open or not.

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• Oct 26, 2020 - 13:52

I don't want MuseScore opening palettes for me automatically. I have certain palettes open all of the time and I don't want MuseScore messing with my workflow. If it suggests that you open the time signature palette every time you click a time signature you need to be able to tell it to stop!

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• Oct 26, 2020 - 19:45

The Inspector window is relevant for this: adjustable properties of the selected element / object. <= This is quite logical because it doesn't involve any guesswork.

I don't want the software to guess what I want to do and I don't want the palettes to open automatically for me when I click anywhere on a staff or measure.

Reason:
Like everyone, I have my own working style too.
There are palettes that I keep open all the time (whether I use them or not), and there are palettes that I never want to keep open (no matter how often I use them). Please do not automate this part of the UI.

Reply

• Oct 27, 2020 - 08:23

To Mr. Mike320 but also to Mr. Demircan,

Maybe you don’t want this feature but others my surely want it: and it is legitimate to let the users choose if they want this preference to be “on” or “off” (from the Preferences window). I say this because, when one usually left-clicks on a clef or on a barline for example, he/she usually wants to change it to another type of clef/barline (even if this feature will be applied on these two palettes only, it will still spare a lot of time because it means more interactivity between the user and MuseScore [MS], which MS may better anticipate the intentions of the user). What is so hard to understand? This Preferences-based approach was explained in some previous comments also. It is about the freedom of choice from the Preferences window: why do you center this proposal on you only? Your tone may be interpreted as generated by a “childish fear”. Your fears are however not rational because, if implemented, this preference will be “off” by default (as Mr. Schmitz wisely proposed) so it won’t affect you in any way.

Regards!

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• Oct 28, 2020 - 15:37

Personally, I'm not a fan of this, but some others might like it. And if features would only be implemented if everybody in the world will definitely use them, I guess the development will get pretty stuck 😉!

Anyway, in this particular case, I am a bit skeptical about the technical elaboration of this.

  • How to determine which one is the relevant Palette?
    • We could hard-code this for each item, but that won't work if the user has hidden some palettes or has some custom palettes.
    • We could figure out which palette contains the selected item. This may reduce performance somewhat, because every time you make a selection, MS has to look up the item in the palettes. And again, what to do if the item is found in multiple palettes?
  • When should the automatically opened palettes be closed again? If they remain open all the time, it gets pretty messy. So I think it would be the best to close them if the selection changes. However, then MS needs to remember whether a palette was opened automatically, or by the user (in the latter case it should not be closed IMO).

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• Oct 28, 2020 - 16:06

Dear Mr. “cbjeukendrup”,

As I said/anticipated before, this function may be preliminarily tested (as optional and activated from the Preferences window) on some very useful (and often used!) palettes like: the clefs, the key signatures, the time signatures, the barlines, the accidentals, the fingerings etc (for example, as these palettes don’t have common elements). As I said in my initial suggestion, a palette shall pe open automatically “concomitantly or not with closing all the other palettes”.

Regards!

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• Oct 28, 2020 - 17:49

I think that msot of the objections to this would be addressed if implemented as I suggested, though: one single new "Special" palette whose contents are context-dependent. So if you want to take advantage of that, just open this palette (and leave others closed). If you don't want to take advantage of this, just leave that palette closed.

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