Permanently change MuseScore DPI on MacOS

• Mar 16, 2021 - 10:39

I'm running MuseScore on a Mac and an externally connected 4k display. The icons are extremely small and not usable at all. I've searched through the forums and found a useful piece of advice: start the application with the command line option -D, like this: /Applications/MuseScore\ 3.app/Contents/MacOS/mscore -D 120.

Is there a possibility to permanently change the DPI settings somewhere, so I don't always have to start the application from the command line?

Comments

Jojo-Schmitz

• Mar 16, 2021 - 10:45

AlexanderP

• Mar 16, 2021 - 11:15

:-(

Jojo-Schmitz

• Mar 16, 2021 - 11:21

But see #312051: expose DPI override as a setting

Marc Sabatella

• Mar 16, 2021 - 13:37

I'd be extremely surprised if macOS doesn't provide a way to override the command line from the program icon. I'd do a search of some Apple support forums to see. But if not, at least you can create a shell script and use that instead.

AlexanderP

• Mar 16, 2021 - 15:49

Ok, I found a workaround for now, following the advice from Stackexchange: https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/17479/188797

Basically:

Renaming mscore to mscore_original inside the MuseScore 3.App package.
Creating an executable mscore shell script inside the MuseScore 3.App package that calls the actual application with the right DPS and the following content:

#!/bin/bash
/Applications/MuseScore\ 3.app/Contents/MacOS/mscore_original -D 120

Now MuseScore opens in the right DPS - it's definitely a solution that expert users can pull off, but for regular users will be way too complicated. I'm looking forward to the mentioned issue being implemented, so that normal users can enjoy MuseScore on a 4k screen on Mac too.

Marc Sabatella

• Mar 16, 2021 - 16:20

Probably there is some setting within macOS that will allow this to work more directly, some way to tell the OS not to lie about the screen resolution. I recall having heard about such settings when "Retina" displays were new. I gather your overall system settings are working for other apps, so probably there is an app-specific setting you need to enable. Unfortunately every OS is different, and compounding it are all the different devices and drivers out there, it's virtually impossible for one app to handle every possibility perfectly out of the box.