*OPTION* for Spacebar to "Play Always from Selected Note/Range" INSTEAD of "Play/Pause/Play-where-left-off"

• Oct 7, 2019 - 16:29

I've seen threads on this before but only poor answers and "solutions" were offered. As we all know, the Spacebar in MuseScore 3 functions as "Play/Pause/Play-where-left-off"

Some people compose in a way that requires lots of playing from a certain note or certain point repeatedly to get melodies and chords and rhythms figured out of on-the-fly. As mentioned in other threads, many Digital Audio Workstations have this sort of feature, and people like me who are only using MuseScore as an intermediary software during composition would highly value an in-built option (in the options menu), to change the Spacebar functionality to what is most easily referred to as a "Play/Stop" button.

To be clear, I'm requesting that MS3 allows us to go into the preferences, select a check mark, press "okay", and then from then on, the following happens:
- Spacebar pressed once will play from any note/selection as NORMAL for MS3
- Spacebar pressed again during playback will STOP (not PAUSE) playback
- Spacebar pressed a third time (WITHOUT any editing or changing of selected note/range) will play from the same note/selection as before. NOT from where it left off during previous playback.
- Spacebar pressed a third time after MOVING or EDITING selection/range will start playback from wherever that new selected note or region is.

The simple version:
Spacebar by default does: Play/Pause/Play-where-left-off
I'm requesting the option to have the Spacebar do: Play/Stop/Play-from-same-spot-unless-spot-is-changed

Please do not reply saying you are confused or don't think MuseScore 3 should work this way. I'm requesting an OPTION or DEFAULT SHORTCUT such as CTRL+Spacebar to allow people who DO work this way to WORK this way.

(I hope I don't seem rude, but I don't want to have to re-explain myself to confused people 5 times like others had to when requesting this feature.)

Comments

• Oct 7, 2019 - 22:08

Perhaps someone will be motivated to implement your suggestion someday. But meanwhile, you can get pretty much that effect by turning on "loop" mode using the icon on the toolbar. Now every time you press Play, it starts from the loop start point, and if you've made a selection, the loop start point is automatically set to that. I realize it's not the exact method you describe, but it does achieve the same basic end results today.

Actually, though, although you personally might not be interested in feedback on your suggestion, I have some I will offer to anyone who does feel inclined to implement this. My feedback is, I would recommend against making this a preference that requires constant trips back and forth to a dialog box to change. That might be OK if you intend to always use the new mode, but some people might want to sometimes use one mode, sometimes use the other. So instead, I think it would be simpler to just have two different commands, like Space and Shift+Space.

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• Apr 12, 2021 - 22:06

I'd like to second this feature request especially after the proposed alternative solution to use the Loop Playback is not as convenient and above all is totally broken since version 3 (see the following discussion: https://musescore.org/en/node/308976). In my case the described bug hits me always thus there isn't any possibility at the moment to use the space bar to toggle between play and pause in Loop Playback mode. It just jumps to loop begin and continues to play. In Version 2.7 this was always working trouble-free.

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• Apr 12, 2021 - 23:29

I'm not sure what you mean about loop playback being totally broken, I use it all the time. The issue you refer to has so far been reported to affect only a small handful scores out of the millions out there. So far there haven't been enough sample scores posted to allow us to determine what they have in common and thus find a cause. So if you also have one or more scores showing this unusual problem, please post it there to help in the process of getting the issue fixed.

In any case, even in the cases where the bug hits, playback stops for me by pressing Esc. The bug also only occurs if repeats are turned on, so that's a workaround.

That said, an easier way to start playback from a given location always would indeed be nice as well someday.

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• Apr 13, 2021 - 09:32

"I'm not sure what you mean about loop playback being totally broken, I use it all the time. The issue you refer to has so far been reported to affect only a small handful scores out of the millions out there."

You could also see it the other way around: it has been reported as working only by you and nobody else.
And it is definitively broken in V3 requiring to deselect the loop mode and then only you can stop.

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• Apr 13, 2021 - 10:40

First of all I'm sorry if my last comment seemed rude. That was not my intention. I'm a very happy user of MS and am deeply grateful for all your hard work!
For I'm using MS not only for transcribing but also for practising I really miss the above mentioned feature.

After your comment I tried to investigate further and hopefully have found some clues. I like to explain the behavior using my score O Pato: https://musescore.com/user/30027544/scores/6694192
It would be nice if you try to reproduce my findings.

1: Press buttons Toggle Loop Playback, Play Repeats, Pan Score Automatically
2: Mark bars 6 to 8 and press space (playback starts), Esc stops => ok
3 a: Press space (playback starts, Playback Button is pressed)
3 b: Press space again (blayback restarts, Playback Button is unpressed)
3 c: Press Esc (now it does not stop playback, it's without function) => bug
4: Unpress button Play Repeats and make same tests. All works well.

Seems that it happens in repeats when the Play Repeats button is pressed.
I hope you can reproduce said behavior and it gives a clue what happens. I will copy this investigation into the other thread for completeness.

BTW: I'm on version 3.6.0.48... under Linux Mint 20.1 64 bit.

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• Apr 13, 2021 - 14:38

"You could also see it the other way around: it has been reported as working only by you and nobody else" - people don't post in forums to report things work correctly. They post to report problems. Half a dozen problem complaints, millions of users not posting about this - the numbers speak for themselves.

So, if also are among those who have a score where this doesn't work as expected, please attach it to the issue thread for someone to investigate. Again, it really truly does work in general.

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