Reorganizing a Custom Palette
I've created a custom palette which houses most of the items I regularly use ... except for meter, key signatures and ornaments.
I'd like to make it wider now and that means rearranging cells. I could most easily accomplished this by adding a "blank palette item" here and there. Short of requesting palette line breaks (good idea?) I'd gladly sacrifice a little real estate for a "blank palette item" that I could use to pad lines, at least temporarily.
Is there a way to create a blank/null palette cell?
I thought of making a Staff Text object that contains a single space character and adding it to the palette, but I don't want to create a situation where an unintentional palette poke could add an invisible object to the score. Those could cause unwanted side effects that might prove challenging to detect.
Thanks!
scorster
Comments
I can't see a way (without recoding the program) other than using a blank or invisible object. But you can add the object to a score, make it invisible, [Ctrl][shift] drag it to the palette. Then you can edit its Properties within the palette to make it really, really small. You can copy a bunch of these to then end of a palette and when you choose Delete you get the option to Hide them instead. They can then lurk there ready for later use.
Regards changing your score; use a dummy score to set it up and just don't drag an empty/shrunk palette item onto any new scores.
In reply to Not quite sure if this does… by underquark
underquark wrote > > you can add the object to a score, make it invisible, [Ctrl][shift] drag it to the palette.
Good point. Invisibility would have some advantages over my idea of using a Space char. Mainly that—with Show Invisible checked—any inadvertently added items would be easily detectable. And while invisible they won't influence layout.
underquark wrote > use a dummy score to set it up
Good advice!
underquark wrote > ... just don't drag an empty/shrunk palette item onto any new scores.
I'll try!
scorster
I'd indeed go with a staff text, but just a normal one, so you can see it when applied to the score by accident. Then use the palette cell properties to displace is outside the visible area of the palette cell
In reply to I'd indeed go with a staff… by jeetee
Good point. Leaving a visible mark makes an unintentional addition more noticeable, and immediately so.
I understand the desire for a neat-looking palette and the frustration at realizing it won't necessarily work out that way as you add or remove elements and/or resize the palette. I've come to peace with it and haven't messed with using "spacer" cells, but it's an interesting idea. It does assume you don't plan to resize your palette. And I think for that reason, it's probably not likely to become an official feature, but you never know.
I'm similarly bugged by the inflexible home screen arrangement in iOS, where I can't say I want this row to only have two icons so the next one starts with the icon I want. Here, the size of the screen is fixed, really there is no excuse for not having that control. But oh well.
In reply to I understand the desire for… by Marc Sabatella
Thanks for your input on this Marc.
Marc wrote> > [Your idea/suggestion] assume[s] you don't plan to resize your palette
Yes, the idea of "spacer cells" would only work for a particular Palette width. (And it was precisely my desire to widen my custom palette that led me needing to change the overall layout ... which would be most easily attained with palette spacers or palette "line breaks."
Palette "line breaks" would allow the palette to work at different widths and that would be a big advantage. It would also help in the design process!
scorster
In reply to Thanks for your input on… by scorster
Devil's advocate here:
If you're going for line breaks in the palette, that would indicate a method of "grouping" things. Isn't that exactly what a palette itself is?
So why not create a palette for each "line" you're now envisioning? The only possible downside I can see is that there's a little text group marker (the palette name) in between them instead of a thinner grid line.
In reply to Devil's advocate here: If… by jeetee
Interesting thought! The text divider is a bit too "heavy" here for the cases I am envisioning, but the idea of being able to identify "sub-palettes" rather than thinking in terms of "line breaks" does make a lot of sense. Especially if you could then rearrange the sub-palettes within the palette or otherwise treat them as a unit.
For example, I'm building a palette of accented letters. I'd like to divide them up by lower case vowel, lower case consonant, upper case vowel, upper case consonant. I'd really like them all in a single palette because when I'm using them, I'm likely using them all, so I'd want to open and close the palette as a unit. But seeing that clear division between upper/lower, vowel/consonant, is kind of nice.
In reply to Devil's advocate here: If… by jeetee
Isn't that your normal self? ;-)
In reply to Isn't that your normal self? by Jojo-Schmitz
Never claimed otherwise :)