Keyboard shortcuts for toggling Mute/Solo for channels?
I cannot find a way to set keyboard shortcuts for toggling the 'Mute' or 'Solo' settings for channels in the mixer. This would be very helpful during playback. The mixer is visually designed to mimic physical buttons, after all :)
Comments
In a score for multiple instruments (for example, a brass quintet) how do you envision keyboard shortcuts to actually work when applying 'Mute' or 'Solo' among the 5 different instruments?
What would be your sequence of keystrokes?
In reply to In a score for multiple… by Jm6stringer
I'm not sure I understand the question – keyboard shortcuts are user-customizable, so it could be any keystroke sequence chosen by the user. I'm suggesting that "Mute/Unmute Mixer Channel 1", etc. be added to the list of Actions in the Shortcuts tab of Preferences.
In reply to I'm not sure I understand… by greysakalinaw
Since there is a rather high limit on the number of channels available (thousands); do you expect musescore to include an action for all of them?
In reply to Since there is a rather high… by jeetee
I don't 'expect' anything, but there are hundreds of unassigned possible shortcut actions currently, and I do think having the option to assign at least some channels to keyboard shortcuts would be a nice feature. Maybe the possible shortcuts could be limited to the first 8, 16, 32(, or whatever number is reasonable/possible) channels? Maybe users could have the option to link several channels to the same shortcut?
In reply to I don't 'expect' anything,… by greysakalinaw
practially all single stroke shortcuts, and most 2- and 3-srtoke ones are in use already.
In reply to practially all single stroke… by Jojo-Schmitz
How is that relevant ?
There are already a long list of actions without default shortcut but available for the user to link to a shortcut that would need to be "disconnected" from its default action first.
So offering solo/mute actions for the first 8 channels is possible, up to the user to decide which shortcut he wants to use for them (if any)
In reply to How is that relevant ? There… by frfancha
Ok, PR welcome...
In reply to How is that relevant ? There… by frfancha
I agree that not having a default shortcut for this shouldn't mean it can't be included in the action list.
What my question was meant to trigger is the "how many actions" should we add to the list? Because you've mentioned "the first 8", the OP already mentioned 16/32/whatever is possible/makes sense
My point is that any limit imposed here does not really make sense from a UI consistency point.
There will be users with more channels than whichever arbitrary number we come up with here. Unless we add thousands of commands into the shortcut list. And that is unworkable and undesired.
So how about this proposal: Add 5 new actions
1. Mute All
2. Unmute All
3. UnSolo All
4. Mute Channel(s)
5. Solo Channel(s)
For 4 and 5 the result of the action is a popup where you can enter the channel number/range of channels to be affected.
A bit of UI design would be needed to enable knowing channel numbers or how to indicate channels/a channel range in a good way.
In reply to I agree that not having a… by jeetee
Hi Jeetee,
All that is true and makes sense.
However adding shortcut is only useful if the user can memorize them.
That's why I was suggesting to limit to the first 8. Yes there are tons of scores with more than 8 channels but that wouldn't defeat the usefulness of some memorized shortcuts for the first 8 of them.
Now yes we could also design a more advanced pattern in which a general shortcut "mute channel" must be followed by a 3 digits "code" entered on the numpad to identify the channel number. Not unlike alt+ASCII code to enter special characters in MS-DOS...
In reply to In a score for multiple… by Jm6stringer
To me, trying to deal with numbered shortcuts for channels would be a nightmare - I have no idea if the viola part in my orchestra score is channel 9 or 13 or 21 or whatever. Plus it could change if instrument changes are added to the score, etc.
Instead, I'd suggest a single "toggle mute for selected tracks" command. Select something in the score, hit the shortcut to mute the corresponding tracks. If you click a single note, it would mute that track, but if you select a range across several staves, it mutes them all. Of course, muting discontinuous staves would still require the Mixer, or whatever newfangled replacement might be coming with or after MuseScore 4.
In reply to To me, trying to deal with… by Marc Sabatella
If there is a good way to select multiple channels in the mixer this might be a lot more intuitive than channel numbers indeed.
Does it have to be a short cut? How about an option under Staff Properties? Right click a staff and there is an option to Solo and also Mute the staff. Not quite as fast as a short cut, but it wouldn't make any difference how big the score was. Also, no need to remember even more short cut definitions.
In reply to Does it have to be a short… by bobjp
Yes Bob it needs to have a shortcut, please respect users prefering using the keyboard even if you are a mouse user.
Marc, great Idea.
In reply to Yes Bob it needs to have a… by frfancha
There is a shortcut to open the mixer, and you can Tab around in the dialog then
In reply to There is a shortcut to open… by Jojo-Schmitz
Currently tab in the Mixer is pretty futile, it's one of the least-accessible components of MuseScore. Things will hopefully be better in MuseScore 4. I'm also hoping to eventually see mute & solo buttons right next to the staff in the appropriate view. Maybe the new Instrumentals panel, which currently has a visibility toggle but could reasonably have mute & solo too.
In reply to Yes Bob it needs to have a… by frfancha
No frfancha, it doesn't have to be just a shortcut. It can be both.
In reply to No frfancha, it doesn't have… by bobjp
There is already a very simple thing to add, when you open the Mixer the space bar should remain assigned to the partition. At the moment, when you mute one or more tracks in the Mixer, pressing the space bar acts on the last mute button used. You have to reclick on the partition to restart the playback.
Now I need to listen to the different tracks of my arrangement one by one by restarting the playback from the same bar.
Reclicking each time on the score is a waste of time.
Don't forget that we only have 2 hands !!! One on the computer keyboard, one on the midi keyboard!
In reply to There is already a very… by kirekard
Check out the alpha pre-release of MuseScore 4 - the focus of these buttons is already fixed. And also, you no longer need to use the Mixer to solo individual instruments - just select a measure of a specific staff to both start playback there and solo the instrument.
In reply to Check out the alpha pre… by Marc Sabatella
Fabulous, you made my day! I haven't had time to test the alpha pre released yet, this really promises!!!