Save As Musescore 3
Please implement the ability to save an MU4 file in MU3 format.
I just did my first accidental Save As that clobbered my MU3 version of a choral score. I would be really, really unhappy about this were it not for my iDrive automatic online backup subscription that allowed me to recover the MU3 version of the file. Musescore 4 has lots of features I love, and I'm sure it will get there as far as reliability goes, but right now it just feels too buggy for me to entrust my important work to it.
How it happened:
I had pulled the file into MU4 to see how the MU4 "Implode" function does when combining two vocal staffs that have different melodic rhythms and sometimes lyrics. At some point I decided that, although MU4 did a very good job of the task, this particular score became confusing when the two women's parts and the two men's parts were combined onto single staffs. But I wanted to save the work I had done in case I had second thoughts about it later and wanted to pick up where I left off.
So I did a Save As, and got prompted that it would overwrite the existing version. Since I normally do a Save As into a folder reserved for MU4 scores before I do anything to a score created in MU3, I assumed that the file I would be overwriting was the MU4 version. I realized (or thought) that I could've just done a Save rather than a Save As, but I was already in the Save As dialog so I figured, what the heck, just overwrite it, same difference.
Only problem is, I had neglected to do a Save As into the MU4 folder and format first thing; and balled up as I was in the details of the changes I was making to the score, I just didn't figure it all out in time.
| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
| MU4 Overwrite of MU3 Score.png | 85.67 KB |
Comments
See https://musescore.org/en/node/342956 to recover your file either via musicxml or via unzip.
In reply to See https://musescore.org/en… by elsewhere
Which means:open the file in MS4. Export as MusicXml. That file should open in MS3. You can also use 7-Zip to extract the file. Then you will have an mscx file that should open in MS3. This method is useful if there are corruptions. It just depends on the file as to how well it works.
Unfortunately, it's just not feasible to save a MuseScore 4 score in MuseScore 3 format directly. Too many changes have happened, too much info would be lost along the way. But as mentioned, exporting as MusicXML will work to preserve the music itself.
Meanwhile, I have opened an issue on GitHub requesting that overwriting an existing file, in addition to triggering the warning it already does, would also make a backup. that would solve the problem at hand more simply.
In reply to Unfortunately, it's just not… by Marc Sabatella
At what point would the backup be overwritten? In most cases, I would wager, the user would not discover the problem until the next time he tried to open it in Mu3. Might be immediately, might be months later.
In reply to At what point would the… by manonash
Currently, a backup is created on the first save of an editing session - the idea being to allow a return to the state the file was in when you first opened it. So if you do the save as, no subsequent save during that editing sessions would generate a new backup. Only if you closed the file, then reopened it in MuseScore 4, then did additional saves, would that backup be lost. So it would still be possible to lose your MuseScore 3 file, but much less likely. I suppose it could be made so that if the score being saved was originally created in MuseScore 3, an additional backup is made, but this really seems like overkill; most people would want to manage versions themselves.