How do I save a particular style of menus as my new Ms4 default?
Again, sorry for the post if it's already been answered, but I cannot find the answer posted or in the handbook. I am learning MS4.1 and have set it up to a particular "style", with the "properties" menu on the right, the "pages" and "piano keyboard" menus at the bottom sized a certain way, the Mixer menu undocked, and some of the palettes already open. I want this exact style to open whenever I launch MS4. Is there a way to "Save" this style as my MS4 default?
Thanks in advance.
Comments
Nothing special you need to do, other than make sure when customizing layout, you don't have multiple windows open with competing customizations. Close all but one window before customizing, then restart MuseScore to make sure the changes get saved.
The open/closed state of palettes, however, is not saved. Sounds like you might instead want to create a single custom palette containing the elements from the palettes you otherwise wanted open.
In reply to Nothing special you need to… by Marc Sabatella
OK, I am having some real problems here. Screenshots will explain these best.
Here is a screenshot of the layout I want when a score first opens in MS4:
Notice that the pages menu is small and sized to fit onto the screen, and the piano menu is small, active and low down so I can see most of the actual score. I closed all the opened palettes cause you said they don't save. I can work with that OK. I then saved my "style" using the "Save" command, then closed the score. When I opened it again, here is what I got:
Notice that the pages menu has lost its size and all pages are way too large. I have to manually resize the menu. Also, the piano menu is docked below it. However, when I then press the F10 key to open the mixer menu, the menu opens and covers almost all the the score AND the top of the menu titled the "Sounds" line is missing. I have to manually grab the top of the menu and drag it up to see the Sounds line. See clipboard shot 3 here:
Now, when I close the Mixer menu with F10, the score does NOT return to its former state. The entire bottom of the score remains cut off by a big black box. I have to manually drag down that box by finding the top of it and using the mouse, return the score to screenshot 1 above. Check out Screenshot 4 to see what I mean:
So, someone suggested in a different post that if I undock the piano menu, and then open the Mixer with F10, its menu will open showing the "Sounds" line. See screenshot 5:
If I then close it again, the score will return to its original size rather than exhibit a big black box. So, I did that and it worked ... except ... the pages menu is now covered completely. I cannot see it no matter what I do. See screenshot 6:
In summary, these are not the only problems I'm encountering with MS4, but they are in need of fixing and I need your help. I use the Mixer menu and the Pages and Piano menu all the time. When I do, I should not have to resize the menus or drag them around. Is there anything I can do to fix any of this?
In reply to OK, I am having some real… by fsgregs
I'm not understanding what you mean by "pages menu" - there is nothing by that name in MuseScore. Maybe you mean the Navigator? I'm not sure what you use that for exactly. But there are so many other efficient ways of navigating that don't steal screen real estate, closing it seems like a great opportunity to improve your workflow here.
I also don't know what you mean when you refer to a menu called "sounds".
Also, I'm not understanding what you mean by saving your style using the save command. There is a "save style" command in the Format menu, but that has nothing to do with window layout - it's about the score style settings made in the Format / Style dialog.
The way to make sure your window configuration is remember is, as I said, to make sure you have only one open window when making your customizations so that you don't have conflicting customizations, then simply close MuseScore when done. That is what saves the configuration.
There is a known issue (because you discovered and report it earlier) where the piano keyboard and mixer windows are tabbed together, the piano is forced to the same size, which makes sense of course while tabbed but somehow this carries forward to situations where it shouldn't.
In reply to I'm not understanding what… by Marc Sabatella
Ok, I thought my screen grabs made what I said clear. I called it the "pages" menu but you are correct in calling it the Navigator menu. I use it all the time to jump between pages, particularly when I need to copy some note sequences from one bar to another. I know you are so fast that you can re-enter notes very quickly but I find copying and pasting is easier on me, since I barely know how to read note sequences and chords. If there is an easy way to see all the pages in my score without displaying the navigator, please tell me how. If not, this is a bug. It does not save at its full size. As examples:
Here is a copy of the screen grab I included yesterday.
![Clipboard02.jpg]()
This is what I want to save as a style. (I used the "Save Style" command on the Format menu). Notice that the Navigator pages (27 of them) are all correctly sized and visible.
Now, after I save the style and open MS4 again, the score returns but the Navigator pages are no longer the proper size. I have to find the top of the menu and drag it around to get all 27 pages visible again. See the screenshot:
![Shot1.jpg]()
This is a bug. The Navigator has resized to a rather useless size upon opening a score. This did not happen in MS 3.6.2.
I tried closing the virtual Keyboard and saving the style again. When I reopened the score, the Navigator pages were again too big. Here is another screen grab to illustrate.
![Clipboard07.jpg]()
Here is the screen grab of my score with the Mixer menu and the piano menu open.
![Clipboard03.jpg]()
Notice that in the menu, you see the words Audio FX, Aux Sends, and Pan along the top left. The first line (Sound) is missing. I have no idea what MuseSound instruments I have chosen, unless and until I find the top of the menu and drag it upward. After I do, THEN ... I can see the top "Sound" line. Here is a screenshot after I resized the menu manually. Simply put, when the Piano menu is active, the Mixer menu displays with the top line cut off.
![Clipboard08.jpg]()
I have submitted this past problem as a bug but not the other two problems with the Navigator & Mixer/{iano menus active. Should I do so now?
In reply to Ok, I thought my screen… by fsgregs
First, no, I'm not suggesting you simply re-enter notes. CVopy and paste is a great tool. I'm suggesting there are much better ways of moving around your score that don't require using up valuable screen space. For instance, the scroll bars on the score, the scroll wheel of your mouse (or two finger swipe for touchpad), the PgUp/Pg/Dn keys on your keyboard, the "Find" command to jump to specific measures, pages, or rehearsal marks. All of these allow you to quickly and easily move around your score and copy and paste all you want without wasting all that valuable space. So if you're interested in improving your workflow, I highly recommend these methods.
If you do wish to take up space with the navigator, though, I'm not understanding at all why you'd call the default size useless. The whole point of seeing the thumbnails for each page, I would think, is so you have some chance of actually guessing what is on each page. And that requires them to be larger than you show. Otherwise it's just a meaningless bklob with a number on it, and again, the find command or the other scrolling methods are at least as fast at getting you there and far less wasteful of space. But indeed, if the custom size isn't being remembered, that's a bug so you should open an issue on GitHub. I still strongly urge you to close the navigator and learn the other less screen-space-intensive ways of navigating, if you value efficiency at all.
As for "sounds", OK, I see now you are talking about that dropdown within the mixer that wasn't clear to me before. Apparently you have sized your mixer too small, so just increase it. That should be remembered.
And again, Save Style has absolutely nothing to do with any of this. It is, as I explained, about saving the settings from the Format / Style dialog - things like the setting for how wide ledger lines are or whether repeat barliens get winged tips, etc. Nothing whatsoever relating to how you arrange your windows. That arrangement is, again, saved automatically with no explicit action required.
In reply to First, no, I'm not… by Marc Sabatella
Marc:
Thanks for your gracious help. I am slowly working through the issues. To wit:
I have tried the other suggestions you made about moving through the score. I have problems with all of them. I have seen no "scroll bars" on the score. If they exist, I must have them turned off. How do I turn them on?
The scroll wheel on the mouse only moves the score vertically from the top of a page to the bottom. It does not move the score from one page to another using the wheel, unless I am doing something wrong???
I tried the pg/up and pg/down keys on the keyboard. They work poorly. When I press either one, the score jumps only 1/2 of a page up or down. I have to hit pg/down 3 times to just move from page 2 to page 3. If I want to go to page 12, I would have to hit pg/down 30 times, which is ridiculous, unless I again have something turned off. If there are ways to get pg/down to jump multiple pages at a time, how would I do it?
The "Find" command (Ctrl + F), is a command I never used before and it does let me jump from an earlier measure to a later one, but frankly, I am usually not sure what measure I might want to jump to, to copy/paste a set of notes. I usually have to search through the pages using the Navigator to find an earlier place in the score to copy from. That is why I like the Navigator menu visible. I can just click the page I want to examine for notes, and it happens. If I'm on the wrong page, I just click again. That said, I will post the failure of the program to retain the resized navigator menu when the score is saved and closed, as a bug on Github.
I tried resizing the Mixer menu to display the top sound line and then closing and opening the program, and it does not save as the correct size when I also have to Piano menu active. When I don't use the piano menu, then F10 will save the Mixer menu correctly with the sound line visible and will turn it off correctly. I will post this also on Github.
I will ignore using "Save Style" in the future. The default style is OK with me.
I have already posted the problem with the Mixer menu not closing properly and leaving a big black box if I am also using the Piano menu, but I will edit it to make sure the team knows the problem clearly.
FYI
Frank
In reply to Marc: Thanks for your… by fsgregs
2. Hold shift and scroll.
In reply to 2. Hold shift and scroll. by xavierjazz
... and scroll with the mouse scroll wheel.
In reply to ... and scroll with the… by AndreasKågedal
OK, thanks to your answer I found that if I do hold down the Shift key and scroll with the mouse wheel, I can move the score to the right one page at a time. It is quite helpful if I am searching for a set of notes on a bar and don't know where they are. If I do sort of know where they are, I find clicking the approximate page in the Navigator still gets me there the fastest. I wish the scroll bar/tab was always there so I could move the score quickly across. Is there a way to turn on scroll tabs within the score?
In reply to 2. Hold shift and scroll. by xavierjazz
OK, thanks to your answer I found that if I do hold down the Shift key and scroll with the mouse wheel, I can move the score to the right one page at a time. It is quite helpful if I am searching for a set of notes on a bar and don't know where they are. If I do sort of know where they are, I find clicking the approximate page in the Navigator still gets me there the fastest. I wish the scroll bar/tab was always there so I could move the score quickly across. Is there a way to turn on scroll tabs within the score?
In reply to Marc: Thanks for your… by fsgregs
As mentioned, shift+scroll moves horizontally. Is this a physical mouse, or a touchpad, or something else? Many touchpads support two finger swipe either vertically or horizontally, but all should support Shift+swipe for horizontal scrolling. Similarly, some physical mice have scroll wheels that can be moved sideways like a joystick. None of this is unique to MuseScore - it's built into your mouse, touchpad, and/or computer, and common across all programs.
Find also lets you just to a specific page (like "p9"). Or a rehearsal letter just by entering the letter. So if you know the approximate location, it's fantastic and again, takes no space. And then scroll wheel if you find you haven't gone far enough, or have gone two far. Or just use scroll wheel - unless you score is close to a hundred pages long, it should be super fast to scroll anywhere you want.
In reply to As mentioned, shift+scroll… by Marc Sabatella
[Ctrl + F] opens the Find menu but my default accepts all entry numbers as "measure" numbers. How do I get the Find option to look at my number (9) as page 9 and not Measure 9?
In reply to [Ctrl + F] opens the Find… by fsgregs
Enter p9 in the find text box.
See https://musescore.org/en/handbook/4/navigating-your-score#find for this and more clever things you can do with the Find function.
In reply to Enter p9 in the find text… by SteveBlower
Steve: Thanks. I got it now. It works fine.
In reply to Marc: Thanks for your… by fsgregs
Ctrl + PgUp/PgDown will jumps through whole pages
You wrote:
I have seen no "scroll bars" on the score. If they exist, I must have them turned off. How do I turn them on?
Sroll bars appear at the right side (for vertical scroll) or bottom (for horizontal scroll) when needed.
![Scroll_bar.png]( "Scroll_bar.png")
For example:
If a one-page score is completely visible no scroll bars will appear because no part of the page is hidden; but if the top (or bottom) is not visible, then the right-side scroll bar will appear when the mouse cursor moves rightmost of the score display area:
For scores of multiple pages, the bottom scroll bar should be accessible because some pages normally fall out of view.
To see scroll bars in action...
Open a one-page score and zoom out to fit the entire page. Click on an empty spot in the middle of the page and drag that page up/down and side-to-side (so parts of the page fall out of view) and observe the behavior of the scroll bars. That's the area where you would click and drag.
In reply to You wrote: I have seen no … by Jm6stringer
OK, I must have my scroll bars turned off or "hide" by default. For example, here is a screenshot of a 27 page score. Notice that there are no scroll bars visible. Now, if I click near the bottom of a page, the scroll bar will lightly appear and I can use it to move the score quickly. Is there a menu allowing me to make my scroll bars visible all the time?
![Clipboard13.jpg]()
In reply to OK, I must have my scroll… by fsgregs
There is no need to waste space by showing them all the time - the whole point here is to save space. The scroll bars appear when you hover over them they shouldn't disa[[pear unless you move your mouse away again. But also as explained, you don't need those either - mouse scroll wheel or equivalent touch gesture doesn't require visible scroll bars, it works perfectly without them, in MU3 as well as MU4. In most cases that's the most efficient (both in terms of speed and space required) way of navigating.