Unregistered PDF download of scores by Pro users on musescore.com

• Jul 31, 2016 - 09:49

Looking at a score uploaded to musescore.com by a Pro user, as far as I can see, unregistered users can use Pro features like mixer and loop for this piece, but they can't download PDFs. Why is that?

Musescore.com looks like it could be the ideal hassle free platform for sharing scores with co-musicians in the preparation of concerts. It seems to me the following features are lacking in that regard (I'd love to be corrected if the Pro account offers options for some of those features - I'm currently not Pro):

  • Especially when creating music for a larger number of musicians, ever changing groups of musicians or kids, I don't want to force everybody to create a musescore.com (or Facebook) account before they can download PDFs.
  • Musicians should be able to just download a PDF of their part instead of the full score and all parts in combination.
  • Like on Youtube, it should be possible to make scores public, private and unlisted - it seems there is no "unlisted" on musescore.com right now. Edit: Already possible with secret links.

At the moment, musescore.com is great for giving people an impression of how the piece sounds like. Looping, changing playback speed and muting instruments can even make it useful for practising. But for giving everybody access to the sheet music they need without causing them hassle, I'd currently rather upload PDFs somewhere else than going Pro. That's a pity!

For me, musescore.com is one unique "selling point" of MuseScore. I'd love to see it evolve in a way that makes it more useful for the mentioned purpose.

Comments

• Jul 31, 2016 - 12:21

I can download PDF and am not a Pro user (of MuseScore.com). I do have an account on it though, but even without being logged on I can download the PDFs, with and without parts.

And if someroner wants just a single part, either just print the correspondingh Pagers out of tzhe PDF or instrall MuseScore and printz/Export therm from there.

What is 'unlisted' supposed to be?

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• Jul 31, 2016 - 14:33

I am guessing that he means 'unlisted' the way You Tube allows users to upload a score and set it so that it can only be seen by someone who already has the link to it. IOW, it won't turn up on a search nor will it appear in the public list of the user's scores.

I have only recently learned of the 'secret link' share-tool on MuseScore.com. If I understand it correctly, that seems to address the OPs 'unlisted' question.

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• Jul 31, 2016 - 20:02

Are you sure you can download a PDF, e.g. from this link when you are not logged in? It directs me to a login page.

There are workarounds for everything, but it's always good to improve the "user experience". I want the players I need to share music with to have a great, hassle free experience. It's also less hassle for me because I don't have to instruct anyone (especially less computer savvy people) and I won't have to deal with complaints or requests to either send the parts as e-mail attachments or upload them somewhere else.

As I wrote, requiring people to install MuseScore just for printing parts is not an option for multiple reasons. (And by the way, downloading the MuseScore files also requires an account.)

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• Jul 31, 2016 - 20:25

Not sure what's happening with your system, but I logged out and tried to download a score without creating an account, and there was no problem. I also tried the same thing on a computer which does not even have MuseScore installed, and again, there was no problem downloading.

If all your collaborators need is a printed part, they should be able to download PDF scores and parts from this menu:

download choices.png

If that menu isn't appearing on your screen when you click on download--or if nothing happens when you click on download--your browser might not be fully supported by the software. I have an older machine which still runs XP and IE8; Musescore.com pages will come up on that system, but none of the active scripts on the pages function.

------------------

E.T.A.: The website probably redirects you to a log-in page because it recognises your IP address and computer via a cookie.

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• Aug 1, 2016 - 08:33

Whether MuseScore is installed or not has nothing to do with whether you're able to download anything from the web page.

Also the cookie suspicion does not convince me as I tried from other computers/fresh user accounts where I never before logged in to musescore.com and have no browser add-ons installed either.

Your screenshot suggests to me that you might not have tried *actually* downloading a PDF. I as well can see all the menu items of the download menu when I'm not logged in, but when actually clicking the PDF menu item, that's when I am redirected to a login page.

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• Aug 1, 2016 - 07:43

Hi Thomas, thank you for sharing feedback. We'll take them into consideration as we further shape the MuseScore platform and the MuseScore Pro offer. I'll come back to you as soon as we have something ready to test.

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• Aug 10, 2017 - 12:05

Hi, I'd just like to note that I would also appreciate being able to download scores, PDFs, etc. without having to be logged in.

In fact (having seen the download menus like Recorder485, above), I assumed that it already allowed this, and an important part of my use case expects it.
(We're using musescore to host and play fragments of music in an online music analysis course, and the downloads would allow students to experiment with the scores following the theories under discussion.)

We're now trying to figure out how to work around this limitation, and avoid all our students having to create an account. The first thought was to create an account to be shared amongst them all, but presumably this would not be allowed (or wise for my group's liability) under the T&Cs.

It'd be great to hear if any progress has been made in enabling this.

Cheers!

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• Aug 10, 2017 - 22:59

MuseScore supports multiple users simultaneously logged into a single account, unless that has changed recently. My company maintains a private group for all the associate editors and proofreaders working on our scores worldwide; they all use the same account to log-in and as that account is a 'member' of the private group, it gives them access to our scores (which are invisible to the general public).

[Edited to delete my second comment, which was mistakenly directed at a different poster (from last year). The new forum format is a bit confusing....]

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• Aug 11, 2017 - 01:18

Oh, no! You cannot be serious! Sure enough, though, I just tried and couldn't download my public scores without being logged in. That's inexcusable. This is supposed to be a platform for easily previewing and sharing scores. I had just setup a pro account for a church worship committee for congregations and individual members to browse, hear, and download scores. There's no way I can use this if everyone who wants to get a score needs to have an account. Like the OP, I'll absolutely just end up going back to a wiki to distribute scores if this isn't fixed in the next couple weeks.

Apologies for the rant. Musescore generally does tremendous work, but this is just such an obvious mistake that I'm stunned.

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• Aug 11, 2017 - 15:50

I do not think so!

Automated robots, thieving sites using automatic downloads, spoofed internet exploiters, absorb all bandwith.

Sign-in or Login is a very simple process. You can do it in seconds with your existing Face or Google account.

Or: if you are in an organization, use a common account.

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