Special symbol & Text style to master palette
Hello all. I've looked up to the forum but couldn't find my solution. I use some special symbols in my scores. In order to fix their places evertyime I add, I created text style style for the symbol and arranged offsets. And it works (I mean text style). I put this symbol to master palette (shift+click). However everytime I use this, the textsstyle of the symbol resets to headline or sth. If I change the text style of the symbol to the one I created it still works. All in all, I cannot save my symbol in a certain text style, or when it was added to master palette it ruins. What am I doing wrong?
Another question related to this, special characters (added with staff text or similar text boxes) are generally ignored by the notes. I mean if I put sth on the stave there will be no extra space for it to fit. Is there are anyway to prevent this threat of overlapping.
Thanks in advance
Comments
Added text styles are local to the score they are defined in, so they don't make it into the palette
And no, in 2.x there is nothing to prevent overlapping, but the next major version will do much better at this
While text styles are score-specific and hence are not be preserved across scores in the palette, you can instead use text properties and/or overrides to the formatting using the text toolbar or position using the Inspector, and these can be saved. Depends on the specifics. Feel free to share more details, perhaps a sample score, and we can provide better help.
In reply to While text styles are score… by Marc Sabatella
Hello again. Since you encouraged me to ask for more specific details, I'll do so :) In order not to do make all settings again and again, I created a read only document with my certain font preferences, header/footer settings etc and I use it as a template. It's much easier for me. Therefore, text styles can be score-specific no problem for me :) But I cannot put the special symbols to my palette with their properties since palettes are not score-specific. It saves settings for font, size etc. but not for positioning, offset etc.
As you see this is kind of a transcription work. I created special symbols with certain fonts and added them to the master palette. The numbers you see are line numbers. Positioning them altogether is problematic since the notes they are attached to have different positions. A and A' notes pushes numbers differently. Having the option to align those numbers/symbols with respect to staves as well as notes would be beneficial (putting stave alignment option may create horizontal alignment problem too, but anyway).
Secondly, the special symbols you see on the score (the ones like barlines) are needed to be added there. They have similar but very different with barlines. I don't use normal barlines in these scores, instead, I have to use that special one. And I need more space for it because of overlapping/touching problem. Even if I arrange all of them manually, some minor changes may ruin everyhing. That's why I want to use standardised option as much as possible. Positioning problem may also seem like an obsesive wish, but it's not. This work gonna be an academic study, book or sth. I have put certain rules, standards and layout to be consistent with my work. There will be hundreds of scores.
In reply to Hello again. Since you… by gudsur
Thanks for the additional information and image, it helps. Actually, it turns out you can do most of what you want here. As I mentioned before, text style settings don't get transferred to the palette, nor do manual adjustments made in the Inspector, but text properties do. So if you have text you want to always appear at a certain position, simply create it as ordinary staff text (or whatever other type of text seems most appropriate) then right click, Text Properties, and set the offsets and other attributes however you like. Then copy this version into the palette and all works as expected.
As for the barlines, I'm guessing that's what those curves lines that look like eighth note flags are? You can actually handle those fairly automatically as well. The trick is to first make sure the real barliens are consistent with them. So be sure to use the "split" and "join" commands in Edit / Measure as needed to make the measure lengths reflect what you want. BTW, you probably also want to right click the staff and turn off the display of time signatures *unless you want to keep them). Anyhow, once the barlines are where you want them, then hide them, but also use the settings in Style / General / Measure to add additional space before or after them score-wide. Now attach your symbol to the beginning of the measure and it will already have the space it needs, and if your symbol is designed well, it will also be positioned correctly. If not, no matter, just wait until you've entered them all then use Select / All Similar Elements and the Inspector to position them all at once. Or just enter these symbols as text as well, then you can set the default position using Text Properties.
If you need further help, attaching an actual sample score rather than just a picture would allow us to advise better.
In reply to Thanks for the additional… by Marc Sabatella
"text style settings don't get transferred to the palette...but text properties do"
Actually several of them such a italics, bold and underline act as a toggle. If you set the property on a staff text element to italics and save it to a palette, then have a score where the default staff text is italics, the text will be seen as non-italic. The italic in this case will toggle off.
In reply to "text style settings don't… by mike320
Interesting, that doesn't sound like it should be the case. Can you file a bug report with precise steps to reproduce?
In reply to Interesting, that doesn't… by Marc Sabatella
I consider it a feature. Items that are normally italicized when the main text is not, becomes plain text when the main text is italicized. This is consistent with what I have seen in published scores.
In reply to Thanks for the additional… by Marc Sabatella
Hello again. Thanks for your suggestions. I've been trying out all these. I found sth about these issues. For the special symbols that I wanted to add, I installed a special font, then I created a staff text and wrote what I needed within the font's abilities let's say (i.e. with a normal font, if you type letters you will get letters but with this font you get symbols etc.). I arranged offset, size and other properties from "text properties" menu and added it to the palette. Although size and other properties saved, offsets were not. Furthermore, sometimes I've encountered with the problem of clicking and dragging because when I tried to click to drag the symbol, it didn't select it. Since the font is not ordinary, symbols appear but they are not in the text box's frame, sometimes they are out of the frame. In order to select the symbol you have click whereabouts and if you are luck you can find the original spot of the textbox and achieve to select the symbol. On the other hand, if I create a staff text or some other text box, change the font to my font and add the symbol from symbols menu (not by typing), I succeeded to select the symbol as I clicked it and all my size, italic, offset properties were saved as I put it into the palette. I don't know what is the reason of it, seems and sounds ridiculous but that's the situation.
Another problem I've encountered is "join measures" (very useful feature btw, I didn't use it before). I put time signature with some beam preferences then I wrote notes with some marks and ornamentations. However, when I tried to join measures, all my beam properties were reset, most of the ornamentations were gone. Resetting the beam preferences is understandable since the time signature does not hold anymore, but losing the ornamentations and symbols, having lots of 8th notes beamed unintentionally, made me unhappy :)
And, if I go back to the offset problem, since ruler or some other alignment tool is missing, aligning these symbols correctly is really hard. I think musescore takes the notehead or sth as a reference point for text and symbol offset properties, putting same offset numbers acts differently for different notes (as expected). If the symbol is next to the note it works, however if I put it above of below the note this problem occurs.
As a feature request I'm planning to ask for alignment/grid options (actually it was asked for years ago, I searched in the forum and what will be done I couldn't find), and more advanced text box. These are very essential in my opinion. But still, musescore is the best among others :)
In reply to Hello again. Thanks for your… by gudsur
I'm sorry you are still experiencing difficulty. Again, it would really help if you attached the score itself, then we could advise better. Offsets really do get saved if you do them from Text Properties - I tested this myself and it works as expected. And staff text is aligned to the staff, not the notes, so alignment should not be an issue - everything should already be aligned. Without seeing your actual score, it will be difficult to tell what is going wrong, but again, this really should work, and I've love to help you get it working.
For join measures, indeed, you would want to do that instead of trying to fool time signature properties into doing what you want. If you've already messed with time signature properties for this particular score, that is indeed work you might need to redo, but in the future, you should be able to get it right to begin with, so no rework will be needed. Still, I'm not sure what you mean about losing ornaments and symbols - that should not happen. Again, if you post your score and the precise steps to reproduce the problem you are seeing, we can advise better.