Changing dynamics font size makes it stop working

• May 22, 2018 - 21:49

Whenever I decrease the font size of any dynamic marking, it no longer has an effect on the note. Right now my workaround is to change the font size and then make a separate invisible dynamic marking at the default font size, but if there's an easier way to fix this I'd love to know!!

Thanks!

Comments

• May 22, 2018 - 22:58

If you look in the inspector (press F8 to toggle it) you will see that you are changing the velocity to 0, which means "do not change." In my tests in 2.1, which is what you use, the velocity did not change. You are apparently doing something extra that changes the velocity. BTW, change the velocity to the same as in the unaltered dynamics and there is no workaround needed.

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• May 23, 2018 - 00:03

@jasonleonhard...
When you open your "dynamics_test" attachment, you will notice that the first measure's dynamics are as yet unchanged, and work normally.

So, using that first measure:
If you click on the 'p' dynamic, the Inspector shows 40 for the velocity, yes?
If you click on the 'f' dynamic, the Inspector shows 96 for the velocity, yes?

Now...
Decrease the 'f''s font as you normally do and then immediately check what the Inspector shows for the velocity.
It should remain 96, yes?

Also, you wrote: Whenever I decrease the font size of any dynamic marking, it no longer has an effect on the note.
What happens when you increase the font size? Same thing?

Have you updated to MuseScore version 2.2.1?

Regards.

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• May 23, 2018 - 08:47

Indeed as soon as you edit a dynamic ...

By "edit" we are talking about decreasing the font size, yes?

So...
In the first measure of "dynamics_test.mscz" (as posted above), when you click on the f dynamic (font size is initially 12), the Inspector shows 96 for the velocity.
Then immediately after decreasing the font size to 9, the velocity shown in the Inspector changes to zero?

I cannot replicate.

Regards.
OS: Windows , Arch.: x86_64, MuseScore version (32-bit): 2.2.1, revision: 51b8386

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• May 23, 2018 - 10:44

...not with the attached score's existing dynamics though...
So the OP's attached score's first measure behaves correctly, then, when you decrease the existing f dynamic's font size to 9?
In other words: you cannot replicate by decreasing the first measure's font - the one that says "Default size,
working normally".

With a 'brand new' score, this is what I get:

Dynamics.png

...and playback is fine.
Regards.

Attachment Size
Dynamics.mscz 2.97 KB

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• May 23, 2018 - 11:18

OK, add a dynamic, double-click it, Ctrl+A, change size in the bottom line text editor
That's exactly how I created measure 3 in my attachment, "Dynamics.mscz". It plays back perfectly.

When you write: "check inspector", you mean click the dynamic, then check 'Dynamic' in the Inspector.
If that's the case, everythying is fine. No problem.

(Even adding a dynamic to an empty measure does not show a velocity change when decreasing the font size.)
Regards.

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• May 23, 2018 - 15:47

It seems some of us get a velocity change and some of us don't. I'm testing on both 2.1 and 2.2.1 with no affect on the velocity. I tried escaping from the dynamic and clicking outside the dynamic to exit edit mode and still get a consistent velocity.

Since can't be a MuseScore issue per se, it must either be an OS or keyboard issue. I have an American QWERTY keyboard on windows 10.

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• May 23, 2018 - 20:40

Windows laptops have special function keys that allow the same signals from the numeric pad to be sent to the program so technically they do. The keys are normally configured so someone used to using a numeric keypad can use those keys as though they actually are a numeric key pad.

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• May 23, 2018 - 20:56

I can't reproduce any sort of problem here - for me, using the toolbar to change size of a dynamic works just fine - but I can imagine what might be happening. For those people experiencing the problem - is it only when using the toolbar to change the size? What if you right click a dynamic and use either Text Properties (to change just that dynamic) or Text Style (to change them all)?

If the latter works, then I'm guessing it is the (invisible) markup placed within the text to accomplish the size change when using the toolbar that is confusing the code that tries to recognize the dynamic.

In any case, I think the short answer here is - don't use the toolbar to change dynamic size.

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• May 23, 2018 - 21:07

I don't think using the toolbar is the issue. All of my testing and attempting to reproduce the problem has been with the toolbar. I suspect that somehow there is an extra message being sent to the inspector when the edit mode is being exited. Perhaps Jojo could explain step by step how he reproduced the problem. Perhaps us others have missed something.

Here's one way I have tried it:
Insert dynamic by selecting note and double clicking the dynamic
Double click the dynamic to enter edit mode
press ctrl+a to select the entire dynamic
click the arrows on the toolbar to reduce the font size to 9
press Esc twice (one to accept the font size, once to exit edit mode).

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• May 23, 2018 - 21:31

As I said, it's still a bit mysterious that it only seems to affect some people - not even by OS, since I'm on Windows and I can't reproduce but others can. But I think Jojo has now confirmed the issue is unique to the toolbar. And indeed, I can see the effect when examining the provided file. The ordinary "f" dynamic in the first bar has the following MSCX code:

        <Dynamic>
          <subtype>f</subtype>
          <velocity>96</velocity>
          </Dynamic>

whereas the one that doesn't work has the following:

        <Dynamic>
          <subtype>other-dynamics</subtype>
          <text><font size="9"/><sym>dynamicForte</sym></text>
          </Dynamic>

It's hard to say for sure, but I think that use of the toolbar is what generated the marked up text, and this in turn seems to have messed up the "subtype" which otherwise is determined from the text, as well as the loss of the velocity information, which is the actual problem here.

Again, though, I can't reproduce this - even taking the given file, double-clicking the "f" in the first measure, Ctrl+A to select all, and then changing the size in the toolbar, all works as expected. If I then save the file, I get the same marked up "text", and the "subtype" does indeed change to "other dynamics", but the "velocity" tag remains set to 96.

BTW, just discovered the "html" markup tag, finally a good way to display XML code!

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