fretboard diagrams, making them

• Nov 1, 2018 - 18:44

Hi, I want to create new fretboard diagrams for chords that are not in program. For instance, there is no G#m and I would like to make one that I can then insert into a piece. How do I do that?
Beth

Comments

• Nov 2, 2018 - 05:21

OK, thanks, I have edited a fretboard diagram into another chord and it is in the piece, but I can't figure out how to get it into the fretboard diagram palette. I created a workspace, hit "enable editing", but I can't Copy and Paste the new diagram into the palette and can't drag it to it because it just disappears under it and goes to fretboard diagram heaven, never to be seen again.

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• Nov 2, 2018 - 05:39

Got it. And is there a way to get the name of the chord in there, too? All the other chords have their name come up if I hover the cursor above the diagram. But this new one I just put in does not do that: It has no name. If I try to put the name in with Ctrl and Shift, it jumps to the next empty spot and puts in an "m".

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• Nov 2, 2018 - 17:22

How do I tell which one I have? This one calls itself "MuseScore-en online handbook". It has no Index at all, just an Appendix and Glossary and info about keystroke commands. I am after something that lists, say, "Measures", and then details every sort of thing about measures, like "Measures, stretching, see page whatever", "Measures, compressing, page whatever", "Measures, adding/removing notes, page...", that sort of detail.

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• Nov 2, 2018 - 21:28

It is an actual Index I am wanting. This setup makes one troll through pages, checking if the use of, say, the word "measure" is the one I want. It would not match up with "fretboard diagram", a feature of the program. And Index, an Index, my kingdom for an Index!

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• Nov 2, 2018 - 22:57

Earlier you wrote:
The Table of contents just isn't specific enough.
Then later:
This setup makes one troll through pages, checking if the use of, say, the word "measure" is the one I want. It would not match up with "fretboard diagram", a feature of the program.

Of course... as you say, "measure" would not match up with 'fretboard diagram', nor should it (IMHO).

Therefore, for 'fretboard diagrams', simply go to:
https://musescore.org/en/handbook
scroll down to 'Advanced topics' and click on 'Fretboard diagrams'.
Done. 😂

No "index" with "page numbers" is needed:
Traditional_Index.png
(Unless I misunderstand.)

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• Nov 2, 2018 - 22:11

I don't have an easy way to post that, but I can tell you that if you look under "fretboard diagrams", you'll see it says 227-231 and then a sublisting for "formatting 231". If you look under "measures" you see 37, 121-136, 330, and then sublistings with page numbers for adding, barlines, deleting, joining, multimeasure rests, numbers, and splitting.

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• Nov 2, 2018 - 18:18

You wrote:
I am after something that lists, say, "Measures", and then details every sort of thing about measures, like "Measures, stretching, see page whatever", "Measures, compressing, page whatever", "Measures, adding/removing notes, page...", that sort of detail.

Handbook.png

....which is why I prefer this online Handbook (https://musescore.org/en/handbook)
For instance, here's the 'Measures' page illustrated above:
https://musescore.org/en/handbook/measure-operations

Plus, as Shoichi mentions, the online version is more up to date... although the pdf download gets updated daily.

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• Nov 2, 2018 - 22:46

I'm working on an index (or glossary) that will hopefully be useful for the multi-language environment found in MuseScore. It will have two links in each entry - one that goes to the handbook explanation of how to use it and a link that will go to an online explanation for further explanation. The way I hope this will be useful for multi-language development is that users from other countries will have both the English and their native language of the word so they can use the English version if needed and to better understand discussions in the forum. In the English version it will have the American word and if necessary other English speaking words like:

Measure (GB - Bar) Measure External link

or something similar. It will also have pictures, when possible, to help those who have no idea what word to use. There will be a note for translators to use their language's word and to also keep the English word for cross-reference. I hope the translators who don't want to translate the entire manual will at least translate the glossary to make it easier for their fellow countrymen. I won't deploy this before version 3.0 is released since the handbook will undergo considerable change then.

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• Nov 4, 2018 - 23:28

This sounds like a great idea! As we move forward with updating the Handbook for 3.0, I look foreard to working with you on this :-)

Two other things to keep in mind perhaps - the "context help" already present in 2.0 (if little-known and under-used) where you can press F1 while hovering over an element, and the new "tours" facility just added to 3.0 builds from Joshua Bonn's GSoC work. Not sure what relevance this will have exactly, but let's keep it in mind and see if there is some way to tie all of this together where it makes sense!

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• Nov 5, 2018 - 00:06

I wasn't even aware of the context F1 so I tested it. It seems to work most of the time. I placed my cursor above a trill line and got a useless Help page with no links on it at all. I think this feature should definitely be mentioned in the introductory tour. There should also be a page from the main Table of Contents in the handbook.

As for the tours, I will be more than happy to help develop tours once the instructions are detailed somewhere. I gave little notice to this project when it was being worked on and was only exposed to it when I started running alpha 2.

As for the glossary, my main problem is inserting a picture. The only way I've see to do it so far is to make sure the picture is the perfect size and then enter it into the code. There has to be an easier way. It would be ideal if you could enter a picture, whose size is automatically adjusted to the proper size, allowing 2 or 3 lines of text to the right of it.

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• Nov 5, 2018 - 03:53

My hope is to also expose the context help via the Help menu - that's a common enough approach in other programs. So Help / Context Help would turn the cursor into a question mark (there is a standard icon for this) and clicking somewhere would then have the same effect as hover / F1 currently (and would also revert to the normal cursor). And yes, hopefully we can fill these out more.

I also hope to be organizing something with respect to the tours. There is at least some documentation now, see https://musescore.org/en/node/274365. But actually, my concern is that we end up with too many of these and they just interrupt and annoy people, so I think it will be important to be plan ahead and be selective. The tour code was only just merged recently, so work on developing the content is only just now getting underway.

For the glossary and images, here again we probably need a good strategy before getting too far ahead, mostly in this case about making sure the formatting really makes sense. Ideally what you want can be achieved through CSS within the current framework, but if necessary hopefully some changes could be made to the Handbook structure to facilitate this.

My point in mentioning context help and tours wasn't so much to suggest you turn your attention to working on them specifically, but to thing about how they might fit into the big picture along with a visual glossary. For instance, the list of links you would attach to the image could presumably be the same as the list the context help uses. So in theory your visual glossary could be nothing but pictures, and clicking on one would just take you to the same page as the corresponding context help, where the links themselves live. Or, if the links show up with the pictures, this could all be driven from the same database / tagging scheme used to build the context help pages.

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• Nov 5, 2018 - 04:24

I think the simplicity of the current glossary should be maintained. It gives a very brief explanation of most term in it and it serves a valuable purpose. I learned a lot from it when I first started using MuseScore and used to refer to it more often while I was learning the British terms. Pictures, will at times be helpful for those who do not know musical or MuseScore terms.

It's obvious from watching the forums that there are a lot of people using MuseScore and learning about music by doing so. The links could help these users find information more efficiently. I do plan to make a lot of the external links to Wikipedia since there will never be copyright issues and there are often links to other languages on the pages.

In the forums, I don't mind answering the same questions repeatedly, but I would like resources to be available to make it easier on new users. The questions we get should mostly have answers that involve putting several pieces of information together rather than needing nothing more than a link to the handbook. I realize that we get a lot of questions the way we do because the younger generation doesn't read manuals. They ask someone who explains it to them. They don't realize the complexities of writing music and the time that is necessary to learn how to use the program. Perhaps pictures will be more helpful to them.

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