More info is needed, e.g. what version exactly (look in the Help => About menu and copy the version number to clipboard, and attach here)? In what score (attach it or explain at least a little more about it)? How do you try (double click on the text or right click on the staff and change in the Staff Properties dialog)? Also, what is the workaround? How can you change the instrument name?
I'm guessing OP tried right or double clicking the name itself, that indeed is no longer supported. Instead, right-click the staff and use staff properties.
Why is that no longer supported? Sure, double-clicking to edit the text (an excellent time-saving improvement that is so intuitive you wonder why it wasn't that way from the beginning) was only introduced a few versions ago—but right-clicking the instrument name has been the workflow from very early on, if not the beginning. I'd call this a regression.
I'm just speculating, but maybe it was removed because there were too many bugs associated with being able to select the instrument name and then trying to edit other properties that are not editable. Anyhow, indeed a regression, but perhaps one by design. Or maybe it happened by accident as part of the big layout changes.
FWIW, I don't think right-clicking the instrument worked in 1.0 either, I seem to recall it being added sometime after I start using MuseScore. But I could be wrong.
Of course it is a regression in the ordinary use of the program. Others have already written (in fact, this issue is a duplicate of #277663: Instrument name is not selectable and #279462: Cannot edit instrument with double click) and probably all others strongly believe it.
So, currently, the behavior is:
Right-click (eg for select and hide all similar elements): nothing
Left-click to select individually: nothing
Double-click to edit: nothing
Total: nothing
When they will discover this, the users will be bump their head against the walls, and a wave of protest will arrive and will tarnish the general feeling of this new 3.0 (for my part, I am just as disconcerted by the abandonment of the Shift + drag - other major intuitive feature - to increase the distance between staves)
For the moment, if we can not edit the name (surely for very good reasons, Werner knows more than any other, he has already explain a bit in another occasion I think - but it's disabling in the use of the program), could we at least restore the ability to hide the names individually and by selection?
For example, for edit mid files, and after adding new instrument in TAB staff/and copy-paste: to clear/edit the "mess" of voices/ties when importing this files (personal recipe, but very effective!)
And each time, it adds me the name of instrument (which I do not want, which embarrasses me for the layout). And so, I always delete these instrument names.
Right, but I was trying to understand if there was a specific case for which simply deleting the name in staff properties was not sufficient. In other words, is there something you need to be done that cannot be done any more, or just something that takes a coupe of extra clicks. To me that is the difference between "must.be fixed" and "would be nice to have".
It's necessary to hide the instrument name if you are going to use staff text to "correct" the name of the staff if you are using hidden staves. A common use is related to four horns on 2 staves and the number of horns being played at time varies from system to system.
The idea being, that you still need to reserve the space for the name, and that's why simply deleting it doesn't work?
Again, just trying to understand what is actually being lost. An actual example score would help.
Personally, I'd like to see this added back too and would be willing to do the work, but figure we'll need to make the strongest argument we can for why it is important.
In my specific example, the idea is that the short part name would be applicable more often than not, but there are places where only some of the horns are playing and the instrument name shows this.
In a less complex example, when you are notating both oboes (in a Classical Orchestra) on one staff and only one Oboe is playing, it is common to change the name from "Oboes" to "Oboe I" for the affected staves. With the ability to extract both oboe parts from one staff, this is more important than in previous version. It's easy to hide the extraneous "Oboe I" text that's not needed in the Oboe II part.
"To me that is the difference between "must.be fixed" and "would be nice to have"."
Must be fixed of course. Everything absolutely can be hidden currently in the program (staves, measures, lines, time sig, key sig, barlines, and so on), and the only thing that would be no more, would be instrument names? Totally inconsistent with everything else.
This reinstates right-click only. Actually making it possible to change properties of individual generated instrument names - to make one invisible for just one system, for example - is an entirely separate thing, worth submitting as a separate issue.
Comments
More info is needed, e.g. what version exactly (look in the Help => About menu and copy the version number to clipboard, and attach here)? In what score (attach it or explain at least a little more about it)? How do you try (double click on the text or right click on the staff and change in the Staff Properties dialog)? Also, what is the workaround? How can you change the instrument name?
I'm guessing OP tried right or double clicking the name itself, that indeed is no longer supported. Instead, right-click the staff and use staff properties.
Why is that no longer supported? Sure, double-clicking to edit the text (an excellent time-saving improvement that is so intuitive you wonder why it wasn't that way from the beginning) was only introduced a few versions ago—but right-clicking the instrument name has been the workflow from very early on, if not the beginning. I'd call this a regression.
I'm just speculating, but maybe it was removed because there were too many bugs associated with being able to select the instrument name and then trying to edit other properties that are not editable. Anyhow, indeed a regression, but perhaps one by design. Or maybe it happened by accident as part of the big layout changes.
FWIW, I don't think right-clicking the instrument worked in 1.0 either, I seem to recall it being added sometime after I start using MuseScore. But I could be wrong.
In reply to (No subject) by Marc Sabatella
The feature was added after 2.0.3. It initially had some minor flaws, but they seemed to be fixed rather easily.
Of course it is a regression in the ordinary use of the program. Others have already written (in fact, this issue is a duplicate of #277663: Instrument name is not selectable and #279462: Cannot edit instrument with double click) and probably all others strongly believe it.
So, currently, the behavior is:
Right-click (eg for select and hide all similar elements): nothing
Left-click to select individually: nothing
Double-click to edit: nothing
Total: nothing
When they will discover this, the users will be bump their head against the walls, and a wave of protest will arrive and will tarnish the general feeling of this new 3.0 (for my part, I am just as disconcerted by the abandonment of the Shift + drag - other major intuitive feature - to increase the distance between staves)
For the moment, if we can not edit the name (surely for very good reasons, Werner knows more than any other, he has already explain a bit in another occasion I think - but it's disabling in the use of the program), could we at least restore the ability to hide the names individually and by selection?
In reply to (No subject) by Isaac Weiss
One more: #279906: Cannot select instrument in order to view staff properties
And to hide. (Use case permanent here!)
Can you explain the hiding use case?
In reply to Can you explain the hiding… by Marc Sabatella
For example, for edit mid files, and after adding new instrument in TAB staff/and copy-paste: to clear/edit the "mess" of voices/ties when importing this files (personal recipe, but very effective!)
And each time, it adds me the name of instrument (which I do not want, which embarrasses me for the layout). And so, I always delete these instrument names.
Right, but I was trying to understand if there was a specific case for which simply deleting the name in staff properties was not sufficient. In other words, is there something you need to be done that cannot be done any more, or just something that takes a coupe of extra clicks. To me that is the difference between "must.be fixed" and "would be nice to have".
In reply to Right, but I was trying to… by Marc Sabatella
It's necessary to hide the instrument name if you are going to use staff text to "correct" the name of the staff if you are using hidden staves. A common use is related to four horns on 2 staves and the number of horns being played at time varies from system to system.
The idea being, that you still need to reserve the space for the name, and that's why simply deleting it doesn't work?
Again, just trying to understand what is actually being lost. An actual example score would help.
Personally, I'd like to see this added back too and would be willing to do the work, but figure we'll need to make the strongest argument we can for why it is important.
In reply to The idea being, that you… by Marc Sabatella
In my specific example, the idea is that the short part name would be applicable more often than not, but there are places where only some of the horns are playing and the instrument name shows this.
In a less complex example, when you are notating both oboes (in a Classical Orchestra) on one staff and only one Oboe is playing, it is common to change the name from "Oboes" to "Oboe I" for the affected staves. With the ability to extract both oboe parts from one staff, this is more important than in previous version. It's easy to hide the extraneous "Oboe I" text that's not needed in the Oboe II part.
(Wild idea to throw out there: merge the entire Staff Properties dialog into the Inspector so everything shows up when you select an instrument name)
Again at #280236: Problem about changing the names of the instruments.
In reply to Again at #280236: Problem… by Isaac Weiss
"To me that is the difference between "must.be fixed" and "would be nice to have"."
Must be fixed of course. Everything absolutely can be hidden currently in the program (staves, measures, lines, time sig, key sig, barlines, and so on), and the only thing that would be no more, would be instrument names? Totally inconsistent with everything else.
Reply
Another one #277663: Instrument name is not selectable
For reference, Instrument right-click menu on 2.3.2 and 3.0b3 respectively (apologies for the large screenshots)
![instrument right-click 2.x.png]( "instrument right-click 2.x.png")
![instrument right-click 3.x.png]( "instrument right-click 3.x.png")
In reply to For reference, Instrument… by Riaan van Niekerk
Came up again #280736: [Feedback form] Changing instruments via right click
https://github.com/musescore/MuseScore/pull/4502
This reinstates right-click only. Actually making it possible to change properties of individual generated instrument names - to make one invisible for just one system, for example - is an entirely separate thing, worth submitting as a separate issue.
Fixed in branch master, commit 7fccb94c1c
fix #279814: right-click instrument name
Fixed in branch master, commit e34bd14a61
Merge pull request #4502 from MarcSabatella/279814-iname
fix #279814: right-click instrument name
Automatically closed -- issue fixed for 2 weeks with no activity.
Why did you have to change it ?!?!?!??
Why do you care 1 1/2 year later? That bug got fixed in 3.0.1, back then