This whole program needs redesigned. MuseScore3

• Jun 21, 2019 - 18:27

8th notes reverting to quarter notes. Sharps and flats not always consistent.
Too much automated assumptions. Add and 8th note and it always adds a second one.
I want to control exactly what happens. How do I shut off these program assumptions.

Comments

• Jun 21, 2019 - 18:45

This is my best guess. It's probably because you have "Hide empty staves" enabled. Previously enough staves were hidden above the trumpet, but now there are more.

Since the OP totally rewrote his rant, you can ignore this now nonsensical comment.

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• Jun 21, 2019 - 20:52

You didn't refer to the handbook, you insinuated I didn't bother to check it for the issue.

OK, do this, write a small sequence of quarter notes About four measures in 4/4 time.
Change the time to 6/8.

Then pick the first quarter note and change it to an 8th note.
When I tried this, the note changed to an 8th note and the program automatically
added a second connected 8th note. I had to rewrite the measure from scratch
to not have this happen.

The second thing it did was automatically extend a dotted quarter note over the measure bar
before I had a chance to delete a rest that the program had automatically entered.
Then I tried to delete that rest and the program would not allow the delete.

SO, as I said in my original comment, the program needs redesigned.

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• Jun 21, 2019 - 21:21

In order to change the duration of a note, you should not be in note input mode. As it is, you didn't change the duration, you added a new eighth note to replace the first half of the existing quarter note. And that's exactly what MuseScore did, leaving the rest of tat quarter note alone. If you wanted to change the duration of the uarter note rather than add a new note, the way to do that is to not be in note input mode. Select the note, click the eighth note icon or use the the shortcut, done.

Actually, it is possible to change durations in note input mdoe, using the Q & W commands to halve or double the duration of the current note. So, with the quarter note selected, Q would have done the trick as well.

As for deleting rests, no need to waste your time with that - that would leave the measure with too few beats, Instead, simply enter the notes you want directly on top of the rests you don't.

If you've mistakenly entered a note you don't want, simply Undo (Ctrl+Z - or backspace, while you're in note input mode) Then you can back the cursor up and enter the note at the location you actually meant.

Everything works quite smoothly once you understand how!

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• Jun 21, 2019 - 19:22

Learn to use the program. In 9999 out of 10000 cases it's doing what you told it to do. The other one is the occasional bug.

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• Jun 21, 2019 - 19:47

I love people in forums who accuse me of being stupid.
This program is full of redo issues and bugs.
I have been developing software for decades.
I know when something is stuck because of trying to build on previous versions instead
of starting fresh. I also know when features deliberately don't work well in free versions
so a developer can force you into the paid product.

I have read the manual. It needs a major redo too.

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• Jun 21, 2019 - 21:09

OK. You're experiencing several issues. Let's get structured to be able to address each one of them. So for every issue you have mentioned above, state the starting position (even better; attach a score), then tell use what you did; step-by-step and why the result you're getting isn't the result you expect.

Note that MuseScore only makes a few assumptions when editing/entering music:
1. Adhere to the time signature. If you're overwriting a whole rest with a quarter note, MuseScore will respell the remaining rest to keep the measure consistent.
2. Change only what is request and try to keep all else as much as possible as it was notated. The rest behavior of point 1 above is already an example. If you overwrite stuff, then MuseScore will assume you only want that change. It won't start shifting other notes forward or backwards in time unless you ask it to.
3. Keep everything at a mostly sensible default position. Only if that position leads to a collision, auto-placement kicks in to avoid it; usually in the vertical direction.

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• Jun 21, 2019 - 21:17

I shifted the time and was trying to change a few notes to match the new time. Most of the song is normal
quarter, half and whole notes with a few small sequences of eigth notes. I figured it would easier to just modify those few sections that rewrite the whole thing. WRONG. Not with this software the way it is currently designed. A time change SHOULD shift everything. Not just the affected user modified notes.

Otherwise, why allow time shifting.

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• Jun 21, 2019 - 21:56

There are many reasons to allow duration changes, so of them may also involve wanting to move subsequent notes as well. That's why MuseScore gives you both options. By default, we assume you don't want to move things. If you do want to move subsequent notes, then there is also a question of whether you want measure durations adjusted or not. Here again, MuseScore gi es you both choices. If you want to keep measures intact, simply cut and paste to move a selection earlier or later. If you want to grow either measure, use Insert mode; use Ctrl+Delete to delete.

There are other options still - it's incredibly powerful software, capable of doing pretty much whatever you might want - you just need to know how, because obviously one command won't do all those different things.

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• Jun 21, 2019 - 22:49

We allow setting a time signature at a given position, which indeed doesn't affect the notated notes at all.
Setting a time signature is not the same as time shifting.

We currently do sport a cut & paste as half/double. And I believe some different rhythm scaling is possible through the duration settings between cut and paste, but I'm unsure whether those made it out of experimental versions and into the stable release.

So yes, thinking you're using a non existing feature probably won't turn out as you expected. Then complaining about the manual because it told you that what you did isn't the feature you were hoping for can hardly count for calling the documentation bad.
After all, you stated it captured the actual behavior exactly.

I'm very interested in your proposals for either new/improved features such as time shifting and/or remarks on how to improve specific functions/documentation. With your backpack of experience, your feedback should be very valuable.

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• Jun 22, 2019 - 13:29

I really love race cars, never driven a car before, but I've drawn a lot of them on paper. I also have a lot of experience in building trucks.
I got into a car and put it in R (you know, for "race").

But it just drove backwards!
I then looked into the user manual and it even told me the R stood for "reverse"; Gah! The sheer pretense of that manual to actually describe what that function did and not what I wanted it to: Blasphemy!

That race car obviously needs a redesign from the ground up if they can't even get something so basic correct!

/end_of_crazy_comparison

In all seriousness though; if you rather run off screaming than actually respond to a genuine question for what exactly we could do to improve it becomes hard to take your remarks seriously.

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• Jun 22, 2019 - 13:37

The analogy is very well-crafted! It does seem as though this "marketing man" has taken his race car out of this track, though. In all seriousness, there is a more serious flip-side to this analogy, that real cars and trucks do not come with manuals (or they do and few read them), and expectations of "I know how this ought to work", i.e., the obsolescence of documentation, is supportable, especially with equipment whose misuse presents a danger to life and limb (this does not extend to aircraft, where you'd better read the manual). The expectation that things work as you expect, and they have no right to work differently, is a growing problem in the age of the obsolescence of books, and a horrible impediment to the possibility of design and evolution of usable things. Whether music editors should be in the class of things that you have to learn how to use by reading documentation, or things that ought work a certain way by expectation, is not as trivial an issue as we, or the OP, might think. I, personally, prefer well-engineered, documented tools that require learning how to use.

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• Jun 21, 2019 - 21:16

Just be the program doesn't work as you initially expected doesn't mean it needs to be redesigned - you simply need to learn how to work with it. After all, everyone has different expectations, so if you worked exactly the way you initially expected, this would likely be surprising to millions of others.

Anyhow, you should never have to re-enter an entire measure just to fix one note. If you're having trouble understanding how to accomplish something, it is best to attach your score, describe you want to do, what you tried, and what happened. Then we can show you how you actually should have done it

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• Jun 21, 2019 - 21:26

Well, the only way I can answer this is that I have been a PC Software specialist since the 1980's. I have made a career out of modifying and rewriting software that was not designed user friendly in the first place. Also, writing documentation and training users. Just because a product is written a certain way and all of you have learned to suffer with it, does not mean it should not be redesigned. With this product, the only way I see to do what I want to do, is start from scratch in the 6/8 time. Luckily that's not a lot of work. I had only done one voice in about 25 measures.

And for those of you curious, I'm trying to score the theme from The Music Man so I can MP3 it as a Christmas Present for a friend. It's a pretty complicated score and none of the versions I found on the Sheet Music search were close to what I want to do.

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• Jun 21, 2019 - 21:51

I get that due to your unfamiliarity with the features of MuseScore, the only way you personally might have been able to figure out how to fix it was to re-enter the measure. I can state with some confidence that there were almost certainly alternatives if you knew the software better. Again, if you attach a score and tell us more precisely what you are trying to do, we could have you up and running right away - probably within minutes. But if you'd rather spend that time arguing and not actually getting things done, that's fine, we're happy to oblige with that too :-)

BTW, MuseScore is open source, so you are welcome to apply your programming expertise here!

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• Jun 21, 2019 - 23:36

I assume you are not serious, but just in case you are not familiar with how open source works, it's about programmers volunteering their time and efforts to improve the software and make it available to all for free. Those of us who know the software well are actually quite happy with it, and we're equally happy to help - again, for free - others learn to use it as well.

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• Jun 22, 2019 - 06:16

Overall it's improved and better, current some bugs need to be fixed, almost all new UI and their functiions are disappointing--- they need redesigned and reimplemented --- one day.

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• Jun 22, 2019 - 15:29

I, for one, can't really figure out how a DAW works. I have a couple and every now and then get maybe a little further with it. I wouldn't dream of telling the developer that their program needs to be rewritten because I can't figure it out. Notation software is complicated. You can't just open it and dive in. I own Sibelius. The help forum for it is quite busy. In Sibelius, you can't just change the meter for parts you've already written without knowing how to do it and what to expect that you're going to have to fix. Same with key signature. Or any number of things that I wish might work easier of different. Oh well. I suspect that when Mr. Deleted writes a program, he expects it to be used a certain way. I hope I'm wrong, but I can't help but think that when someone says his program needs to be rewritten to work the way they think it should....well I'll bet his answer is something along the lines of "read the manual". I have toyed with MuseScore for several years in anticipation of the day when my older version of Sibelius no longer works. I can tell you that the latest version of MuseScore and the new soundfont are a massive step forward. Each of us thinks differently. What make perfect sense to one of us, might be rubbish to another. That's just the way it is. I can't tell you how many times I haven't found the answer to the exact problem I'm having with some program : )

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