UI and Scores Won't Be The Same On Upgrades
Every time I upgrade MS, ie. from MS 2 to MS 3, my scores look terrible upon loading (see attached pictures) whether I choose to "reset" or not. This means I must re-arrange all my scores, and a lot of things can't be moved, for instance, in my attached score, setting all Voltas "y" position to move them down is not possible (Please don't tell me to pull them down one by one manually!)
The UI also changes making me to learn to do the exact same thing all over again. For example, to transpose, instead of Notes - Transpose, now I have to go Tools - Transpose! This makes me change all of my macro routines that I created (in this case, I must change the transpose macro from NT to TT.)
To these problems, I suggest that MS should make future versions better, but don't change UI and score layout settings. One way to change UI is to make all menus and right-click menus customizable!
| Attachment | Size |
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| hieu dao -quang minh hai11.mscz | 33.36 KB |
| hd-in-ms2.jpg | 318.82 KB |
| hd-in-ms3.jpg | 327.92 KB |
Comments
UI changing between releases is a fact of life and it'll happen time and time again.
Layout changes are the main reason why this is a major version number change.
You can have MuseScore1(.2), 2(.3.2) and 3(.2.3) installed and running on the same machine.
For smaller changes to 'downrev' scores it is usually much easier to do those with the version it got last saved with (or the last minor version update to that)
The easiest issue to address first: we don't move items between menus without good reason, because we know existing users are adversely affected. But. we also need to consider new users, and think about where they are going to look for something if they don't already know where it was in an older release.
As for layout changes, as mentioned, we try to limit major improvements like this to "major " release, because we realize that scores that make heavy use of manual adjustments and thus rely on the quirks and limitations of the layout in previous releases will look different with the new improved default layout. And, you 8disd* say you want MuseScore to get better - which means, among other things, making some of the tremendous improvements we made to default layout.
That said, it's actually very easy in most cases to fix the resulting issues. for instance, in your example, you for wahtever reason made the choice in MuseScore 2 to have the volta go right through the chord symbols. Not sure why you'd do thaty, but it's true that MuseScore by default tries to avoid these sort of collisions. if you want to allow it for voltas, set the "minimum distance" for one of them to a large negative value then hit the "S" (set as style) button and the rest will follow. Same for chord symbols. You r original score is pactically unreadable to me in MuseScore 2 because of all the collisions, and looks much better in MuseScore 3, but at the price of needing more space.
So, just a few seconds updating style settings to work better with the improved layout defaults and your score can be looking as it did before, or, with just a little more effort, far better still (by finding the right balance betwene saving space and avoiding collisions automatically).
To Jojo-Schmitz,
You see, changing UI on every version is no problem, only if it allows users to keep their accustomed UI and be able to switch back and forth, like Windows 10 and its Classic layout.
I know about keeping MS1,2,3 on the same PC. That's OK in a sense, but it's much better if they can be run within the latest version, again, like Windows 10 and its Classic layout.
'Downrev' scores within the later version is a good idea, but can you tell me how?
In reply to To Jojo-Schmitz, You see,… by howievincy
Every newer version of MuseScore can read scores produced with older versions, but changes in layout are to be expected then, therefore it is easier, esp. for smaller changes, to use the older MuseScore version for those
Marc Sabatella,
For the "easiest issue": You can change menus or the whole UI to whatever you like, but why do you change what existing users like? Why do you make them learn how to do the same old things a completely differently way but not necessarily better? Wouldn't it be BETTER if existing users get right to work after every upgrade without any learning to do old things all over again?
For the "layout changes": You can change them as much as you like, but why do you change mine? Why do you change what I like? Why can't you allow users to keep their accustomed layout and be able to switch back and forth, like Windows 10 and its Classic layout?
In my example, I want to see the whole song on ONE screen so I don't have to switch back and forth during a performance. But, for whatever reason, that's how users like me want to do. Again, you can shift Voltas (and all other elements) to whatever position you like, but why do you change what I like and what works for me? If you put a lot of your time into arranging a sheet like mine, wouldn't you get really mad if you load it into a new "better" version just to see a stupid sheet music like the hd-in-ms3.jpg?
In reply to Marc Sabatella, For the … by howievincy
With layout you mean the menu structure, not the score layout, don't you?
In reply to With layout you mean the… by Jojo-Schmitz
I mean both.
In reply to I mean both. by howievincy
And both change for good reasons: Better and improved score layout and more logical menu structure.
And being a much smaller development group than e.g Microsoft, we can't maintain the complete backwards compatibility as an additional option
In reply to And both change for good… by Jojo-Schmitz
If you made a sheet music, arranged, spaced out or in, condensed or spread across pages, positioned texts and chords, etc. (like hd-in-ms2.jpg) and after loading it in MS3 just to see a "terrible" looking sheet (like hd-in-ms3.jpg), you will get mad.
Think of this: If you spent a lot of time to prepare a few sheets in MS1, a few sheets in MS2, and a few sheets in MS3, then when MS4 comes out and after upgrading, 1) you load one sheet up, notice that it looks out of whack 2) not knowing what version it was in, you run MS3 and load it up and it look terrible 3) you run M2, looks awful 4) you now run MS1, ah that's it.
Do that for a few of your sheets. Do you see what I mean?
In reply to If you made a sheet music,… by howievincy
MuseScore 3 tells you directly on import downrev scores what version they stem from, 2 and 3 tell you via File > Score properties, MuseScore 1 can open and of the newer formats.
And the formatting mess is mostly caused by many manual adjustments in the older versions that are just not needed anymore in the newer and there even counter productive.
And yes, I know it can be painful having to convert scores to the newer versions, that is why I don't for just small changes like fixing a typo in lyrics or a wrong pitch, but use those old versions for that.
I do for example have a songbook of more than 400 scores created in MuseScore 1, which I just can't move to 2 or 3 without spending months on it, but I did use a bunch of dirty tricks there, those bite back now.
In reply to MuseScore 3 tells you… by Jojo-Schmitz
"MuseScore 3 tells you directly on import downrev scores what version they stem from, 2 and 3 tell you via File > Score properties, MuseScore 1 can open and of the newer formats." Yeah, do that for a few 100 scores.
"And the formatting mess is mostly caused by many manual adjustments in the older versions that are just not needed anymore in the newer and there even counter productive." Did you say the way I arrange my arrangements are not needed anymore and counter productive, and you go ahead making them unusable to me?
I think we better stop discussing this issue here.
In reply to "MuseScore 3 tells you… by howievincy
No problem: I ceep 1.x scores in a 1,x folder, 2.x score in a 2.x floder, 3.x score in a 3.x folder... and move them from one to the other once I'm ready for converting it.
As said down, the layout of your score is just bad, to me at least. Good that MuseScore 3 does a better job at its layout.
If you want to keep that layout, stay with MuseScore 2, at least for that and similar scores.
In reply to And both change for good… by Jojo-Schmitz
What seems to be logical to you can be not-logical to others. Why not keep both? Wouldn't it be more logical?
In reply to What seems to be logical to… by howievincy
Keep both what?
Anyway, as I tried to explain: the development team doesn't have the manpower to maintain completly different sets of menu structures and score layout rules.
And staying 'bug-compatible' is not the goal either
The layout of your score from the initial post is just bad in 2.3.2 already, way too crammed, with colissions all over the place. It does look way more decent in 3.2.3, but indeed needs more space there
In reply to Keep both what? Anyway, as I… by Jojo-Schmitz
"The layout of your score from the initial post is just bad in 2.3.2 already, way too crammed, with colissions all over the place. It does look way more decent in 3.2.3, but indeed needs more space there"
What? I spent hours to get it that "crammed" way! And didn't I say it looks stupid in MS3?
In reply to "The layout of your score… by howievincy
It is basically unreadable in MuseScore 2. It is better readable in 3
In reply to Marc Sabatella, For the … by howievincy
I am not aware of any other similarly complex program that has an options to keep the old appearance of the interface at each and every change. This would very quickly become impossible to maintain. If we had an infinite number of programmers with infinite time on their hands (and infinite revenue to pay them all with for their time), but obviously, the reality is far different. In order to continue to improve, things must change, by definition. No one forces you to update if you'd prefer not to spend the extra few minutes it takes to learn new locations for menus, and are willing to give up the hundreds of hours of time you could save due to the enormous improvements in the new versions in order to avoid spending those few extra minutes learning the changes in the user interface Your choice, to be sure.
The same is true for layout changes. With infinite resource, sure, we could maintain all the old bugs and inefficiencies and poor layout just for the sake of scores that need to continue to use it. But we don't have infinite resource, so that is ust not viable. So simply tell those people unwilling to spend the extra time it would take to get that score onto one page in MuseScore 3 to just keep using MsueScore 2 for those scores.
The result is, everyone wins. People can continue to use MuseScore 2 when it best suits their needs, and we can continue to improve MuseScore 3 going forward for the benefit of those who value improve layout, better overall usability, etc, and neither group's needs interfere with other's.
Guys:
1. Sheet music layout: Once sheet musics are published (ie. old Chopin's sheet musics with all "cue notes" and "alternates" etc.,) do they ever need to change for a "better" look in centuries? I never said your new layout is bad. What I said was "the voltas y-position can't be changed" closer to the staff. Try it please. What I said was "You change them to whatever you like" but leave the established scores alone. It doesn't take any man power or money to "leave established things" unchanged. What I said was to upgrade Musescore sheet layout to a totally different "animal" such as ABC sheets or TAB sheets if you like. All you have to do is to save the settings with the sheets, and you never have to to touch the issue ever again.
2. UI: If moving menu commands around is an "improvement" to you, move them! What I said was instead of just moving, add an ability to move them any where users like: That's a real improvement.
3. You thought I was talking about BUGS? No, these are my "published" sheets. They may look stupid/illogical/buggy to you, but they look smart/logical/perfect to me. Leave them alone! All you have to do is to save the settings with the sheets, and no one will complain. That is a real improvement.
Make the future versions flexible - add new things while leave old things alone, and make everything customizable.
In reply to Guys: 1. Sheet music layout:… by howievincy
You can change those voltas, if you disable autosave for them.
Don't use the new version on old scores, and no change to them will happen.
Once published there is no need to open them with a newer version, that is why Chopin scores don't change
In reply to Guys: 1. Sheet music layout:… by howievincy
No one used the word "bug" to describe your scores. What I said was that there were bugs and limitations in MuseScore 2 that caused the default layout to have all those collisions. In your case, you apparently 8wanted* those collisions, so this is what I mean about you having relied on the specific bugs in MsueScore 2 to get the results you wanted. Now that those bugs are fixed, you may indeed need to make some changes.
Voltas can certainly be moved. I've already given the instructions on how. If you like collisions, simply set the minimum placement to be negative, then all your voltas will continue to collide. I did try it, and it works precisely as I said.
As for menus, we actually do support customization of them. Create a custom workspace, check the option to includes menus. Now edit the XML for the menus in the workspace file using a text editor and rearrange them as you see fit. We don't provide documentation on this because it's an extremely advanced feature, but if spending an hour doing that seems more valuable to you than spending five minutes learning the new locations of the elements that moved, have a ball!
As I keep saying, sure, in an ideal world, we'd have infinite resource and could forever support scores that relied on the old bugs. That reality is, that just is not possible. please trust us on this. If we had to continue to support all the old bugs forever we'd never be able to make improvements. That's just how software works. So please just be satisfied that we can continue to run MuseScore 2 when you need to. Asking the impossible will not accomplish anything.
BTW, people put out new improved version of older scores all the time, to take advantage of advances in engraving technology, changing conventions and styles, etc.
In reply to No one used the word "bug"… by Marc Sabatella
I adjusted volta y-position in my attached score and they could only go farther away from the staff. Can you try the score and tell me why it doesn't work here? My steps are Format - Style -Volta -Position.
I created a custom "_workspace1" and checked the option to includes menus. I found the file "menubar.xml" in folder "C:\Users\Temp\AppData\Local\MuseScore\MuseScore3\workspaces" which is a system temporary/hidden folder (My system is 64-bit Windows 10). After editing it and reloaded MS3, all changes that I made went away! Could you please tell me how to make MS3 to use the edited XML as a default, or where to save it, and how to load it?
I, too, want to always use the newest version, but I am very disappointed because of the "automatic placement". It's great for new scores, but applying it on existing scores is a terrible mistake! Is there a way to disable it on loading existing scores? (I know about disabling it in Inspector, but that is the same as "rework each score" which doesn't help in this case)
In reply to I adjusted volta y-position… by howievincy
1) as I said, you need to make the min distance setting in the Inspector negative. Then your position settings can be honored without autoplace trying to avoid the collision. Note you can also set the vertical here. And both here and in the Format dialog, the changes are live, so you can see the effects in real time. At least, in MuseScore 3; MuseScore 2 is far more limited in all of these areas.
2) That should be the process. Wasn't there a ".workspace" file too, though, a ZIP archive, that you needed to open in order to access the XML? My guess is you neglected to update the archive with your modified XML. I've made that mistake before too.
3) For most older scores, automatic placement still does a great job - most people try to avoid collisions to begin with, so automatic placement doesn't result in changes right away, but it keeps avoiding collisions as you work, so you get the best of both worlds. For those few rare scores like your where you have lots of collisions that for whatever reason you have decided to just live with, then you might find it useful to try turning off automatic placement. To do this, use Edit / Preferences / Shortcuts to define a shortcut for the command to disable automatic placement globally. But here, you'll find it takes an already very difficult-to-read score (in MuseScore 2) and makes it even worse, because the few automatic things MuseScore did ill be turned off too (like spacing off lyrics). So, you'll probably do better turning off automatic placements for only individual elements, maybe all elements of a given type.
In reply to 1) as I said, you need to… by Marc Sabatella
1) Using inspector to change EACH volta is not an option since there are 100's of such old scores and each of them have a few voltas. What I asked you was to please try to move the voltas in my uploaded file down closer to the staffs, ALL at once. Any idea?
2) I see. I will work on it more later to see if it can help anything to get my old scores loading in Musescore 3 exactly as what they were. But it seem hopeless already. And about menus, not all menus are in the ZIP, no right-click popup menus either.
3) That works, but like you said, it works for the worse! To me, that's a bug.
I tried to rework it (the uploaded score) and able to get it (hd-in-ms3.jpg) back to how it looks in MS2 (hd-in-ms2.jpg). Do you still think "I rely on MS2 bugs" - which are now MS3 bugs - to get there?
Anyhow, I want to "rework" them globally, not on each element individually, to get the results faster. I tried to set everything in Format - Style, it mostly failed. Any idea?
In reply to 1) Using inspector to change… by howievincy
1) After pressing "set as style" this automatically becomes the style setting and thus applies to all voltas. So it takes only a couple of seconds per score. You can use Format / Save Style, then load results into another score, if there are lots of similar changes you find effective.
2) To get a score that relies on the bugs and limitations of MuseScore 2 to look identical in the vastly improved default layout of MuseScore 3 will always take work. That's why we keep pointing out that for some older scores it might not be worth the effort, and it can be good to keep using MuseScore 2 for those.
3) It's not a bug, automatic placement serves a function, and when you turn it off, it stops serving that function. It's not meant to be a magic "reimplement everything - including bugs and limitations - that MuseScore 2 did" command. it simply does what it says it does - disables automatic placement.
And yes, your score obviously relies extremely heavily on the bugs and limitations of MuseScore 2. That's why there are so many collisions and almost completely unreadable passages. Those problems are now fixed in MuseScore 3, so if you want collisions and almost completely unreadable passages, you will indeed have to go out of your way to make it happen. But the "set as style" buttons will be your friend, that is how you will be able to take adjustments you make to one element and have them apply to others of the same type.
In reply to 1) After pressing "set as… by Marc Sabatella
1) You see, it takes unnecessarily quite some time to learn to do the same old things some other ways. You can't just sit down and get your work done -after an upgrade- without struggling.
2) and 3) For the last time, my scores aren't built relying on the bugs and limitations of MuseScore. FYI, my scores looked normally when they were being created (no bugs, spaced out correctly, readable, etc.,) then I moved/shrunk/hid things like that - to make the whole song fits on my Dell 13" screen. They are for my own use, not for anyone else to look at and complain that they aren't readable or full of bugs. They have worked wonder for me.
For every new upgrade, I have to redo them because things are spaced out all over the place again (since no settings are saved with the scores).
Thank you very much for your attention. However, I still want my suggestion (to make scores look the same across all versions - by making all style settings travel with the scores) to be honored. Up to this moment, I regret that I introduced Musescore to my friends. Maybe it's time to look for another stable notation software.
In reply to 1) You see, it takes… by howievincy
(since no settings are saved with the scores)
That is an assumption on your end and simply not true.
by making all style settings travel with the scores
They do.
What happened is that some of those style settings simply don't exist anymore in the new major version. Because they no longer make any sense when applying the new layouting logic.
Yes, theoretically we could keep all the MuseScore 2 stuff in MuseScore 3, have some kind of "compatibility" mode; which basically boils down to not running MuseScore 3, but MuseScore 2 instead… As MuseScore doesn't have the manpower to maintain such a resulting program (which now also became pretty much double the size) we do keep older major versions side-by-side installable. So you don't have to worry about incompatibilities between major releases for already completed scores.
To draw a parallel with other programs/companies that tried such stuff; I'm very glad that Microsoft no longer renders IE6 targetted websites as IE6 would. Yes, they did include compatibility view going back 2 major versions in their newer releases for a while; but major complaints were that it wasn't exactly the same (even though they included much of the original programming code in there) and they even went as far to simply create an entirely new browser (edge) who broke with all of that compatibility rather than releasing an IE12 at that moment…
You're obviously unhappy with the solution/workaround to keep using the old stable version for your older scores. You've stated equally that using the inspector and "set as style" button is too much effort in your opinion (which is entirely correct; noone can value your time better than you).
Feel free to look around at other notation programs, just be aware that those too have major releases, where stuff breaks, especially when going for a less standard layout choice.
In reply to (since no settings are saved… by jeetee
Hi JeeTee,
If "settings are saved and traveled with the scores" but just "don't exist any more" or you decide that they "no longer make any sense" and delete them, then what's the point of saving the settings to travel with the scores? Isn't it to keep the document formats/layouts stable across all versions and even across all platforms?
I think there is a misunderstanding here: It's not "compatibility" mode that I am talking about. As I mentioned before, it's perfectly fine if Musescore changed to a whole new program with a totally different GUI and command functions, as long as the old scores look the same (as when they're created) when loaded.
For example, I can load many of my PowerPoint 2007 documents and slide shows into the current PowerPoint 365 and they look the same, that's after 19 years of development. The same goes for Microsoft products like Words, Excel, etc. That's what I want, and don't you want that, too?
Here is my friends' Youtube comment: "Don't use Musescore if you don't want your sheet music to look totally different from version to version. Be ready to waste all your time preparing your sheets to make them fit your needs, because none of the "style" settings will be saved to travel with the sheets. Be ready to learn how to use Musescore all over again each time it upgrades to a newer version, because commands are taken away, moved to different locations, or changed completely to new names."
Note that "none of the style settings will be saved to travel with the sheets" is the same as "none of the saved style settings will be honored" if they are indeed saved.
In reply to Hi JeeTee, If "settings are… by howievincy
2.x settings are stored in 2.x scores, those that don't make sense anymore in 3.x don't 'survive' the import into 3.x and are not saved from 3.x.
If you want you 2,x score to stay looking as it looked when you last looked at it, don't import it into 3.x, but continue using 2.x on that score.
!.x , 2.x and 3.x can be installed and even used at the same time on the same computer, as such they are basically considered different programs, not updates to one another.
But all this has been explained to you numerous times meanwhwhile...
In reply to 2.x settings are stored in 2… by Jojo-Schmitz
...And I explained to you that I know all that numerous times meanwhile.
Remember, within one version, you don't need to save any format/layout setting WITH THE SCORES. The point of saving the settings to travel with the scores is to keep the document formats/layouts stable across all versions and even across all platforms.
"I can load many of my PowerPoint 2007 documents and slide shows into the current PowerPoint 365 and they look the same, that's after 19 years of development. The same goes for Microsoft products like Words, Excel, etc. That's what I want, and don't you want that, too?" Can't you do that, too?
In reply to ...And I explained to you… by howievincy
Yes, such settings need to get stored in the score, how else would you do it otherwise, for all non-default settings, like e.g. your volta offsets?
Only (almost all) default settings are not part of the score file.
And indeed, sometimes even those change between releases, usually if they had been found to be bad defaults.
As explained already: this project and its team use smaller by several orders of magnitude compared to Microsoft and for that reason such backward compatibility cannot be delivered.
Also with those Microsoft products you mentioned it is usually not possible to have different versions installed (and running) on the same computer (and at the same time)
If you want to develop and maintain (!) such compatibility (mind: without pay, unlike Microsoft's developers): be our guest!
In reply to Hi JeeTee, If "settings are… by howievincy
i don't know if you'll still read my reply or not, but here goes anyway.
The style settings are saved within a score to ensure the format/layout consistent across all minor and patch updates across all platforms. Between major releases, an attempt is done to convert/import old formats into new formats, but due to manpower, we're not the best in that respect.
I think there is a misunderstanding here: It's not "compatibility" mode that I am talking about. As I mentioned before, it's perfectly fine if Musescore changed to a whole new program with a totally different GUI and command functions, as long as the old scores look the same (as when they're created) when loaded.
What you describe is the very definition of what a compatibilty mode does, but semantics aside…
For example, I can load many of my PowerPoint 2007 documents and slide shows into the current PowerPoint 365 and they look the same, that's after 19 years of development. The same goes for Microsoft products like Words, Excel, etc.
That's only true for very basic documents (and so it is for MuseScore as well).
Just pick any Word95-document with word-art in it and open it in Office2010; most of those are turned into plain text because the function changed so much over the years and those fonts used back then don't always exist anymore.
Or when talking PowerPoint, about 20% of the slide animations and transitions play back differently.
Of having an older doc written using the "Courier" font, which isn't available in their new installs; they fall back to "Courier New", which works, but has different letter spacing, resulting in a document that can now just be an extra page long.
Or using the Calibri font in 2007 or now in 2010: some characters have been changed to improve readability.
In reply to Hi JeeTee, If "settings are… by howievincy
Again, just to clarify - huge changes like the one form MuseScore 2 to MuseScore to 3 don't come "each time it upgrades to a newer version". As mentioned, it's happened exactly twice in the last ten years. Most other programs change their menus etc. at least as often. Try comparing Sibelius or Finale to 10 years ago and you'll see far greater changes. Or Word for that matter (especially if you go back pre-ribbon).
I get that there were enormous improvements in this release that will take some time to adjust to. I promise it's worth it. But if you'd rather spend that same time, plus a whole lot more money, adjsuting to a completely different program, that's you're right too, and I wish you luck!
In reply to 1) You see, it takes… by howievincy
I realize you weren't knowingly relying on bugs and limitations of MsueScore 2, but the fact is, you were nonetheless. because if MuseScore 2 didn't have those bugs and limitations, you wouldn't have those collisions all over the place. Only the fact that MuseScore 2 was not smart enough to fix them made this mess happen.
Luckily, changes of this magnitude don't happen every release, far from it - it's happened only twice in the ten years MuseScore has been a viable thing.
Once again, expecting a small software project to always be able to reproduce all the bugs and limitations of previous versions is just not reasonable. You certainly welcome to spend hundreds of dollars on another program that doesn't bother fixing bugs, removing limitations, or making other improvements. It's even possible every once in a while they'll make changes of this magnitude and still manage to avoid breaking older scores every five years. You could also simply stick with MuseScore 2, for free. It's your choice, to be sure. Sounds like you've made it.
I give up. Thank you all for your time.
In reply to I give up. Thank you all for… by howievincy
I find it relatively easy to manage scores, keeping a list of which ones were created using MuseScore2 and MuseScore3. I convert MuseScore1 scores, because later versions were so much better. And I have >1700 scores, some very complex. It would help me a bit in this process if the extension changed with the versions, like mscz for Ver.2 (and 3?), and msc4 for Ver.4, etc.
Still, I long for the heyday of Paradox database, which maintained back-compatibility for many versions. By the way, I believe Paradox was the origin (at least major proponent) of things like right-click to get menu of options, bar at bottom (or top) with files open, and others. Paradox was also my first introduction to Regexp (though they didn't invent it, of course).