Problems with Palettes
I am having a lot of trouble with the Palette on Mac (Mojave 10.14.6):
First: when more than one item is "open" (such a Key Signatures" and "Barlines") and I have to slide the view to get from one to the other, the view does not scroll smoothly, but glides to the new position, then immediately jumps to some other place. The more pallet items that are open for selection just makes the problem worse and worse.
Second: when trying to add an articulation to a note, I can not select the note and then double click the articulation symbol that I desire. I have to select the note, click the palette, pause, then double click the articulation that I want.
These problems have cropped up with my recent update to 3.3.4.2412, but I have not used MuseScore since last October, so it may have been a known problem for a while.
Comments
The odd effect scrolling is due to the palettes being reimplemented in QML which provide a number of new capabilities (including the ability to navigate them by keyboard, and coming in 3.4, the ability to add palette items with a single click). I too wish the scrolling were smoother, not sure how much of that is directly under our control though.
The pause you describe needing isn't normal, though. I've occasionally seen it the very first time I try to use the palette after starting MuseScore, and even then, not with an official release but only with a debugging version I build myself. Can you verify that this happens every time for you, and not just the first time in any given MuseScore session?
In reply to The odd effect scrolling is… by Marc Sabatella
So the day to day use of MuseScore is being sacrificed to the convenience to add palette items?
I just tried closing the score and re-opening, and indeed the problem with clicking the palette has gone away. I find it interesting that on the first click, I see a trash can come up next to the palette group title (with help text "remove from palette"). I hope I never slide my finger before double-tapping...
In reply to So the day to day use of… by Schopf
Not just adding elements is improved (although the ability to use the keybaord is absolutely life-changing for blind users). The main improvement that led to the change in implementation is much easier customization of palettes - just drag cells around, no need to create custom workspaces, enable editing, or any of that. But indeed, the scrolling is weird I think, and I do hope further refinements are made.
BTW, if you do accidentally delete a palette cell or entire palette, you can easily get it back, as part of this same ease-of-customization. Use the More element within the palette to restore lost elements (or add others not present by default), and use the Add button at the top of the palettes window to do the same for entire palettes.
In reply to Not just adding elements is… by Marc Sabatella
"...glides to the new position, then immediately jumps to some other place"
@Marc Sabatella
I do understand that these changes were implemented for good reasons, to improve accessibility for visually-impaired users. I can't object to the policy, in fact I support it.
But I can confirm the effect mentioned by @Schopf, whereby the opened palette "glides to the new position, then immediately jumps to some other place". This means that I regularly click on the correct palette item, but land on the incorrect item - because the palette layout jumps after a small pause. It's a really frustrating "feature", and it happens all the time - at least on my setup:
OS: Windows 10 (10.0), Arch.: x86_64, MuseScore version (64-bit): 3.3.4.9066, revision: 7684abe
In reply to "...glides to the new… by DanielR
Again, to be clear, the palette design was not only, or even primarily, about accessibility. Main benefit of the rewrite was making it easier to maintain rather than the custom widgets we had to implement ourselves, and a lot of benefits - and quirks - came along for free with the change to using QML. And as I have said repeatedly, I agree the scroll animations is a nuisance. I don’t know to what extent we can control that, but if it’s possible to make it act more like traditional desktop scrolling, I fully support that. I guess the idea is to mimic touch interfaces (swipe etc) but I’m not a fan either.
In reply to Again, to be clear, the… by Marc Sabatella
Thanks, Marc, for all you do. I appreciate the hard work and dedication that the team gives to MuseScore - there is no "but..." coming. I am interested that this problem appears both on Windows and Mac platforms, as appears to be the case, so QML is likely the source of the behavior.
In reply to Thanks, Marc, for all you do… by Schopf
Same on Linux, FWIW.
It's definitely a QML-related thing, but as I said, I'm not sure if it's something imposed on us by QML, or something we actually have control over and could choose to use a more desktop-like rather than mobile-like scroll behavior.
In reply to The odd effect scrolling is… by Marc Sabatella
Now that I have turned to customizing my palette, I can say that the work that went into the new scheme (and hence the QML) has made a great improvement in the process of creating and editing custom palettes. It was so easy to change the palette (and break up long segments like "Lines" into smaller focused groups). So now, I can have the "open" palette sections take up much less real estate and this really helps with the scrolling - it also helps with keeping palettes focused on what I usually do. I take back all my criticism (well most of it...) because the new system IS a big improvement. Thanks!
In reply to Now that I have turned to… by Schopf
Thanks for the followup! I definitely agree the improvements are really helpful - and in the time since this thread was started, making the palettes work by single-click rather than double has helped even more.
That said, the bounciness of the palettes on certain systems is still an issue. Apparently not all systems are affected. For me it's very noticeably worse on my Linux machine than my Windows machine. Not sure if that's due to the OS or something about specific screen resolutions or what.
In reply to The odd effect scrolling is… by Marc Sabatella
My palette lags when I scroll, taking as much as five seconds to get to were I want it to be, instead of the usual half-second. I never had a single issue with it before, would there be a way to have the old palette back? If not, is there a way to fix the scroll lag?
In reply to My palette lags when I… by Codeviper
I haven't heard of this problem before, must be something pretty unique to your system. Which version of MuseScore, and what OS? Does the problem persist if you close MuseScore and restart it? Any way to make a screen capture video so we can see what you're seeing?