Addition to filtering function
I find--because I'm currently working on a piece written in 8:2--that it would be useful to be able to select 'all similar elements' by note duration. In this particular piece, there are a fair number of longas (quadruple whole notes), and to aid the musicians in recognising this somewhat uncommon note I have chosen to print it with an alt. brevis (square) notehead.
Right now, I have to convert each individual longa to that notehead style manually, one at a time, using the Inspector. Would it be possible to add a sub-level to the 'select' function, so that selecting one longa (or breve, or whatever) and right-clicking on Select>All similar elements>By duration, I could get the program to select them all, and then batch-convert them in two clicks with the Inspector?
Comments
Just use the existing 'Same subtype' for this
In reply to Just use the existing 'Same by Jojo-Schmitz
Oh. Duh. Oops.
Found it, thanks. That's exactly what I was looking for. But I feel like a dummy, because it's under 'More', and of course I never thought to look there. Hmmm....
This raises one of those questions about the intuitiveness of UI design that occasionally bother me. I find that often, a function I need/want in a program is buried so many layers down in the UI that without already KNOWING that it exists (and often without some expert guidance to help me find it), it might as well not be there. A prime example (in the 'ordinary' range of programs) is MS Word (wherein control of the few relatively-advanced typographic functions is buried three, four, or five levels down), or even the basic MS OS interface. (For instance, there's a big note in red pencil tacked to the wall over my desk which says, 'SYSTEM RESTORE IS IN CONTROL PANEL>All Control Panel Items>Recovery>System Restore. And just to make things even more confusing, there's a third-level menu item named 'Backup and Restore' which does NOT give access to System Restore!)
I think that for a lot of basic users, just performing a right-click is a big adventure. ;o) Once they get past that stage, they're looking for those wonderful side-expanding drop-downs, but if what they are searching for doesn't jump right off the screen and smack them in the face, they're lost.
OTOH, in this particular case, I am wondering if it would be better for the expanding menu for Select to go a level or two further, making most of that More... menu part of the sideways expansion. Something like this:
Select
>All similar elements
>>By element type
>>By element sub-type
>>Same staff
>>Same voice
>>Same system
...and then, when one of those third-level items is clicked, the dialogue window for the current "More..." item pops up so the user can get more specific and choose an action. (PS--I think 'Add to selection' should be checked by default, not 'Replace selection.')
What do you think?
In reply to Oh. Duh. Oops. Found it, by Recorder485
Actually, I seem to have spoken too soon about that function doing what I want. Using the current 'More' dialogue, I cannot get the program to select all the longas and ignore everything else. "Sub-type" includes only the note type selected (normal or otherwise), not the duration. So...I'm back to my original request.
As a matter of fact, selecting 'All similar elements' (i.e.: notes) and then changing the head-type to 'alt. brevis' only affects the breves and longas, but that's a separate issue. (I don't particularly want to use square breves, because the current rendering of them, when they fall above or below the staff, collides with ledger lines, making them hard to read.