Sharp sign on British keyboard
I have not found a way to enter the sharp sign in chord names using a British keyboard layout. I have to switch to US-International PC keyboard layout in order to enter the sharp sign by pressing Shift-3. This key combination does not work with the British keyboard layout, nor does Alt-3 (which however does produce the hash sign in text documents). Is there some other way to enter the sharp sign with a British keyboard layout?
Comments
The # sign is next to the Enter key on the ASDF row on a British keyboard.
HTH
Michael
On my MacBook Pro this is not so. The last key on the ASDF row is the oblique stroke ( \ ) and does not produce a sharp sign alone or with any combination of Shift and/or Alt.
In reply to Sharp sign by sjha
Sadly MacBooks do not have a standard UK keyboard.
All I can suggest is that you remap the # sign to another key Edit>Preferences>Shortcuts.
Or you may find this discussion helpful: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/1169718?start=0&tstart=0
In reply to Sadly MacBooks do not have a by ChurchOrganist
Thanks for your input but I don't think re-mapping will help. The problem is not that the # sign is unavailable when I use uK keyboard layout - as I said in the original post it is produced by alt-3. The problem is that this is not recognised by MuseScore as a sharp sign when writing chord names. When I switch keyboard layout to US the # sign is obtained by Shift-3 and this IS treated as a sharp sign by MuseScore. I think therefore that this is a bug in MuseScore.
In reply to Sharp sign by sjha
Most keyboards have a facility that lets you enter arbitrary key codes via some combinatipn like Alt+065. If yours has such a facility, then perhaps you cold enter the ASCII code for sharp that way. And them maybe some sort of keyboard macro utility would allow you to assign a shorter sequence to that command.
Meanwhile, assuming no one else knows of a more direct way to do this, you should probably file an issue. Although you might also want to test to see if the problem still exists in the nightly bulds of the "trunk" (what will eventually become versipn 2.0) - see the Development link in the menu at right.
I have a UK keyboard. Alt-3 does not give me a sharp sign in any application. I submit, therefore, that you do not have a standard UK keyboard. That aside, Alt-3 in MuseScore causes a note to be entered a third above the currently-selected note. If you go to Edit->Preferences->Shortcuts and clear the entry for "Enter third above" and then scroll down to "# sharp" and change it to Alt-3, does this now work?
In reply to Sharp sign on British keyboard by underquark
Thanks for the suggestion. I feel that it ought to work. But in fact allocating Alt-3 to the sharp sign in the short-cut preferences does not produce the desired result when entering chord symbols.
As I said in my initial post the only way to get the sharp sign to appear in a chord symbol is to switch to a US keyboard layout. (Incidentally I am referring here specifically to 'keyboard layout' as distinct from 'keyboard'). I should also clarify that I am using a MacBook Pro under OSX 10.6.8 and MuseScore 1.2
In reply to Sharp sign by sjha
Has anyone checked to see if this is still a problem in the Nightlies, and hence version 2.0?
If not, can someone please do so before an offical issue is opened?
Yep - this is pretty annoying on a UK macbook! However I found a really easy workaround until such time as the software is updated: just copy and paste! Select any hash (like this one #), press cmd-C to copy, and then within MuseScore press cmd-V to paste. Voila.
That's the same here on the Italian layout.
Any fix?
In reply to That's the same here on the by Pencio
Which Italian layout? Which operating system do you use? I have Italians keyboards under both Windows and Linux and I can get a # with [RightAlt][à].
Regarding underquark suggestion a couple of post above (which I missed at that time), I do not think it is going to work. Two considerations:
1) The # symbol is NOT the same as the "sharp" function in the Prefereces | Shortcuts table. The first is just a character, generated by some key (combination) on a keyboard: it belongs to text. The second is a MuseScore function which changes the selected note, if any, to be sharpened: it belongs to music.
2) If, on a keyboard / OS pair, a text character is generated by some key combination and the default MuseScore shortcut setup uses that combination for some of its own functions, the shortcut is going (in most cases, if not all) to override the text character and invoke the programme function instead, of course if THAT function makes sense in the current context.
So, for this particular case, a solution is not to assign the "sharp" function to some key combination (as this will NOT produce any text character but invoke a programme function), but rather CLEAR the conflicting shortcut in the shortcut table; in this case, the [Alt][3] shortcut assigned by default to the "Enter third above" function. Once this shortcut removed, the [Alt][3] combination will be freed to its old meaning.
Generally speaking, I do not think that this sort of things can be 'fixed': the number of keyboard layouts out there is huge and multiplied by the number of operating systems is still huger: some of the default shortcuts IS going to conflict with some keyboard- or system-defined key combination, probably with different conflicts for different keyboard/OS. This applies to all programmes which use shortcuts and I am not aware of any general solution.
This is one of reasons why shortcuts are user-configurable in MuseScore.
HTH,
M.
In reply to Which Italian layout? Which by Miwarre
Removing the default assignment for [alt]3 does NOT allow using this key combination to write a sharp sign in a chord symbol using a UK keyboard layout on a MacBook. So far the only solution I have found to work is to switch to a US keyboard layout - then Shift-3 will out a sharp sign in a chord symbol.
In reply to Which Italian layout? Which by Miwarre
Sorry for the long delay.
I'm on a iMac27" with Lion OS.