TAB: configurability and display enhancements; tests welcome
With today commits (ba582c232f, 2012-09-22), I think to have complete a cycle of significant enhancements to the TAB system. It includes:
More configurability (mostly about stem styles)
1) Stems can be above or below, beside the staff or through it, in all combinations
2) Half note stems can have 3 different styles (no stem, shorter stem, slashed stem)
3) Added more presets (namely, ukulele and bandurria)
Display improvements:
4) Fixed clash between fret marks and stems
5) Better kerning of multi-digit fret marks
6) Sometime, fret marks or duration symbols were not correctly redrawn: should be fixed
7) Improved spacing and vert. alignment of renaissance letters (and other small font improvements)
and several bug fixes reported by several forum fellows: a special mention to brod and johey for their testing commitment!
Known issues:
a) Fonts are not complete (in the historical parts)
b) There is an elusive issue with the '0' fret mark (modern style)
c) dot placement can be improved
d) shortcuts are not complete and possibly not optimal
and I'm sure other issues I am forgetting right now!
All the above is ready to be tested. Please report bugs or correction requests here or in the issue tracker.
An important note, though:
Reports of bugs or comments on features not correctly implemented are of course very welcome and I'll try to fix them.
However, implementation of new features or more configurability is unlikely: the whole system is already quite complex, even intimidating. So, only very important features are likely to make through (an example being support for notes on non-fretted strings in historical tabulatures).
OTOH, more presets can easily be added (balalajka, johey?) if they are just a specific combination of existing settings.
Thanks,
M.
Comments
I tend not to use tablature without linking it to a pitched score so don't usually use stems but I thought I'd run through the features.
I'm a bit confused by the option of "short stems" for minims. Setting this (with all other settings left as the defaults) I don't see any difference between minim and crotchet stems. Is this what it's supposed to look like? Because of the option name I had imagined the stems to be shorter than crotchet stems.
I get the same results on both Mac and Windows with version ba582c2.
In reply to Minim (half note) "short" stems by brod
"Because of the option name I had imagined the stems to be shorter than crotchet stems. "
Hmmm, well, minim stems ARE supposed to be shorter ad I see them shorter, at least under Ubuntu; I don't think the OS should make any difference.
HOWEVER, they are only shorter if the stems are set to "Beside staff" rather than "Through staff": if the stems run through the staff up (or down) to the fartest note head, how could stems be shorter?
Possibly, setting stems "Through" should disable minims "shorter"? And if the "shorter" option is already selected, it should be changed to what? "none" or "slashed"?
Thanks,
M.
In reply to "Because of the option name I by Miwarre
Thanks for the information.
The default is "through staff" so that was the problem. Changing that setting made the difference. Not having seen the shorter stem I had not understood where the shortening would occur. It may have been at the end which would have the beam on quavers and shorter notes.
I agree that it would be good to limit what can be done in the dialog to avoid mistakes like mine. In fact there are a number of cases in other dialogs where 'conflicting' settings are not disallowed.
Disabling "short stems" when "through" is set would be good.
How about disabling "through" if "short stems" is set rather than changing the setting? It is very easy to miss a radio button change which happens in a different section of the dialog. This would also force users to change the setting in an order which couldn't result in an ineffective combination of settings.
In reply to Setting combination problem by brod
From an abstract point of view, the two approaches are isomorphic:
1) If selecting "short" disables "through", we are left with what to do if "through" is set when "short" is selected.
2) If selecting "through" disables "short", we are left with what to do if "short" is set when "through" is selected.
However, the choice "beside"/"through" is between two and a change in the setting could hardly go unnoticed in the preview widget; the choice "none"/"short"/"slashed" is among three and the visual change less evident.
So, you are probably right: better let "short" control "through" than vice versa.
Thanks,
M.
In reply to From an abstract point of by Miwarre
If you think of each point in isolation then they do both appear to leave the problem of what to do with the disabled setting if it has already been selected but in practice this wouldn't be the case because the settings would be mutually exclusive.
To put it another way, it would need to be done as a pair.
If selecting "short" disables "through" AND selecting "through" disables "short" there would be no situation where an option has to be changed because you would not be able to select "short" if "through" were already set and you'd not be able to select "through" if "short" were already set.
Is it planned to add fingering numbers to the fret diagram?
In reply to Fingering by Bertalan Fodor
Not that I know of but it would be good to know what is missing in the fret diagram implementation. Fret diagrams are still an open issue in the roadmap http://musescore.org/en/developers-handbook/references/musescore-2.0-ro…
Could you create another post in the tech preview forum and describe what you miss in fret diagram? At least from a "display" perspective. This post is about tablature so it's better to not deviate.