Chords with mixed note lengths etc
I'm having 2 annoying problems - 1) how do you input a chord with notes of differing lengths (eg holding a minim with thumb whilst playing quavers with fingers) and 2) how to get MuseScore to keep an accidental for the whole bar ie if you are in C major and have a whole bar of F#, you only want to put a sharp by the first one - the software defaults back to an F natural, and if you correct it it actually prints the sharp again (and again). Thanks.
Comments
For chords containing different durations, see: http://musescore.org/en/handbook/voices
I'm guessing you are using the Accidentals palette to add your sharps. Don't. That's only for accidentals that you *want* to always appear, even when not necessary. So that's why you are seeing all those unnecessary sharp signs - you placed those "special" accidentals there, and MuseScore is simply doing what you told it. Instead, the normal way to get normal accidentals in MuseScore is using the arrow keys - up or down after entering a note. Then MuseScore will obey the usual rules for when an accident is needed. You will still have to arrow each F up individually as the default is to always enter notes in the key (for 2.0, by popular request, this will change to default to inheriting the most recent accidental). Or else you can do as suggested above and enter the F's firs,t then select them all and arrow them up together. That's fewer keystrokes overall, but it does require you to leave note entry note to do the selection, then go back to continue entering notes.
You might want to watch some of the tutorial videos on the main musescore.org, also read the Hanbook section on Note entry to see more about how the basics work.