Test ride with Musescore Nightly

• Jul 25, 2013 - 13:58

I wanted to give a try to the coming version so I downloaded yesterday's nightly. I am on Linux Mint 15 Cinnamon on AMD64
The program comes in a tar which contains only a big file of over 100MB. I tried to run it but an error message said it required a lib QT5 file. It was on the repositories of Linux Mint so no problem, actually I had to repeat this part several times until all needed files were installed.
When it finally started I was impressed, due to QT5 it looks different from current stable version and it has a default dark theme (but it can be changed). I liked it anyway. However, giving a closer look at it, its pretty much similar. I played around with it and discovered a new long awaited feature: finally, repeat barlines and end barlines can have a more professional look by doubling the size of the thickest bar, but this must be achieved by changing default settings. Music font can be changed. default is always Emmentaler (Lilypond font) but Goneville (more modern look) can be choosen.
I opened some parts I had created with 2.3. The music is all there but there is some change in the way text fonts are displayed. The instrument name part had a box around it but it disappeared and was not able to recreate it. Changing text font properties requires some more tweaks but it theroetically gives you more control, I say theoretically because though I had checked the "box" property, it didnt work, but I am confident it will soon.
Parts created with new version cannot be opened with stable 2.3 version, on the other hand the nightly opened all old parts without any problem.
I was not able to set up sound. An error message said it was not able to find the soundfont, but when I tried to open the mixer and set it there the program crashed.
However good job guys, now I know the new version will be more than great!
Renato


Comments

Thanks for the feedback Renato. Some questions, remarks.

* MuseScore stable version is MuseScore 1.3, and not 2.3. The version you tested will become MuseScore 2.0.

* Can you show an example of what you mean by 'more professional look by double the size of the thickest bar of a repeat"? Before and after maybe? You can attach an image to a comment by clicking "File attachments" below the form.

* Can you show a sample score made with 1.3 with the box property on a text and not displayed in MuseScore nightly?

In reply to by [DELETED] 5

FWIW, I too find the default thickness of the right-hand stroke of the final barline to be a bit thin. When I compare it to various printed editions from different publishers, I find it very noticeably thinner - in fact, at first glance, it's hard to tell it isn't just an ordinary double bar rather than a final one. Yu an see this just looking at the final barline Promenade. It appears the default thickness (style / general / barlines / end bar width) is 0.3sp. Crank that up to 0.5 or so and it looks much more as I would expect.

In reply to by [DELETED] 5

Yes, sorry, stable version is obviously 1.3! I dont know what I was thinking when I wrote my post.
I attach here four images: 001 is with stable 1.3 version and 002 with unstable pre release 2.0 revision 0f65825. 003 is the text properties window of the instrument name, and 004 is with 1.3.
in 001 you can see that the repeat barline is very thin and the instrument name is boxed.
img001.png

in 002 the barline is thicker, which is what you normally see on printed scores, this is set with STYLE-->GENERAL-->BARLINES-->End Bar Width=0.60sp (default is 30) - (I changed the music font with Gonville)
img002.png

The instrument name is not boxed, I tried all possible combinations of properties window below, but was not able to reproduce the box. Only once (I just can't remember how, I wasn't able to reproduce it) a very big elliptical frame appeared covering all paper's width.
img003.png

This is the properties window of 1.3 with the settings used to create the box.
img004.png

Hope these infos can be helpful!

Bye
Renato

Attachment Size
img001.png 257.19 KB
img002.png 155.01 KB
img003.png 97.04 KB
img004.png 108.35 KB

In reply to by reblues

Regarding the double bar, the Lilypond default value are 0.6 for the thick one, 0.3 for the space and 0.19 for the thin one. We could change the default to match Lilypond. Any cons?

Regarding the frame, how did you create the instrument name? You created the part in MuseScore 1.3 or in MuseScore 2.0? Can you attach the MSCZ file (you can delete the music if you want)

In reply to by [DELETED] 5

LilyPond defaults seem OK, but 0.6sp is pretty thick and a very big change. I don't suppose Gould or any other source says anything specific? Comparing to Sibelius & Finale, it seems Sibelius uses 0.16 for the regular barline with as MuseScore does currently, 0.5 for the final as I suggested above, and 0.38 for the distance between, which is closer to the current MuseScore value of 0.4 than the LilyPond value of 0.3. Using Finale NotePad, I can't get at these values specifically. Visually, it appears that their final bar is around the same as Sibelius - maybe slightly thinner, definitely not 0.6 - and the spacing is wider than either - probably around 0.5. Their regular lines seem noticeably thinner than MuseScore/Sibelius. I'd guess maybe 0.12 regular width, 0.45 final width, 0.5 spacing.

So based on all that, I actually think my initial suggestion of just bumping the final barline width to 0.5 and leaving all else alone is fine. The rest of the values all seem comfortably within the ranges set by LilyPond, Finale, and Sibelius.

In reply to by [DELETED] 5

I like Lilypond defaults very much, but it is my own personal opinion. Marc's suggestion of using something between Sibelius, Finale and Lily is probably a very good solution. You may also check some printed scores but I am afraid it is hard today to find something which has not been created with Sibelius or Finale.

I attach here the part, but it is nothing special. I removed the music as it is copyrighted. I extracted the part from a band full score, removed the instrument name as I like it on top left and recreated it as "subtitle" with 1.3. Then applied the frame with the settings I posted in the above comment.

Attachment Size
Viviana_Bb Clarinet1.mscz 3.25 KB

In reply to by reblues

The text is recognized as a an instrument name in a part, and so it's styled accordingly in Musescore 2.0. If you want to change the style, you can go to Style -> Text -> InstrumentExcerpt (We need a better name for this... Suggestion?) and add a frame here. Check Frame, increase width and margins.

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