Part export automatic numeration of same instruments

• Apr 5, 2014 - 16:40

Currently, when pressing the "new all" button in the part export window, if there are more than one instruments of the same kind in the score, they are enumerated.
However, in a musically incorrect way:

Trumpet
Trumpet-1
Trumpet-2

when it should be:

Trumpet 1
Trumpet 2
Trumpet 3
Trumpet 4.


Comments

I agree this would be nice, but I think waiting until part generation is not right. We need the staves labelled this way on the score as well. I think the Create New Score wizard needs to assign appropriate long, short, and part names right at score creation time. Not sure if that's something to deal with for 2.0 or wait, but it could also be an opportunity to revisit the decision to clear the names for scores of only one part, and replace it with a staff property or style option to control whether the staff name is displayed at all.

Of course, if you are creating a score from a template, then the template creator will hopefully have done all this for you.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

As I understand it this would also assign the long instrument names to the parts!
Recently, a flugelhorn player made a joke that his instrument name on the score was Bb trumpet :) so I edited my instrument names and exported the part again.
Maybe it would be good to use the instrument names for the parts IF they were edited?

In reply to by TromboRafi

There are three separate names stored for a part - long name, short name, and part name. Long and short names appear only in the score, in front of the staff. Part name appears only on the part, and only in the top left corner. So if these names are correct, everything works correctly when you generate the parts. Well, it *should*, anyhow; currently long and short names do appear in generated parts as well. That's a bug; I submitted it just yesterday as #25249: Generated parts should not display staff long & short names.

Anyhow, I don't understand the comment about using instrument name for parts if they were edited. Again, if the long, short, and part names are correct in the score, all should be well. And Change Instrument does normally update all three of these.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

So my long instrument name is "Bb Trumpet". I change it to "1. Trumpet". Then I export a part, and the part name is still "Bb Trumpet". It should be the same as the long name if the long name was edited.

Some people also translate their instrument names to their native language. In that case, the part name will still be the old one!

Bottom line: If a user changes the long name, it should update the partname too.

In reply to by TromboRafi

No, I don't think it should. There's presumably a reason MuseScore provides separate settings for "long instrument" versus "part name". When you change the long name, it's up to you to change the part name to at the same time. It's only millimeters away in the same dialog.

Unless we can say for sure there is never a reason why anyone would ever want the long name to be different from the part name. In which case, I would propose we eliminate "part name" and simply use long name for the part name, period.

In reply to by TromboRafi

Well, obviously it allows you to have a different name on the top of the part than appears in front of the first staff of the score. Whether it is important to allow this or not, I can't say. I personally don't see the situation where I'd want that. But I assume the feature was added for a reason.

In reply to by [DELETED] 5

Yes, that's another variable. The Part Name field of a staff sets the defaults part title when using the New All function in the parts dialog, and that function never creates a part of more than one instrument. If you hit the New button instead to create parts one by one, then you have to enter a part title yourself, and the Part Name fields of the instruments selected end up being ignored except for the mixer.

The current situation is a little more complex:

A) Each part has at least 4 names attached:

  1. The contents of <Part><trackName> tag:
    • it is used in the part list of the "File | Parts" dlg box and in the Mixer;
    • it is set via the "Part Name" field of the "Edit Part/Instrument Properties" dlg box;
    • by default, derived from <Instrument><longName> tag of Instruments.xml.
  2. The contents of <Part><Instrument><longName> tag:
    • it is used as instrument name in the first score system and as part name in the extracted part;
    • it is set via the "Long Instrument Name" field of the "Edit Part/Instrument Properties" dlg box;
    • by default, derived from <Instrument><longName> tag of Instruments.xml.
  3. The contents of <Part><Instrument><shortName> tag:
    • it is used as instrument name in other score systems;
    • it is set via the "Short Instrument Name" field of the "Edit Part/Instrument Properties" dlg box;
    • by default, derived from <Instrument><shortName> tag of Instruments.xml.
  4. The contents of <Part><Instrument><trackName> tag:
    • never used?;
    • it is set via the "Instrument" field of the "Edit Part/Instrument Properties" dlg box;
    • by default, derived from <Instrument><longName> tag of Instruments.xml.

I assume names 2 to 4 may appear multiple times if the part is made up of more than one instrument, but I have not found instances by a quick look into my scores.

B) Then there are 3 styles, defined in the style sheet:

  1. Instrument Name (Long): by default attached to the instrument name texts in the first score system
  2. Instrument Name (Short): by default attached to the instrument name texts in other score systems
  3. Instrument Name (Part): by default attached to the part name text in an extracted part

All the styles are defined via the "Style | Texts" dlg box and can actually be freely attached to any textual element, as well as default attachments can be overriden manually.

I hope this may help in defining what to change (and how), if the proposal of the OP (which makes a lot of sense to me too), or its extension according to Marc's suggestion, is implemented.

M.

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