Combined styling
What I mean by this is that I have written three pieces (all for SATB a capella), and now I want to combine them to make a little suite. But of course since they all started at different times and different versions of Musescore, there is no consistency of style: details like the size settings, footer settings, etc etc. In a website I would make separately created pages consistent by adding a basic style sheet to apply to everything. Is there anything like this that I can do in Musescore? I suppose that in principle it is an xml document, so I could edit the parts that need to be in common, but this sounds a bit tricky. Any suggestions welcome.
Comments
Yes,
Nearly, same as CSS
Menu: Style -> Save Style / Load Style.
You can save the style in a document.
And you can import it into another document.
You can even save the style of the new document. (Untitled)
Note that when you do that, most texts aren't yet automatically updated (a known bug in the current version). You'll have to select those texts and press their Reset to Style button in the Inspector.
In reply to Note that when you do that,… by jeetee
Thanks! But how do I know exactly what this "style" includes? Is it all of the default settings, from basic note size, page settings, to fonts etc? Perhaps I'll have a look, if it's a readable xml file...
In reply to Thanks! But how do I know… by Imaginatorium
These .mss files are readable XML style files
In reply to Thanks! But how do I know… by Imaginatorium
Yes, you can look at the MSS file by hand, but not this can be deceiving, because MuseScore may optimize the file by only writing the settings you have actually customized over the built-in defaults. So just because you don't see some setting there doesn't mean it wouldn't be there had you actually modified it.
Basically, the style file should contian everything from Layout / Page Settings, Style / General, and Style / Text. I forget, but it seems there may be some special handling for page size, concert pitch, and perhaps multimeasure rest state. Maybe that's only while generating parts, or only if you use your style file as the default style in Edit / Preferences / Score.
In reply to Yes, you can look at the MSS… by Marc Sabatella
Thanks! Actually there is some amazing stuff in there - descriptions of chords, and all sorts, which are certainly not my "style settings". But anyway, I followed the suggestions, and various bits of text I had fiddled around with in an ad hoc way, so I can sort those out myself.
But meanwhile, a different problem. I saved the style from one score (in which the beginning is formatted normally), then loaded it into another, whereupon the beginning of the score move upwards, to overlap the title box, as here:
You will see that the tempo direction (Ritmico...) is completely misplaced. I cannot see where to go to start looking for whatever setting affects this spacing. (There doesn't seem to be a way to use the Inspector on "the whole score", for example.) If there is not an obvious setting to look at I can upload the ms file, of course.
In reply to Thanks! Actually there is… by Imaginatorium
Sorry I did not follow the conversation, maybe I say a nonsense:
Click on the frame-> Inspector-> Bottom Gap?
In reply to Sorry I did not follow the… by Shoichi
Thanks! Yes, there is a difference: the score I copied the style from has a Bottom gap setting of 5.57sp, and resetting this to the standard setting of zero leaves this one also overlapping the beginning of the score.
It looks as though the default settings put the first system starting below the title, instead of below the title box. Why would this be?
In reply to Thanks! Yes, there is a… by Imaginatorium
Why: Answer is above my knowledge ;-)
Click on the first measure and-> Add/Frames/Insert Vertical frame
In reply to Thanks! Actually there is… by Imaginatorium
First - if you are seeing chord symbol info in your style file, it must be that the score you saved that file from is using a non-default chord description file as per Style / General / Chord Symbols. If you don't specifically remember changing that settings, you could go there and see if it is the default - should be "Standard". I'm guessing you'll see "Custom" selected. Could be this score was created with 1.3 or earlier and was using the defaults from that version, which are very different from current defaults.
As for your frame spacing, it appears you must have customized the setting Style / General / Page / Vertical frame bottom margin. This defaults to 7sp. Looks from your image like you reduced this to close to 0. Set it back to the default, or some other more appropriate value, and things will space as they should.
In reply to First - if you are seeing… by Marc Sabatella
OK, well I found some stuff in the Handbook. Do I understand correctly that .mss "margin" means .css "padding", and .mss "gap" means .css "margin"? (groan) Given that, it is still not very clear how this relates to actual "score" (system); suppose I have/want/expect 10mm between the bottom of the box and the score, do I measure this to the highest actual element in the score, the top of the G clef, the top line of the top staff, or what?
And how would I reset everything to the system default, in order to start "clean" and make everything consistent? Loading my "null" (empty) style file and clicking on the title box gives (in the Inspector) a "Height" of 10sp, and all "margin" and "gap" settings are zero. Where would I get 7sp from? (I'm using version 2.0.2, because I haven't been able to get the Appimage thingy to work yet.)
In reply to OK, well I found some stuff… by Imaginatorium
Music isn't HTML, so it's not necessarily reasonable to expect CSS terminology to carry over precisely. It's also not the same as text, so it's not necessarily reasonable to expect word processor terminology to carry over either. Nor is it page layout, so it's not necessarily reasonable to expect desktop publishing terminology to carry over. There will be similarities but also differences due to the nature of the subject matter.
As for how to measure things. I can say that in general, the top of a system is the top of the top staff line, but this might not be the case if there are fret diagrams or chord symbols, and starting with 3.0 it might not be true if there are notes on ledger lines above the staff or indeed most other markings. Easiest way to see for yourself is to set everything to 0 and look at what happens, then increase things from there to see what changes.
As to how to start clean, from a 1.3 score that's much more complicated. I'd recommend simply copying and pasting the content into a new score for best results. But a reasonable cut could be made by creating a baseline style starting from an empty 2.1 score then loading that style. Loading an empty style file doesn't seem to me like a reasonable thing to do; you might think that would set everything to defaults but better to let MuseScore create the style file. You'll still need to do a bit of work to fix the text elements which at this point will already have their formatting "baked in".
That said, 7sp is the style default for the lower margin on vertical frames, as per Style / General / Page. This has nothing to do with the margin setting for any individual box, and the Inspector is not relevant here at all, since it shows element properties, not style settings.
As for AppImage, maybe best to start a new thread and explain the specific problem you are having with it. They've always worked very nicely for me, just download, set executable, and go.
In reply to Music isn't HTML, so it's… by Marc Sabatella
Thanks - let's leave terminology aside. I made a new score, attached, and this has the music starting appropriately below the title box. But clicking the title frame and Inspecting, shows bottom gap 0sp (and top gap and all margins also zero, height 10sp). So I couldn't understand how the default could be 7sp, but Style / General / Page / Vertical frame bottom margin says 7sp. (And there is no "gap" to be seen)
So I do not understand this at all. It seems that the Inspector does not show the actual setting (perhaps what the setting would be if there were no Style??); but somehow the Style setting makes an appropriate space below the box (and the Style thing is called "margin" while the Inspector value is called "Gap").
I also looked at the source xml, and no relevant "frame" appears, and no "gap" at all. Does this mean that "Style" settings are not saved in the file? How are style settings loaded: just the current settings in the version being used? I do not expect everything to match up with HTML style stuff (and we should all be grateful for avoiding the arcane and counterintuitive mess that is the CSS "cascade" system), but in an html file the style sheet to be loaded is identified. Here I cannot see where it is coming from at all.
In reply to Thanks - let's leave… by Imaginatorium
It's actually quite simple if not necessarily obvious. The style setting controls the default amount of space for all frames. The Inspector property controls how much additional space is reserved for any individual frame. So, 7sp as the style defaukt, with 0sp additional space for any individual frame, yields a total of 7sp for that frame. If you want to increase (or decrease) space uniformly for all frames at once, you change the style setting. If you want more (or less) for one specific frame, you just it's properties in the Inspector.
In reply to It's actually quite simple… by Marc Sabatella
Thanks. (Sorry, I'm time slicing, and it takes days to get round the loop.)
I see now. But I suggest this is unnecessarily confusing terminology. It means that the spacing below a vertical frame is the sum of the "margin" value in style and the "gap" value in the frame properties. While "margin" in the frame properties has a completely different meaning.
I have seen the incredible amount of time you spend helping people, and far from just wanting to moan about "details" I really think that time spent making terminology consistent (and logically coherent) is time that will be saved many times over in reduced need to explain things again. For example:
The frame property "bottom gap" value is added to the style/margin; it should therefore be called "Additional bottom spacing" or something like that. This tells the user that they are not looking at what was called "margin" in the style settings. The frame property "bottom margin" should be called anything but "margin" since that is inconsistent with the style terminology.
In reply to Thanks. (Sorry, I'm time… by Imaginatorium
Yes, spacing below is the sum of margin & gap. Not sure what you think would be clearer. The term "pad" means something else, so it would be inappropriate here. "Gap" seems perfectly descriptive to me.
I do agree there is ambiguity regarding "margin". Here, it is actually not dissimilar to CSS, where each element can have its own margin and nested elements thus have nested margins, but it's confusing because we aren't making it clear there are nesting elements here - we have no abstraction like "div" to explain the margin in the style setting is actually referring to. Not sure the best way to clarify this.
In reply to Yes, spacing below is the… by Marc Sabatella
Yes, "gap" is perfectly descriptive, but using "margin" to mean two things (on the inside of the box, analogous to page margin; and also to mean the base value for "gap" if you want to call it that) is immensely confusing. But I seem to have said that already. The way to make it clearer, which I think I have also mentioned, is to replace the words by clearer words. If two values have to be added to make the distance between the bottom of the box and whatever comes next they should be called "Base gap" and "Additional gap" (or similar). But actually it would be much more conventional to have a single value "Gap": the style specifies the default value, which can be overridden by a box property called Gap. (That would have to be changed carefully, but is not impossible.)
I can see how a tortured mind could claim there is really a fictitious box around the frame with an "internal margin" surrounding the real box, but I cannot see that such a box has any functional reality, does it? Is the position of the line between the current "Inspector / margin" and "gap" of any significance at all?
In reply to Yes, "gap" is perfectly… by Imaginatorium
I'm certainly open to suggestions here. But as for the "tortured mind" that thinks it makes sense to think of boxes within boxes each with their own margins, you have of course just described how CSS works... ;-)
In reply to Thanks - let's leave… by Imaginatorium
Also, just as with style files, score files contain style settings only where they differ from the defaults.
In reply to Note that when you do that,… by jeetee
To make this easier, you can select multiple text items by selecting all or some of the score and right clicking on a text and using select>more... to specify a specific type of text, such as staff text and reset all of the same type of text at the same time. You of course do this after you load the new text style.
In reply to To make this easier, you can… by mike320
Best way for me (after new style appying) : Saving the score, and then closing and opening again. :D