No-beam information lost when importing from MusicXML

• Dec 11, 2019 - 22:32
Reported version
3.3
Type
Functional
Frequency
Once
Severity
S3 - Major
Reproducibility
Always
Status
closed
Regression
Yes
Workaround
No
Project

1) Create a score of a couple of quaver notes, set their beam properties to "No beam". (attachment Untitled.mscz)
2) Export as MusicXML (uncompressed, for easier inspection; attachment Untitled.musicxml)
3) Import the exported file.
-> The quaver notes are now connected by beams, their beam properties being set to "Auto beam"

Explanation: Setting "Auto beam" may be sensible when importing from a MusicXML file that does not include beam information. But when the imported file indicates , absent beam tags must be interpreted as "No beam" - AFAIK there is no way of specifying the absence of a beam more explicitly in MusicXML. Therefore this is clearly a bug.
Curiously, this worked as supposed in MuseScore 2.1.

Note: This functionality is paramount for a project of mine, where I planned to use MuseScore for creating stave transcriptions of ancient music, via a MusicXML rendition of the data. Here beams (and their absence) describe crucial aspects of the data.

Attachment Size
Untitled.musicxml 11.96 KB
Untitled.mscz 7.18 KB

Comments

  • in "Explanation" read:
    But when the imported file indicates "<supports element="beam" type="yes"/>" ...
    (Sorry, the quoted element got lost by being treated like an HTML element)
Status PR created fixed

Fixed in branch 3.x, commit a7a999a4b6

_fix #298438: Correctly import notes without beams from MusicXML.

Previously, notes without beams were always being set to auto beaming.
Now, notes without beams are correctly imported without beams.

The old automatic beaming behavior is retained only if:
1. The score does not specify , AND
2. The score does not contain any
elements._

Fix version
3.6.1