Mixer track-highlighter should correspond the active stave being worked on
Imagine the following scenario:
I am composing a large orchestral score, and I need to frequently mute and/or solo various tracks / staves, simply to get an idea of how well various instruments blend together.
A similar scenario would be to quickly change an instrument in the mixer, e.g. to get an idea of which woodwinds would be better suited to play a part in a specific stave.
Currently, when I have the mixer open, the selected mixer channel doesn't necessarily correspond to the stave I am working on, adding notes to, etc.
When I then switch to the mixer, to solo / mute / change instrument, etc, I regularly end up adjusting the wrong mixer channel, namely the channel that happened to be selected. I then have to change back what I messed up, scroll into view the correct mixer channel, and then do my adjustment.
It also doesn't help that, when the instrument / MIDI information is visible in the mixer, I cannot necessarily see the stave name, because the faders are so tall that the name - at the bottom - might very well be obscured.
I am fully aware that MuseScore is not a DAW, but there are certain similarities to a DAW nonetheless: It has staves / tracks, which produce sound, it has a mixer, etc.
I personally use Reaper as my DAW of choice, and when I do something, anything, in any track in Reaper, the selected track in the mixer follows what I am doing: If I e.g. click, double click, a part in a track, the mixer will automatically select the corresponding track, and scroll it into view, iff the mixer happens to be open.
I assume this behaviour is standard among DAWs, and I would therefore assume it to be the behaviour of MuseScore too.
I do NOT mean to open the mixer, nor do I mean to bring the mixer into view.
I only mean that, iff the mixer is open (whether in view or only as a tab), then the channel selection in the mixer should - optionally, settable in Preferences - follow what the user is doing in the score.
Comments
I support this as well. For example, working with the mixer is confusing when I have multiple violin parts and want to solo or mute some of them
Simplified title somewhat
Steps to reproduce and suggested behavior
1) open or create a new score with multiple instruments/parts
2) Add notes/music etc. to the different instruments and parts
3) Open the mixer
4) Click on any rest/notes/symbol etc. in any of the staves
Expected behavior:
-the track that corresponds to that stave you just clicked becomes selected and highlighted in the mixer
Actual behavior:
-nothing occurs, whatever previously selected track is highlighted will not change
Furthermore: if the instrument has different channels and at the current measure a non-1st channel is used (like e.g. pizzicato for Violins), also unfold the mixer entry for that instrument to show those channels
This seems like one of those nice small non-intrusive improvements.
Agreed.
In reply to Agreed. by Marc Sabatella
I wish there was a "like" button, so I could "like" all the supportive comments :)
In reply to I wish there was a "like"… by Matt Heableigh
It is a sad thing that there is only a "Mark as spam" button.
this plugin offers workaround for the quoted problem Solo / Mute without opening Mixer
it doesn't address OP's issue about UX