Changes noted in MuseScore 3.5

• Aug 9, 2020 - 22:17

These are changes I've observed in just the first hour of using 3.5 as an upgrade from the previous version. Bullets here have the following meaning:
+ An improvement (appreciated; thank you)
= Noted; neither specifically + nor -.
- Not good; needs work

= Tempo setting is moved to the last page of the new score dialog. (Probably a better place for it.)
- Spin boxes no longer spin. Formerly most spun on single click; some spun on double click. This needs to be fixed.
+ Fermata auto placement is now above organ pedal markings that are above the note; formerly it was below (between the marking and the note).
+ Note auto stem direction is now done per note rather than per measure when working with two voices on a staff and not all beats or note positions in the measure have both voices. I had suggested this recently and am glad to see it.
+ Two notes in different voices (e.g., 1 & 2) on the same beat and pitch now appear with stem up and down more readily than before and without forcing extraneous rests for the second voice on other beats in the measure. This facilitates setting hymn-type scoring.
+ Rests in the second voice in a measure now seem more natural in that they are not forced into the score in places where they would have to be deleted or made invisible for it to read naturally.
+ System and staff text editing has been fixed to be as it was a few versions back. Back then, and now, one can press Ctrl-AI for "make all italic". In the previous version or two it had to be Ctrl-A, Ctrl-I separately.
- The Inspector panel default size is now slightly too narrow, so that items at the right edge are half out of sight. This appears to be because the font sizes in the spin boxes have been increased slightly, making the boxes wider, so that the panel size needs to be wider as well.
- In the Palettes panel all & in titles appear as &&.

Comments

• Aug 9, 2020 - 22:39

Thanks for the observations! A few comments:

1) (tempo) this is something users over the years had complained about, tempo has much more to do with time signature than key

2) (spin boxes) what OS are you on? on some systems, clicking the arrow doesn't work immediately but does after a second click. that's not a new issue, it's been like that a long time. but the arrow keys work normally

3) (fermata) not totally sure what you mean, but if you're happy, I'm happy :-)

4) (stem direction) yes, this change was deliberate, there are places where it might not be desired but usually it's a good thing.

5) (merging noteheads) as far as I know there is no difference here, noteheads are merged if of the same type (solid vs hollow) and either both are dotted or neither. they way to force merging otherwise is to make one invisible, or explicitly set the notehead type to match the other.

6) (rests) to be clear, there is a new option in staff properties to control the merging of matching rests, and I think it's set by default in choral templates

7) (text editing) yes, a number of fixes were made to the text editing experience, not the least of which is, the Inspector now works while in edit mode, but also a variety of editing shortcuts work more as expect

8) (Inspector width) there was no specific change to the Inspector width, but there was a change to how we determine the default application font, which we were getting wrong on some systems due to a bug that is now fixed. so if you were on a system where we were previously getting the wrong font and now we're getting the right one, some previously-customized sizes could be off a bit until you adjust them again

9) (ampersands) this shouldn't happen unless maybe you are using a translated UI rather than the default US English and something went wrong? or you had customized your palette names?

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• Aug 9, 2020 - 23:44

OS: Windows 10, latest feature release
UI: US English

Spin boxes: Now neither single nor double click makes them spin. One must click separately for each increment or decrement (at least in the ones I've tried, in the Inspector panel). That is a problem.

Fermata: Try this: Enter a note. Above it place an organ pedal registration mark (they're not in the standard palette but I've added them to mine from the Master All symbols list). [Simple placement puts it on the note; you have to adjust the Y offset to get it above or below the note. Suggest -1.50 with stem down or -4.00 with stem up as a good "above" placement. Not sure why - moves up and + moves down; c'est la vie.] Now place a fermata on the note. In the previous version it appeared between the note and the pedal mark. Now it appears above the pedal mark. Better. Probably stacking order has changed. I've not checked.

Inspector: I fixed it with changes to the panel width and placement. The original default was too narrow, and placement had part of it off screen to the right. I can't say whether I was previously getting the wrong font there, but numbers and other text in the drop down and spin boxes are slightly larger now, or they seem so.

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• Aug 10, 2020 - 05:26

Regarding spin boxes, I don’t mean double click. I mean click once and the value goes up one unit no matter how long you hold, but then click and hold again and it works. Again, this is not new, this bug has been present for quite some time - see for instance #278530: Spinners don't have repeat function: only single-click.

Regarding the ampersand, it seems you in a customized workspace. As I recall there was a bug fix to how the ampersands worked but it does require updating workspaces created in older versions.

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• Aug 10, 2020 - 06:01

I think this can be clarified some. When you want to change a value with the arrows next to them, you can click an arrow once to adjust it one value the click and hold it and it will change until you release the mouse.

The other situation that did change is that you must now click inside of one of those boxes then spin your scroll wheel to change a value while previously all you had to do was have your mouse over the spinner box and spin your mouse wheel. This led to accidental changes in values if you were using the scroll wheel to navigate the inspector and your mouse accidentally passed over almost anything that could be changed like x offset, Tuplet bracket directions (found in a dropdown) but not things like centering text, which require you to click a button to change it. I mentioned this in my post as well.

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• Aug 11, 2020 - 02:20

Apparently it is. When I select the Basic or Advanced workspaces it does not occur. I could use some counsel on how to fix the custom workspace so it does not occur there. I tried Reset All Preferences to Default and when I clicked Apply it crashed MuseScore repeatably no matter which workspace was selected.

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• Aug 16, 2020 - 03:36

I should clarify my comment about the spin boxes. Yes, they spin properly when you click on the contents and scroll the mouse wheel. I was talking about clicking on the arrows at the side of the boxes. In the previous version the long-standing bug was there that if you click once it changes by one step, and if you then click again and hold (not double click) it spins. In 3.5 it's worse; if you click again and hold it does not spin. You have to click separately for each step change. That's what needs to be fixed.

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