Repeat Highlighted Section
Spose you're composing a piece and you want to repeat a section. You can use the repeat signs and barlines to do this. But spose you want to repeat a section and do some modifications to it? You would have to rewrite the whole section just to make a modification to one note. Now, spose you could highlight a whole section and hit R or Ctrl+R, and the program would append a repeat of that whole section to the end of the highlight. Then you could make whatever minor modifications to that repeat. This would even repeat the section in the middle of the work. So it would repeat one section between two sections. the parameters would be the end of the highlight and the next measure. The appended part would appear between sections.
Can we see a prototype as a plug in and then discuss this with hands-on experience?
Comments
So the only difference with the current 'R' command would be that the pasted contents is inserted instead of overwriting what's already there, correct?
In reply to So the only difference with… by jeetee
Say you have written a piece. You decide you like two measures that occur in the middle and would like to experiment with those two. So you highlight those two measure and can repeat them after the highlight as many times as you hit R. The two measures are appended in the middle of the score. Then you can experiment with variations to the content of those two measures as many times as you have hit R. This saves you from having to reenter all of the contents of a section just to change a few notes or chords.
Spose you want to vary a variation. Highlight the variation and hit R, then continue experimenting with a new variation.
In reply to Say you have written a piece… by Rockhoven
How can you append something in the middle of something else? There is a clue in the word append. You can only append something to the end of something else.
In reply to How can you append something… by SteveBlower
Come up with a better word. I'm easy like Sunday morning.
In reply to Come up with a better word. by Rockhoven
We'll amend? We won't append, we'll totally upend.
In reply to Come up with a better word. by Rockhoven
The word is insert. Press your insert button (unless you have a Mac) and measures magically appear in the score. You can then press R to copy into those measures. I realize it's 2 steps rather than one but I really don't think this is a very common need that you suddenly decide you wanted to repeat a measure or two in the middle of a score that has been written beyond that measure. BTW ctrl+insert lets you insert as many measures as you need so you don't need to press insert 20 times for 20 measures.
In reply to The word is insert. Press… by mike320
Yeah. I know some of what you said. Could work. Don't know.
In reply to Yeah. I know some of what… by Rockhoven
All of it works. You're asking for a shortcut to make a rare edit. It's not worth anyone's time to write that code. There is a simple way to do it in MuseScore though it takes more than one key stroke. The easiest way to do anything is to do it right the first time. Going back and fixing your mistakes (or changing your mind) is always more difficult.
In reply to All of it works. You're… by mike320
A rare edit? I don't know if I understand you or if you understand me. Let me try out what you said and see if I don't praise the lord.
In reply to Yeah. I know some of what… by Rockhoven
OK Mike. I pressed insert and it inserted a measure before the highlighted measure. That's not what we want. Am I missing a function that inserts a measure after the highlighted measure? And what is R going to do? We want to repeat a section, meaning we want the program to copy and paste into an equal number of measures that have been selected, the content of the highlighted section. And I don't see how you could dismiss this as being not useful. I just said that I was working on a piece the other day and could have used this. And it's not the first time I've needed it. And someone else just this morning said that they needed it. And we are having problems on this forum because people do not understand what other people need. we are being told "You don't need that."
In reply to OK Mike. I pressed insert… by Rockhoven
Selecting any note or even a complete measure then pressing insert inserts a measure before the current measure. If it doesn't work then you done something to your shortcuts or are using a Mac and can't find the insert key. R copies the selection to the first beat after the current selection. If something is there it's overwritten so you must manually insert measures.
I didn't say you don't need what you are asking for, I said it's a rare need and no one is going to spend their time writing the code to make this functionality. There are two reasons you would want this functionality, either you made a mistake and omitted the duplicated measures or you changed your mind after you continued to enter notes after this measure. Either case is not a normal need for composing and editing music. It's a rather obscure need. You can do it in a few key strokes rather than one if you know how to use the program. I'm done repeating myself.
In reply to Selecting any note or even a… by mike320
How do you know that no one is going to write this code?
In reply to How do you know that no one… by Rockhoven
It takes too much time to write any code for such an obscure request. I won't tell programmers not to do it (they wouldn't listen anyway) but I'd be very shocked to find the programmer who thought it was useful enough to spend the time on it. I've spent enough time around here to have an idea what the contributors might do.
In reply to How do you know that no one… by Rockhoven
I do want to tell you that the premise behind you idea is not without merits. What you want is simply too specific. One thing that has been discussed often and will hopefully be in a version of MuseScore soon is the ability to paste-insert measures. This means you copy measures, move the cursor where you want them inserted, the use a shortcut and they will be inserted at that point. One problem that must be overcome is what to do when there is something like a time change in the pasted measures, which is also a problem with your suggestion. The main discussion is located at #165746: Request option to copy system elements with copy/paste (ALL ELEMENTS) which has links to other related discussions. I've recently been part of discussions about this which lead me to believe that we could see this feature sooner rather than later though I'm not aware of any active work being done on this.
In reply to I do want to tell you that… by mike320
Thank you for this information. We may not understand each other now, but hopefully we will.
In reply to The word is insert. Press… by mike320
OK Mike. If I use insert, it inserts a measure before the highlighted section. That is not what we are asking about. I've been using Musescore for at least 7 years, so I know about inserting measures and even a multitude of measures. It's possible that I have missed something. How do we insert a measure after a highlighted measure? What do you mean by press R and copy into a measure?
In reply to OK Mike. If I use insert, it… by Rockhoven
You can't insert a measure after a selected measure you must insert it/them before a measure. Yeah, it's very slightly inconvenient to need to go back before the inserted measure to select them but it really isn't that bad. You then press R and the measures are duplicated in the middle of the score.
In reply to You can't insert a measure… by mike320
I just tried that and it doesn't work for me. What do I do, step by step?
In reply to I just tried that and it… by Rockhoven
OK. I see repeat is working. Thanks. Never knew that.
In reply to Say you have written a piece… by Rockhoven
IOW - I'll explain it again for design purposes. After highlighting a section of a number of measures, it would count those measures and multiply it by how many hits on R, then it would move all of the score that occurs after the end of this highlight, and insert the number of measures represented by the hits to R, and copy and paste the contents of those highlighted measures.
Hope this clarifies.
In reply to IOW - I'll explain it again… by Rockhoven
The downside would be that if you actually want to fill "to the end", that end would become elastic. Currently I can enter a pattern, select it and hold down R and the following measures get filled very rapidly and (here is the important bit) it stops when the score is full. If it would carry on and add more measures I would either have to have good reactions and let go of the R key just at the right time or go back and delete all those added measures I don't want.
In reply to IOW - I'll explain it again… by Rockhoven
#244391: Duplicate Measures
In reply to #244391: Duplicate Measures by jeetee
Someone asked about this in another discussion. And it just crossed my mind the other day. If it already exists, fine. Let's look at that.
It seems that, like the daily log, all of the guts for this feature are already present. They just need an additional part and then tie them all together and you have the feature. I hardly see this as requiring some huge effort.
In reply to It seems that like the daily… by Rockhoven
Compile MuseScore once and you'll see it's an effort. This is necessary to run the code you wrote so you can see if it actually works. If it doesn't you have to compile it again after you debug and fix it. Of course there's also the time to write the code and then put it into the repository for someone to merge it into the program. This feature has lots of potential for bugs, especially since there is the potential to select a group of measures with a time signature, which cannot currently be copied. What you are asking for is not simple.
In reply to Compile MuseScore once and… by mike320
OK.