[Text input] Provide curly quotes in F2 Special Characters > Common Symbols

• Nov 29, 2020 - 12:43
Reported version
3.5
Type
Ergonomical (UX)
Frequency
Few
Severity
S5 - Suggestion
Reproducibility
Always
Status
closed
Regression
No
Workaround
Yes
Project
MuseScore

  1. Create a score with lyrics

  2. Try to enter text with diacritics (accents, umlauts, c cedilla)
    Expected result: the diacritics are available in F2 Special Characters > Common Symbols
    Actual result: the diacritics are available in F2 Special Characters > Common Symbols (no problem)

  3. Try to enter text with curly ("smart") quotes: opening double quote, closing double quote, single double quote, closing single quote, apostrophe
    Expected result: the curly quotes are available in F2 Special Characters > Common Symbols
    Actual result: the curly quotes are nowhere to be found in F2 Special Characters

  4. Try to enter text with an elision (undertie) or a leading hyphen (used with lyric syllable at start of system)
    Expected result: the elisions and hyphens are available in F2 Special Characters > Common Symbols
    Actual result: the elisions and hyphens are hidden away in F2 Special Characters > Musical Symbols > Lyrics

This improvement to the workflow when entering lyrics has been discussed in the Support forum:
https://musescore.org/en/node/14266
In particular this workaround:
Punctuation marks for lyrics in MuseScore.png

Curly (smart) quotation marks and apostrophes are required when submitting scores to publishing houses, so MuseScore should support this "out of the box", without any workarounds. F2 Special Characters > Common Symbols is the correct place for these punctuation marks.

Comments

• Nov 29, 2020 - 12:48
Title [Text input] Provide curly quotes, elisions and hyphens in F2 Special Characters > Common Symbols ⇒ [Text input] Provide curly quotes in F2 Special Characters > Common Symbols

The elisions are already there, all three of them, leading hyphen works using Ctrl+- ever since (possibly followed by a Ctrl+Space)

Reply

• Nov 29, 2020 - 13:01

All the diacritics are found in F2 > Unicode symbols, scattered over several subcategories. IMHO way too many of those exist to make then all available in F2 > Special Characters

These quotation marks are found in F2 > Unicode Symbols > General Punctuation
Should be possible to add those 4 to F2 > Special Characters

Reply

• Nov 29, 2020 - 13:32

"The elisions are already there, all three of them"
Yes, but my point is that they should be in Common Symbols because that's where we always go when entering lyrics. In Musical Symbols > Lyrics they are too well hidden! Underties and hyphens are not "musical" symbols, they are "text" symbols: they should be moved to Common Symbols, and then delete the Lyrics sub-category from Musical Symbols.

"...leading hyphen works using Ctril + -"
That's what we use at present. But the shape of the hyphen produced in that way doesn't match what is created by the automatic lyric hyphenation. It sits too low, it's not wide enough - and it doesn't look professional:
Lyric hyphen at start of system.png

[EDIT]
"All the diacritics are found in F2 > Unicode symbols... IMHO way too many of those exist to make then all available in F2 > Special Characters"
We already have all the common diacritics available in F2 Special Characters > Common Symbols. Honestly, I have no complaint about the diacritics.

All I am suggesting is that other characters which crop up all the time in lyrics entry should also be present in the Common Symbols tab of F2 Special Characters. And these are:
- curly double quotes, curly single quotes and apostrophe (all very common)
- leading hyphen (very common in French lyrics, quite common in English, never in German)
- underties / elisions (mainly in French lyrics, but also seen rarely in English lyrics)

This would hugely improve the workflow when entering lyrics.

Reply

• Nov 29, 2020 - 14:16

"Does this not achieve what you need?"

I know how to add items to a special palette, but this isn't just about me. We have a team of transcribers, all using different methods to input characters which are missing from Common Symbols. Methods include:
- copying curly quotes from a permanent text file
- entering lyrics into a word processor
- entering curly quotes with key combinations (different for Windows and Mac)

This suggests to me that there is something basic missing from Common Symbols... just saying.

Reply

• Nov 29, 2020 - 14:19

"The elisions are already there, all three of them"
Yes, but my point is that they should be in Common Symbols
But that is where they are already! Even 5 if them:
F2-Common_Symbols.png

But the shape of the hyphen produced in that way doesn't match what is created by the automatic lyric hyphenation.
That is nothing that Special Symbols table can solve, those 'normal' lyrics hypens are not taken from any font.
See #21239: Style of dash doesn't follow lyrics style

I do have ´ ` and ' on my keyboard, should be enough for apostrophe?
So only curly double quotes, curly single quotes remain as far as I can tell.

And it is possible to create a custom palette and share that amongst the transcribers ;-)

Reply

• Nov 29, 2020 - 15:29

"It's not just about me ...". Quite, the existing capabilities allow users to create their own "commonly used symbols" pallet, rather than filling up the commonly used symbols area of the f2 pallet with lots of what are uncommonly used symbols for many users. Really, the current capability means that the "commonly used" section of f2 is somewhat redundant. The ability to create a pallet specifically tailored to a project seems much more useful.

Reply

Fix version
3.6.0