Note entry plug-in?

• Feb 22, 2021 - 01:12

Hi, I was inspired to try Musescore from some youtube videos I saw, and I'm very impressed with a lot of what I've seen so far... Musescore makes a lot of 'smart' default decisions on where to put stuff that other programs I used a long time ago did not do so well. And the web sharing/playback is really cool. However, I find it isn't quite what I wish it was for entering in notes. I program software for a living - is it possible for a musescore plugin to get mouse/keyboard events, draw previews, and interact with the data of the score?

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• Feb 22, 2021 - 03:16

I'm not expert on the plugin framework and hopefully someone else can answer that. But I would like to say welcome, and feel free to share you ideas here and perhaps help implement them directly!

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• Feb 22, 2021 - 09:45

is it possible for a musescore plugin to:
* get mouse/keyboard events probably
* draw previews unlikely
* interact with the data of the score most of it, yes

But do elaborate on what your intended goal is, it might very well be that a native implementation is preferred.
Have a look at https://musescore.org/en/project/fretboard for a plugin providing an alternate input method for example.

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• Feb 22, 2021 - 22:44

I'm certain a native implementation would be ~preferred~ for what I want, but the world of open source programs is very foreign to me. (The qml I saw both fascinated me and frightened me.) I don't know how to quickly describe what I want without writing a 20 page essay, but in short I would like an entry mode that's more like how I would write on paper. This involves pitches before rhythms and allowing musescore to potentially allow temporary invalid measures, etc. I've seen other requests to do this. I'm impressed with the enthusiasm on these forums; I would think everyone wants their own thing, so getting any response is amazing.

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• Feb 23, 2021 - 01:58

I think it'll be hard to pull this off well within the current plugin framework; you might also want to check in on the developer's chat and reach out there to Tantacrul to sync on the UX of such a mode and where and how it can fit into the "grand scheme" of it all.

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• Feb 23, 2021 - 17:57

Indeed, what you're describing isn't something that makes sense to think of as a plugin, it really is something that should someday be tackled as a native thing. And the hard won't be implementing it, it will be designing it. So, first step would be, a draft of that 20-page essay to post here for further discussion :-)

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• Mar 13, 2021 - 17:40

Well I finally got around to downloading and debugging the source right now. I am on Windows and I happened to have Visual Studio Community 2017 installed, so I tried my hand at building the program. I got version 3.6.0 since it ~looked~ established and easily workable with VS2017. However, when I run, it says "unstable" in the title bar and all I have is a "RelWithDebug" config -- so I can't really step through the code that well. Is it possible to get support for building (it's not immediately clear how to make a true debug config) and possibly architecture questions? [I just started looking at Score::putNote, but when I step through the PC jumps around everywhere]

I was a little amazed at how receptive you guys are. If I could get a feel for the basic architecture of the existing program and I make sure I understand how all the existing input methods work, I might start to propose some things. I suspect it would be considered too 'radical' but who knows? Maybe it might produce something productive.

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