Staff/Stave distance changes when brace-style bracket removed
I found a bug (I think) on Musescore 4.1.1, running from the official appimage on Ubuntu Linux. I have not tested this on other OS'es or versions.
When removing the brace-style bracket from a grand staff, the distance between the staffs/staves changes and can only be fixed by replacing the brace-style bracket.
Other brackets do no fix the issue.
This is not very noticeable at the "normal" scaling of stave space (in Page Settings) of 1.750mm, but if you make it smaller, e.g. 1.550mm, it becomes much more noticeable.
See attached screenshots and diagnostic file.
OS: Ubuntu 22.04.2 LTS, Arch.: x86_64, MuseScore version (64-bit): 4.1.1-232071203, revision: e4d1ddf
| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
| Screenshot from 2023-08-03 10-26-55.png | 55.46 KB |
| Screenshot from 2023-08-03 10-27-01.png | 52.58 KB |
| diagnostic.zip | 1.67 MB |
Comments
I found a workaround for the time being:
Add Add a curly bracket or "brace". Then add a straight "bracket". Now hide the curly bracket or "brace" by clicking Invisible in the Properties panel.
I'm confused, though. Is the extra space when removing a curly bracket or "brace" intended behaviour, or is it a bug? It doesn't affect Musescore 3, for instance.
This isn't necessarily a bug - the automatic spacing algorithm treats staves different depending on whether they represent different systems, or different instruments within a single system, or brackets groups of instruments, or braced staves within a single instrument, etc - all according to standard principles of engraving. You can tweak those settings if need be in Format / Style / Page. Read the Formatting chapter of the Handbook to learn more about how they all interact.
But also note, it's mostly pointless to worry about spacing until you're done entering music, because MsueScore also constantly adjusts spacing based on the actual content of the page. So adjustments you make to an empty page often turn out to be counterproductive to the finished score.
MuseScore 3 - well, starting at 3.6, anyhow - has a version of this algorithm as well but not quite as sophisticated.