Shape palette
One feature that is terribly missing in Musescore 4 for me is the shape drawing palette.
Please, something simple, to draw rectangles, circles, polygons, lines with arrows.
I don't know if this request is recurring or if it will reach the developers, but you never know!
Furthermore, it's a palette that has existed for a long time in Finale and other music engraving software that I won't mention.
Thanks
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Comments
+1 for this suggestion
And it would be really useful to have a round-cornered rectangle, as shown on the Shapes palette of the venerable Microsoft Paint:
![Shjapes_palette_in_Paint.jpg]( "Shjapes_palette_in_Paint.jpg")
In reply to +1 for this suggestion And… by DanielR
Are you aware of the frame settings for text items.
You can do this in MU4
![TextFrameMU4.jpg]( "TextFrameMU4.jpg")
And similarly in MU3
![TextFrameMU3.jpg]( "TextFrameMU3.jpg")
Or even this
![TextFrameMU4-2.jpg]( "TextFrameMU4-2.jpg")
In reply to Are you aware of the frame… by SteveBlower
And even 'empty' ones if using spaces as the text. Also line feeds
In reply to And even 'empty' ones if… by Jojo-Schmitz
I agree with your suggestions and am familiar with the techniques you mention. But honestly, it doesn't really feel like a real shapes palette.
You have to tweak features that are not intended for this use.
Moreover, apart from circles and rectangles which must be tinkered with to obtain the desired size and lines which we can certainly place, orient, dimension but with which we cannot decide to transform them into arrows for example.
You will agree that there is currently no palette dedicated to this.
In reply to I agree with your… by alexnoclain
My reply was really in response to @DanielR who was asking specifically about round cornered rectangular boxes.
Regarding the wider request, what is the use case you have in mind? You could use a pdf editor to add shapes perhaps.
If I was in charge of deciding which features to add (which I am not} I would always be reluctant to add a feature that might be needed only rarely and which can be accomplished by modifying Musescore's output with another program that is designed to do what is required.
Adding features to Musescore adds to the code maintenance requirements and adds to the possibilities of things that can go wrong and complicates the UI.
In reply to My reply was really in… by SteveBlower
I don't really understand the meaning of this forum section.
We must ultimately resolve ourselve to use the tools that are already available to us in the software.
We should not hope for new tools which would destabilize the user interface. Ok
Can't we hope of features that would save us time? Ok
You ask the question in which case I will use this palette. I think that contemporary music writing would greatly need it, and that this type of composition should be able to be done via a score editing software and not a vector drawing software.
I don't want to make a long speech. This was just a feature suggestion, quietly offered. But I understand the welcome she received.
Have a nice day
In reply to I don't really understand… by alexnoclain
My point, which I probably didn't make very well, is that implementing new features has downsides. Therefore the up sides should be clearly demonstrated, hence my question about the use case you are considering.
You say the feature would be needed in writing contemporary music. Do you have more specific examples in mind? My (very limited) experience of "contemporary" music is that there is little standardisation between composers' notation methods. Each composer seems to assign their own meaning to a variety of markings, which is fine, but makes implementation of such markings difficult. If there is a (or possibly more than one), recognised standard, then it is more likely that such notation would be implemented in Musescore.
As I understand Musescore's philosophy in this regard, the first hurdle to implementing a marking is to have it recognised by SMUFL. Then a view needs to be taken on how widespread the use of the markings. Then a decision can be made whether development effort is best spent on that or on some other feature or bug, taking into account the ongoing need to maintain the code for the new feature.
If you want this feature, then I suggest you should provide some specific examples from published scores showing how it would be used. It may turn out that some existing Musescore feature can be extended or modified to achieve what you are looking for. Or there may be an external application that can be used in conjunction with Musescore.