Adding line breaks and editing general style stops working
I've had this problem a couple of times now, and I'm not quite sure what to do. After I've been working on a file for a while (in this case, the attached "White Christmas"), some of the formatting functions stop working. For example, I can't add a line break, nor does changing the staff distance (Edit General Style / Page) have any effect. I opened another file (the attached "Sussex Carol") and those operations worked fine, as do other settings (Music upper margin and System distance, for example) for both files. My page fill threshold is set to 100% (and changing it to 70% had the expected effect). I use Mac OS X 10.6.8 and am currently running version 1.3 (revision 5702), but I first encountered this problem in 0.9.6.3 (or possibly 0.9.5 -- I don't remember now). I've already tried reverting to the factory settings and re-installing MuseScore; neither helped. Once this occurs, it seems to be permanent -- I just tried going back to a file I had given up on when I was using 0.9.x (the attached "All My Heart..."), and it still doesn't work in 1.3. (I haven't tried the 2.0 beta, but I can if there aren't any better ideas.) I also tried copying the music and pasting it into a new file, to no avail. Both of the files that don't work were created using the Hymn template that comes with MuseScore, and I did the copy/paste twice -- once into another Hymn template file, and once into a file created from scratch. Unfortunately, I can't tell you the specific series of steps that got me to this point, since I'd been working on the files for some time -- including successfully adjusting the staff distance -- before running into the problem. Does anyone have any suggestions before I go back and start over?
Attachments:
All My Heart This Night Rejoices -- doesn't work
Sussex Carol -- works
White Christmas -- doesn't work
| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
| AllMyHeartThisNightRejoicesB.mscx | 119.79 KB |
| Sussex_Carol_Exp.mscz | 7.15 KB |
| White_Christmas.mscz | 4.63 KB |
Comments
"Staff distance" only affects distance btween staves of *different* instruments, not the staves of a *single* instrument. Your "White Christmas" and "All My Heart..." scores have only a single instrument each, with that instrument having two staves. To change the distance between staves within a single instrument, you need to use "Accolade Distance", not "Staff Distance". "Sussex Carol" has four separate instruments, so "Staff Distance" is indeed the correct setting.
BTW, it's also the case that neither Staff Distance nor Accolade Distance will appear to take effect if there are lyrics that are also padding the spacing, and System Distance can apear to be ignored if the Page Fill Threshold has been exceed causing the page fill to kick in.
Not sure what you mean about line breaks not working. I had no trouble adding them in any of those files. How were you trying to do it? I clicked a barline and hit Enter.
In reply to "Staff distance" only affects by Marc Sabatella
I didn't realize what Accolade Distance was; since all my work is for four-part voices a capella, I didn't clue in from the piano example in the handbook, though I should have. It never occurred to me to try it because I had thought that Staff Distance was doing what I wanted it to, but apparently I was mistaken. Switching back and forth between different setups -- I have versions of Sussex Carol and All My Heart done both ways -- must have been confusing me. I knew about Page Fill Threshold, which gave me fits for a long time before I figured it out, but hadn't run into the lyrics thing yet, so thanks for the heads-up. The line breaks issue turns out to be that I was dragging the wrong thing from the Breaks & Spacer palette.
I'll try to read the handbook more carefully next time. Thanks!