Space Bar Play/Pause/Space [1.0 pre]

• Jan 20, 2011 - 14:57

I've been using MuseScore for over a year now (since 0.9.5), and I'm used to the space bar putting in a rest depending on the note chosen on the palette. Today I downloaded the 1.0 prerelease and was trying to enter a new piece. Every time I hit the space bar, the piece either started or stopped playing. I did a search on the forums and turned up this issue in the issue tracker, which was closed on 11/4/10, but I couldn't tell what the final resolution was. I saw a post there that suggested that the space bar activate play/pause when not in note entry mode and put in rests when note entry mode is active, but I couldn't make it do that on the 1.0 prerelease (it would start and stop playback in or out of note entry mode).

I looked in the shortcuts of the preferences, but rest entry was not clear at all. It appears as if it needs TWO shortcuts just to enter a rest (shift-R followed by another shift combination for the rest), which seems like way too much work to just enter rests. I tried changing the shortcuts in the preferences to make it the way it was, but I couldn't figure out how.

I'm not sure if I'm seeing all this correctly, and if not, please correct me, but if so, I would strongly advocate a change back to the way it was before. Rest entry wasn't "broken," so I don't understand why it was "fixed."

Comments

• Jan 20, 2011 - 15:01

"Fixed" is just a word to say the issue or the feature request in the issue tracker has been sorted out.
Since almost all software with playback features use space bar to start and stop, MuseScore is now following the same convention. Entering a rest is done with the 0 key See Note entry .

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• Jan 20, 2011 - 17:32

Amazingly I did look at Note Entry in the handbook, but somehow I missed the zero key for rests (so I made an effort before posting!). I guess I can "unlearn/relearn" how to put in rests. I'm just an old dog, and it's sometimes hard to learn a new trick! The zero key is much easier than the two shift key combinations listed in the shortcuts.

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• Jan 21, 2011 - 01:17

The note about the zero key was only added to the online handbook yesterday, so it is likely that it wasn't there when you read the handbook. Of course the PDF handbook will be updated with the latest information before the final release of 1.0.

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• Feb 4, 2011 - 01:18

FWIW, most keyboard shortcuts in MuseScore customizable. See Edit-Preferences-Shortcuts - there are customizable shortcuts for things I didn't even know MuseScore could do at all! I'm big on customized shortcuts, and have gradually been customizing my MuseScore installation to work for me. On thing I discovered is that I just don't like hitting 0 for rests - it's too far from the rest of the keys I use for note entry. Right now I'm using the semicolon (right next to "L" on my keyboard) and it just "feels" better to me. I've also played with using "z'" since that's a rest in ABC, but for whatever reason, that's just not feeling right in MuseScore. I love that I have the choice! I've also made tie be the single quote (right next to the semicolon, and made the three adjacent keys 0, - and = be natural, flat, and sharp. I'm sure I'll keep tweaking these settings over the more I use MuseScore.

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• Feb 3, 2011 - 07:18

I've added an annotation to the tutorial video to let people know that they should use the zero key in version 1.0 or later.

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