Changing 4/4 time to cut time has serious effects.
All line spacers disappear, element placement is affected.
See attached and change time sig.
| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
| Son O' Mine 3 less mambo Bb Part 202 .mscz | 28.98 KB |
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Comments
This seems to apply to any real change in the base time signature (as opposed to cosmetic change such as replacing 4/4 with C). Line breaks are wiped out, leading and trailing space are reset, and stretch is reset to 1.00.
Yes, changing time signature involves basically removing the old measures and writing new ones, so the barlines aren't necessarily in the same places, so it doens't usually make sense to try to keep line breaks. Sure, in this particular case, it does happen to be true that the barlines stay in the same place, so it would theoretically be possibl to write special code just to handle this one particular case differently. But in general, it's not possible or really even meaningful to try keep line breaks when changing time signatures.
Normally, one only adds line breaks at the very end of the process, loing after basic decisions like time signatures have been made and all notes have been entered.
In reply to Yes, changing time signature by Marc Sabatella
Well, it makes more sense to me to keep the line breaks where they are and let the composer change them. Removing them just adds a complication asa you can see from my post.
In reply to Well, it makes more sense to by xavierjazz
It makes sense only in cases where the barlines don't appear to move - when the same number of notes are in the measure before and after the change. But consider, what about a change from 2/4 to 16/4? You might be able to fit 10 measures of 2/4 on the first line, but no way could you fit 10 measures of 16/4 on the same line. So that line break just won't make sense. Or the reverse - changing from 16/4 to /4, you might have line breaks after every single measure of 16/4 but no way would you want that after every measure of 2/4. So, instead you might think, preserve the "time" location of the barline rather than the actual *measure number*, but then what about changing from 4/4 ro 3/4, where the original time position of the barline isn't necessary at the end of a measure any more?
Again, there do indeed exist certain special cases where it might seem sensible to just "keep the existing line breaks", but in the general case, it not only doesn't make sense, it isn't even meaningful to "keep" a line break if the original break was at a location that isn't even a barline any more.
In reply to It makes sense only in cases by Marc Sabatella
As to: but no way could you fit 10 measures of 16/4 on the same line.
MS already handles this by splitting off the extra bars, often leaving only one bar on a stave, which was the one with the break. This is easily redone, unlike the chaos that happens when all breaks are removed.
As to: changing from 16/4 to /4, you might have line breaks after every single measure of 16/4 but no way
It would be a simple matter to "re-break".
My main objection was because the odd symbols, such as in the bar I have designated as "repeat the previous 8 bars" were displaced, and when I did a ctrl-z to undo the time change, these 8 and the multi bar symbol were splayed across the 2 pages.
From your initial response, I assumed that this was because the line breaks were deleted.
My basic feeling is that as much as possible, the users intent should be retained. In the case of arbitrarily removing the line breaks, this is not the case.
In reply to As to: but no way could you by xavierjazz
I think I'm somehow not making myself clear.
What I'm saying is, there might be no way to even determine the user's intent. If the line break is a place that isn't even the end of a measure any more, what does that even mean? For example:
What should this look like after a change to 3/4? Do you keep four "measures" on the first line, even though that now means the break comes after the E's instead of after the F's? Or do you try to try to keep the same time position, so the break comes after the F's? But the end of the F's is no long the end of a measure, so you have to choose between breaking earlier or later than the original. That's three ossible different interpretations of what the user's intent might have been, and no matter which one MsueScore guesses it's wrong 2/3 of the time. And the problem just gets worse the less similar the two time signatures are. There simply is no general solution As I have said, yes, we could write special code to handle the "easy" cases, but there is no getting around the fact that a time signature change *in general* will change the layout, and there is really no way to predict the user's intent or know what the "best" choice will be in terms of preserving the particular aspects of lyout the user cares most about.
So the lesson here is: try not to rely on "fragile" techniques that won't survive relayout (manually positioning elements to appear to align even though they are laid out differently), and if you must, save them for the very very veyr end of the process, to minimize the risk that the layout will change. In your case, simply re-adding the line breaks will restore your eight measure repeat symbol.
In reply to I think I'm somehow not by Marc Sabatella
"What should this look like after a change to 3/4? Do you keep four "measures" on the first line, even though that now means the break comes after the E's instead of after the F's? Or do you try to try to keep the same time position, so the break comes after the F's?"
TO ME a bar is a bar, so if changed to 3/4 still 4 bars.
As to "In your case, simply re-adding the line breaks will restore your eight measure repeat symbol.", perhaps then there should be a look taken at why, when I ctrl-z'd back to the original, the 8 and the multi bar symbol did not return.
It's true, I format as I work as I find I need to keep things as tidy as possible so that I can be clear.
Your information about the use of "M" was very helpful, but again, when I switched back and forth between Mulii/rests and no multi/rests, the 8 and the symbol were misplaced.
In reply to "What should this look like by xavierjazz
I can see that sometimes you'd want 4 bars to remain four bars, but hoepfully you can see very often that wouldn't be what others would want - you'd end up with your music taking more pages before because now you have only 12 beats per line instead of 16. In msot real world situations, people would need to figure out new line breaks themselves based on their own subjective tastes - assuming of course they didn't just want to keep the defaults.
I am not seeing a problem with Ctrl+Z. Can you be more specific about an exact sequence of steps? I tried the following:
1) drag cut time to fitrst measure
2) Ctrl+Z
The eight-bar repeat symbol returns to exactly the same position as before.
In reply to I can see that sometimes by Marc Sabatella
I just used the add slash option. In this case, when I used m again, everything returned properly. The initial mention was when I tried to ctrl-z back from adding the cut time symbol. When I tried to undo, the symbols remained in the wrong place. I'm not sure the exact sequence, if it happens again, I will mention it. Again, thanks.
In reply to Yes, changing time signature by Marc Sabatella
Is there any way to change 4/4 to 2/4 where 1/8 notes in 2/4 become 16ths in 2/4? I just tried to create a sample of what I'm talking about and it appears impossible. Rests in voice 1 cannot be erased and when you swap voices everything is screwed up again. Musescore is amazingly unfriendly to the intent of the end user. It's astounding how much time can be wasted achieving nothing. The only way I can see to do it is to completely reenter the entire score manually note by note.
In reply to Is there any way to change 4… by gBouchard
There are plugins can that help with this process, see the Download menu above. But be forewarned it's a complex problem in general and they only go so far. If you do a search of this forum you'll find various previous discussions of the issues involved. It's a common request so hopefully there will be a better solution at some point.