Palettes

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Palettes

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Composer's palette offers a large number of choices for adding and editing music symbols.

The palettes are organized in a 3-level hierarchy.  If you wish to add  a music symbol of a certain type, you "drill down" through the three level to select the type of object you wish to add.  When you select  a music symbol in Select Mode, then Composer automatically drills down to the palette for the type of object you have selected.

 

Navigating Through Palettes in Add Mode

The following example shows how you would navigate through the three levels of palettes to start adding lyrics:

PaletteNavigationExampleComposer

 

 

TIP:  
 
In Add Mode you need to select the palette of the type of music symbol  you wish to add before  you click the mouse where you wish to add the music symbol.  
 
In contrast, in Select Mode, you just click the mouse on the music symbol you wish to select: Composer will automatically display the palette for that type of symbol.  
 
If you wish to edit an music symbol of a particular type, it is a bad idea to click around in the palettes, because when you change palettes, Composer will automatically switch from Select Mode to Add Mode, because it figures the only reason you have for navigating in the palettes is to add a music symbol, not select it.  Again, if you want to edit a music symbol already in the score, just click it with the mouse in Select Mode.

 

Using the Palettes to Edit Music Symbols and Text

In Select Mode, use the third-level (detail) palette to edit music symbol or text you have selected.  

prcarrow To edit a music symbol or text using the palette:

B8Enter Select Mode.
B8Click the music symbol or text to select it.
The object will be highlighted in blue.  Composer will automatically select the third-level (detail) palette for the type of selected object.
B8Click one or more buttons in the detail palette to edit the selected object.

PaletteChangePropertyInSelectMode

 

Keyboard Shortcuts for Palettes

In Add Mode, you can quickly navigate a third level palette with a keyboard shortcut, which is SHIFT+{letter}, such as SHIFT+L for the Lyrics palette.

You can learn the SHIFT+{letter} shortcut for a palette by holding the mouse over the second-level palette button for that third-level palette, as illustrated in the above example for the Lyric palette.

Note, some palettes share the same SHIFT+{letter} shortcut.  For example, the shortcut for the Rehearsal Mark palette and the Rest palette are both SHIFT+R.  If you type SHIFT+R and the wrong palette comes up, just type SHIFT+R a second time.  We figure it is easier for you to type SHIFT+R twice than it is to type something like CTRL+SHIFT+R, which is both difficult to type and difficult to remember.

 

Hiding Palettes

When you are first learning Composer, it is a good idea to leave all three levels of the palettes displayed.  After you learn the simple SHIFT+{letter} shortcuts for the palettes, you might prefer to free up some of Composer's window by hiding the first two levels of the palettes, leaving only the third-level palette showing.  You can switch between different third-level palettes by typing the SHIFT+{letter} shortcut.

Also, you might want to temporarily hide all levels of the palettes, when you are just viewing or singing or playing along with the score, but not editing it.

The first two levels of the palette-- the palette tabs and the intermediate palette buttons-- are together called the main palette.  The third-level palette is called the detail palette.  

PalettesMainAndDetailComposer

prcarrow To show or hide the main palette or detail palette:

B8Toggle the Show Main Palette or Show Detail Palette command in the View menu.

-- OR --

B8Choose the Show Multiple Selections command in the View (or type "qsh") and toggle the check mark for main palette or detail palette.

-- OR --

B8Type "qsmp" for Quick Show (or hide) Main Palette, or "qsp" for Quick Show (or hide) Palette for the detail palette.

 

Moving Palettes

 

You can dock the main palette or detail palette to any of the four sides of Composer's window according to your personal preference.  Also, you can "float" the palette in the middle of the window and drag it around with the mouse on the window,  close to where you are working,

prcarrow To move or "float" the detail palette or main palette:

B8Press down the left mouse button on the dotted lines along the left edge of the palette, or top edge of a vertically oriented palette.

DragPalette

B8While holding down the left mouse button, drag (move) the palette to another edge of Composer's window, or to the middle of the window.
B8Release the left mouse button.