Piano Roll and Note Velocity won't select

[blane245]

It seems that after the first time I use the Piano Roll or Note Velocity tabs I can't go back to them again. When I select either of them, the display flickers and then returns to the previous selection (usually Notes, Rests) The problem persistents until I stop Notation and restart it. What am I doing wrong?

I've had the problem with both versions 2 and 3.

[Sherry C]

Hi,

I've done a lot of editing with both of these and have not noticed the problem. However, I may have myself unintentionally trained to avoid it If you could give me the precise steps you use that show the problem, it will help us to better figure it out and slate it for fixing.

For example, here's what I just tried out successfully (no problems) going back and forth between Piano Roll and Text/Chord names:

1. Start Composer
2. Open the last file I was working on from the splash screen
3. Click the Piano Roll tab (cursor goes to "Select" mode).
4. Clicked on a note and used "D + Right arrow key" to increase its duration
5. Click the Text tab
6. Click the Chord Names button (mouse cursor goes to "Add" mode), then click in the score and add a "D" chord name.
7. Press Tab to advance to the next chord name spot.
8. Click the Piano Roll tab again (mouse cursor goes to "Select" mode)
9. Select the same note as (4) above and use "D + Left arrow key" to decrease it's duration.

No flickering or reversion for me for the above steps. What am I missing?


Thanks,
Sherry

[blane245]

Not sure I know what sequence got me where I got. I will have to pay more attention to it. It is probably some mode that is not readily apparent to me. I will pay more attention so I can reproduce it.

[blane245]

The example that you gave me works just fine, but I am still having the problem. For example, this morning,
1. I opened Notation by clicking on a file .not file name
2. I saved the file as a new file and then changed the song title and author from the File menu
3. I deleted all of the notes in the song and added some notes to it one of the parts (about 10). There are two parts in this song.
4. I selected Piano Roll. Just a flicker. I selected Note Velocity. Just a flicker.
5. I stopped Notation and restarted it selecting the new song from the splash menu.
6. I did your example above and it worked.

[Sherry C]

Hi,

Hmmmm..... I just tried the following steps:

1. Opened a file in Composer 3.0 by double-clicking a .not file in Windows Explorer.
2. Used Ctrl A to select the entire song (I also tried a song where I clicked the top Staff Select button, held Shift, and clicked the last Staff Select button).
3. Clicked the "Notes" button on the Notes, Rests tab to select all the notes.
4. Pressed the "Delete" key on my computer keyboard to delete all the notes.
5. Used the mouse to enter some new notes
6. Clicked on the Piano Roll tab. The piano roll blocks correctly showed up on the display. Alternatively/additionally clicked on the Note Velocity tab and correctly see the red vector lines show up for the velocities.

Could you perhaps send me a copy of the parent file that you saw the problem with? There may be something anomalous with the particular file.


Also, just a suggestion. If you have a particular type of file that you use often (eg. a particular ensemble group) for creating new song files, you may want to save a blank one as a template file. That way you don't have to go through the job of deleting everything from a parent file multiple times - just the once to save the template.



To save a Template file, just

1. Clear out everything that you don't want in the template (eg. notes, rehearsal marks, annotations, etc).
2. You can, however, leave anything that you would want in the song file every time (eg. "Arranged by MyNameHere" or anything like that).
3. Use File -> Save as Template, and click "yes".
4. Give the file a name. Hint: if you want the file to be at the top of the list when you use Create a New Song, give it a "!" exclamation point at the beginning of the filename.
5. Click "Save" to save the file as a template, and exit. Now when you want to create a new song with that type of layout, you can just use Create New, and use your own customized template

You can find out more in Help -> Users Guide, use the Index to look up "template", then select the "creating your own" subtopic.


ttfn,
Sherry

[blane245]

Thanks for the Template suggestion. I have thought about using them, but I don't use the same sequence very often and find remember the use of templates as hard to remember as copying a previous similar piece and modifying it.

I could send you a parent piece, but actually the problem seems to occur on ALL pieces after I have them open for a while. Some times it is sooner than later. I could open a piece, do a very few modifications and the Piano Roll and Note Velocity will work fine. Other times, I made a few changes and they don't. I have not found a pattern yet. The problem will occur eventually as long as I have Notation running. If I restart it, it goes away for awhile and then come back.

Don't you hate those kinds of problems.

I have attached the most recent file that I have been working with. The problem seems to occur quickly with this one. 10 Exercitium.not

[Sherry C]

Howdy,

Don't you hate those kinds of problems.

They do present a challenge

Originally Posted by blane245

I could send you a parent piece, but actually the problem seems to occur on ALL pieces after I have them open for a while. Some times it is sooner than later. I could open a piece, do a very few modifications and the Piano Roll and Note Velocity will work fine. Other times, I made a few changes and they don't. I have not found a pattern yet. The problem will occur eventually as long as I have Notation running. If I restart it, it goes away for awhile and then come back.

There are a couple of things that come immediately to mind.

There may be some particular sequence of edits that trigger the problem, and I'm just not doing them correctly to recreate the problem. I've been fiddling with the file you sent for a while now, but still have not seen the problem of not being able to see the Piano Roll rectangles or Note Velocity vectors. If you see the problem show up, take a look at Edit and then the "history" list at the bottom of that list. If possible, please take a screen shot of it so I can try recreating the problem fresh.

The other possibility is that there is some machine configuration that makes the problem show up. I know that memory can be an issue sometimes as the Undo list will go as long as there is memory available. However, if machine memory gets full, weird things can start happening. Perhaps next time you see this issue show up, try (1) clicking Edit and then (2) Clear Undo History. If that makes the the Piano Roll and Note Velocity show up, then it may just be that you'll want to use that command more often to free up memory while working on pieces.

If anyone else sees the same problem, please feel free to weigh in on the conversation!

ttfn,
Sherry

[blane245]

Roll-velocityproblem1.docx
Here's a simple one. I opened the piece that I sent you and deleted all of the notes. I changes the tempo and changed the speed at the end of the piece. I then did what you see in the undo history. Then I clicked Note Velocity and Piano Roll. Each flashed for a second and then returned to the Notes tab.

[Sherry C]

Hi,

Thanks for the screenshot and the further description.

Did you perchance try clearing the Undo history after you took the screenshot? If so, did it clear the problem?

ttfn,
Sherry

[blane245]

Originally Posted by Sherry C

Did you perchance try clearing the Undo history after you took the screenshot? If so, did it clear the problem?

No, but I just did it, and the problem was still there.

[Sherry C]

Hi,

In spite of the great documentation, I am still not able to make this happen on my set up. It may be due to my methods of doing things (eg. changing the tempo, slowing down the tempo at the end, Step time recording of the notes, etc.) that is working around the issue.

Here are the steps that I have taken, in full. The first time I went through this, I stopped every three steps in order to take a look at the Piano Roll and/or the Note Velocity to see if the problem was showing up. The next time I just went straight through all the steps and only checked at the end.

1. Open file 10 Exercitum.not
2. Use Ctrl+A to select entire song.
3. Click Notes , Rests tab, then the Notes button to select all the notes in the file.
4. Use the "Delete" key on my keyboard to delete all the notes.
5. Click the Tempo button in the menu bar to open the Tempo dialog.
6. Use the slider for the Constant Tempo parameter to set the tempo to 53. Click Ok to close, and note the tempo changed correctly on the menu bar.
7. Click Graph Over Notes tab, and then the Tempo button.
8. Use the Draw a Curve button to draw a lower tempo curve over the last 3 measures.
9. Click on Notes, Rests tab
10. Click the Step Time Record button to enter Step Time Recording mode.
11. Position the mouse cursor at beat 1 of the top staff
12. With the quarter note on, press C6 (C above middle C) key
13. Press G6 key to record next note.
14. Repeat steps 12 and 13 for 6 measures.
15. Use File/Save as, and save the file as "Test.not"
16. Use File/Song title and authors, and edit all fields to "test".
17. Click the Piano Roll tab - rectangles show up correctly
18. Click the Note Velocity tab - vectors show up correctly.

Perhaps it has to do with the note sequence that is entered, unless there is something else different in the way that I've tested this than the way you do things. Since there are often multiple ways to perform some tasks, the problem may be that I am doing the same task but differently than you do it.



If everything else looks the same as the way you do things, please post a copy of the file you were working on when the problem occurs. I'll then try to replicate the exact note entry and see if the problem lies there.


ttfn,
Sherry

ttfn,
Sherry

[blane245]

How about we go at this from a different angle? Maybe it is my computer environment. I am running Windows 8.1 on a 64-bit 4GB RAM desktop. I have Microsoft Visual C++ 2010 x86 Redistributable - 10.0.40219 installed. Notation is installed in the Program Files (x86)/Notation_3/Composer_3 folder. Everything else in Composer is working fine. It is just those two tabs. Is there something different about how those two tabs work from all of the other tabs? They do have graphic overlays, but so does GraphOverNotes and it work just fine.

I will repeat the sequence that you did and tell you when the tabs stop working.

[blane245]

I did you sequence and had no problems. Darn!

[Sherry C]

Hi,

Originally Posted by blane245

I did you sequence and had no problems. Darn!

Which (probably) means it is something in how one (or more) of the steps is performed.

Is there anything at all in the steps I gave that you would have done differently?

ttfn,
Sherry

[blane245]

I don't usually use the tempo slider. I just enter the tempo number.
Steps 10-14. I don't usually record notes that way. I just ads the notes by clicking on the staff.

I really don't think it is this sequence that causes a problem since this happens on all files that I edit eventually.