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#1
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Hello,
In another thread, I have mocked up a screen shot of MidiNotate Musician and Composer 2.0's new window. Particularly, I'm considering reorganizing the palettes (such as for note durations and types of text) in MidiNotate. I'd appreciate your following the above link to the other post and let me know there your thoughts on the proposed redesign of MidiNotate's window. Cheers -- Mark |
#2
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Mark
I am all in favour of your changes for your new Composer. I have read comments by other participants. I do not like at all the floating tool pallets in Photoshop 7. They always are in the way and need to be shifted frequently. The requirements for a graphical editor also differ very much from the requirements of a notation editor. In contrast to a graphical editor like Photoshop 7, where the order of focus on objects is not set, a notation editor has symbols set in fixed order from left to right of the screen. My ideal notation editor has all menues and tools at the top of the screen, staff buttons to the left, with pertinent information and results at the bottom of the screen. It would display one group of staffs only with a horizontal scroll bar, that permits scrolling through the whole score and a vertical scroll bar to move through the set of staffs, similar to what is done in midipiano roll editors. For the general looks of my ideal notation editor I would be guided by my favourite sound editor "GoldWave". At the bottom of the screen would be an overview, measure numbers and time. I am largely arranging backing tracks where tempo and time are often preset requirements. A sliding control for setting tempo, positioned at the top of the screen, would be appreciated. I think that using the keyboard is the most efficient way of using such software, but I still use mostly a pointing device. I use many different programs with each program having mostly its own specific sets of key combinations, most of which I don't remember for long. One of the current concerns I have with Composer is that during editing, the point of focus jumps around the screen or even off screen. With my above proposal, I imagine that it would be easier to keep the point of focus in exactly the same screen position even though the space taken up by various symbols around the point of focus changes. This recommendation may be drastic, but you asked for it. Best wishes for your project, Herbert Wende |
#3
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Hi Mark
I agree with Herbert's 1st paragraph. Do I ever. I think floating toolbars would really make for clutter. The 4th paragraph expresses another concern of mine. An example of what the loss of focus can mean: I made a program change to the cello staff, clicking on the note where it was to occur, but found it on the previous page on a staff on the top part of the page. On other occasions, I've made a change on one of the string staves, clicked OK and found the focus was, again, on the top part of the screen--on the trombone staff. Also, when I move notes from one staff to the next one down, often the focus jumps to the other half of the page. The problem only seems to come up when a score has two full screens on a page. It would save some re-doing time if the focus would stay in one place until specifically moved. Having a note selected does not always work, in this regard; if one moves a note to the next staff, that note IS selected. The jump often, also, occurs when using d and the right or left arrow to alter duration. Usually, again, when the focus in on the bottom half of the screen. In such a case, too, the note IS selected. It seems to me, that most of what is in the 2nd paragraph is already there. all best, mgj |
#4
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Hi mgj, Mark
My recommendations for the new Composer are more than just a facelift but a fairly drastic change to notation editing. To make it clear, I propose that the Screen View is replaced by another editing view or a third editing view is added to the two existing views. The central point of my proposal is to completely do away with displaying the score on pages, but to display only one set of staffs which can be scrolled by a horizontal scroll control to display any part of the score, without changing pages. Positioning the point of focus in the score would be done by scrolling, clicking on a section in an overview screen below the main editing window or by entering a measure number. The point of focus would be indicated by a vertical cursor line through the whole set of staffs with other marking lines indicating other points of interest. I believe that this would improve productivity. Best wishes, Herbert |
#5
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Hi Mark,
This continues the problem of the screen jumping about. I think there might be a simple solution, or at least relatively simple. I was adding slurs to a piece in which there are many instances where the slur needs to be extended to the next page. After selecting a note and adding the slur, then using e + right arrow, the focus would jump to the top of the page. After growing weary of climbing down the page and finding my place each time, I began to think: if there were just a conveniently located mouse button, or better a keyboard short-cut that was convenient to either hand (ctrl + shift perhaps), that would take me back to the last note or object selected, or the site of the last operation. Would this be possible to implement? all best, mgj |
#6
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Hello Herbert and M.G.,
<blockquote><hr size=0><!-quote-!><font size=1>quote:</font> I do not like at all the floating tool pallets in Photoshop 7. They always are in the way and need to be shifted frequently.<!-/quote-!><hr size=0></blockquote>I personally have the same preference against floating palettes for the same reason. But many people do like floating palettes, so that they can place the tools close to where they are working. The general rule in user interface design for such cases is: If there are lots of people that like it one way, and lots of other people that like it another way, then offer it both ways. In the new user interface design, palettes can be temporarily "torn off" the side of a window to float, and then later be redocked against the side of a window. Between sessions, MidiNotate will remember whether the palette is docked or floating. This has already been implemented in the upcoming version of MidiNotate. Cheers -- Mark <blockquote><hr size=0><!-quote-!><font size=1>quote:</font> [MidiNotate] would display one group of staffs only with a horizontal scroll bar, that permits scrolling through the whole score and a vertical scroll bar to move through the set of staffs, similar to what is done in midipiano roll editors.<!-/quote-!><hr size=0></blockquote>This would be a very good option. It has been on the wish-list for MidiNotate for a long time. (Actually, I had this partly working around 10 years ago.) An alternative approach I'm considering is to support scrolling through the score one measure at a time even when multiple systems (sets of staves, lines of music) are displayed. If you scroll forward a measure, one measure bumps off the top left corner of the window, and one measure newly appears at the bottom right corner of the window. It's not actually that simple, because if the measure that is bumped off is much wider than the newly displayed measure, then two new measures might be displayed. Or, if the measure that is bumped off is much narrower than the newly display measure, then it might be necessary to bump off two measures to make room for the new measure. Let's call your proposed arrangement the "horizontal scroll view". It has advantages you've described. But it also has disadvantages. One, consider where the music uses just one or two staves. A lot of vertical space is left unused, that could be used by more sets of staves (systems, lines of music). Two, if you really want the vertical positions of the staves to remain fixed as you scroll through the score, then MidiNotate would have to allocate the most amount of vertical space used by each staff throughout the entire song. One of MidiNotate's strenghts is how compact the notation is (without any effort on the user's part). That advantage would be lost with a horizontal scroll view that wants to keep each staff at a constant vertical position in the window. In spite of these disadvantages, I agree that it would still be a good idea to include a horizontal scroll view as an option in MidiNotate. <blockquote><hr size=0><!-quote-!><font size=1>quote:</font> One of the current concerns I have with Composer is that during editing, the point of focus jumps around the screen or even off screen.<!-/quote-!><hr size=0></blockquote>This is a concern of mine also. I'll make it a higher priority to eliminate the remaining cases of focus jumps that we run into. |
#7
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Hi, Mark:
Three small-ish things that I would like to see addressed: 1) Shift-Y takes me into the piano roll view, but no amount of Shift-Y-ing will take me out of it. Neither does backing up the menu hierarchy. I have to use the View Menu entry to get out of it. In a similar vein, the graph view doesn't disappear when you back up the menu hierarchy, either, although Shift-X does make it disappear. 2) I still feel that Composer has a problem with double-click speed on the arrow icons to move to the beginning or end pages of a piece. It seems sluggish, so that I have to wait an inordinate time between single clicks while paging in order to avoid jumping to the end (or beginning). I know you've said in the past that Composer simply reads the Windows double-click status, but I think there must be something else there. and 3) my daughter has just come into the room, wanting my computer and made me forget what the third thing was. I'll try to remember. David |
#8
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Alright, now I remember!
3) Mark, I hate, hate, HATE the piano roll note-lock "feature". When I change I note, I want it changed. I do not want to have to enter piano-roll view and unlock its duration so that I can change it. I don't care whether its duration, attack and release were part of the original midi file or .not file. I'm the user and I have the right to change things without Composer holding my hand and saying "no, no, no!" As to the discussion above, I've been using Composer so long that it's all second nature to me. Any other programs I've looked at have their own strengths and weaknesses, but I've yet to see an on-screen display layout that is significantly better. My only other major gripe is that Composer still rearranges pages on loading a file, so that I have to be very careful that the pagination is still the same between one print-out of a score and the next. I think that Composer should NEVER make a change to pagination on file-load -- there needs to be a way to stick it and lock it. This is feeling like the old beta-testing days! David |
#9
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Hi, David,
<blockquote><hr size=0><!-quote-!><font size=1>quote:</font> Three small-ish things that I would like to see addressed: ... Mark, I hate, hate, HATE the ...<!-/quote-!><hr size=0></blockquote>I fear how you'd express something big-ish you didn't like :-) Note to others: I'm just joking David. He's been one of the most valuable beta testers over the years. (1) I've reproduced the problem with SHIFT+Y not toggling off piano roll. I'll fix that. (2) The next/prev page double-click option for the Rewind and Fast Foward buttons in the main toolbar will be removed. Instead, there will be a page scroller at the bottom of the window. It's already implemented, and works much better. (3) I'll review the note attack/release locking feature. It's fairly clear from your comment that this should be an option that can be turned on or off. There a good reasons why some or most users would want this feature when working with an existing MIDI file. For now, after you import a MIDI file, you can select all of the notes and unlock them. Thereafter, if you add a note, it will not be locked. The idea here is that folk importing MIDI files are usually interested in transcribing it to notation, but don't want to alter the MIDI performance at all. (4) There should be a Freeze Pagination command, but that doesn't really address the problem squarely. I don't think you want to freeze the pagination. You just want it to be consistent: it shouldn't change between between the time you save a file and reopen it. As you know, this has been an elusive problem: the inconsistency in pagination is not consistently inconsistent. The problem here is probably as follows: Whenever you make any change to the score, MidiNotate should completely reformat the score as far as that change might "ripple". Have you heard of the "butterfly effect" in math catastrophe theory? A butterfly in flaps its wing, and that's just the extra microscopic disturbance in the atmosphere that triggers a series of wind currents that swing the weather pattern to a massive hurricane. Well, that's a little dramatic. It's possible, though, that a change in notation on page #2 can ripple pagination changes up to the end of the score at page #103. It would bog down the computer if MidiNotate completely repaginated the score upon every little editing change. So, MidiNotate is "smart" about determining the scope of the repagination ripple effect. However, wherever software tries to be smarter, there is room for more error. That is probably where the error is. MidiNotate probably is not following the ripple far enough. With that background, which I don't think I've ever described in this forum, perhaps it will help you better help me find the circumstances in which this pagination ripple problem occurs. <blockquote><hr size=0><!-quote-!><font size=1>quote:</font> but I've yet to see an on-screen display layout that is significantly better<!-/quote-!><hr size=0></blockquote>You will in a few weeks, with a beta release of version 2.0. Cheers -- Mark |
#10
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Mark
Real estate on the monitor screen is very precious. But when catering for many, a compromise might need to be struck. Where should the compromise lie? Catering for the economical Composer user who only ever uses one staff and might only have two measures to his whole score, because he is only interested to compose a melody line for his door chime, might be a noble thing. But what about the users among us who aspire to be another Beethoven or Wagner. I do not, but I use at least three staves, piano and solo voice and often more. What I am missing in Composer is the ability to run several instances of Composer and several instances of the editing screen. Photoshop 7 will not permit multiple instances of the program, but permits the display of several image files in the main window. GoldWave permits several instances of the program and several instances of the editing window with common menus and controls in the main window. This is very useful for comparing, copying and pasting while several files are open and displayed. Coming back to a “one group of staves only” editing window as I have suggested in earlier postings, the available extra space could be very usefully taken up by displaying other scores or any part of the same score including a continuation of the above score linked to the above part. The changing and automatically adjusted space for a measure is a very important part of Composer and should of course be maintained. A practical solution would be the highlighting of one bar in a group of staves as the point of focus. The space taken up by the bar would change exactly as it does now, to accommodate the editing of symbols. The highlighted focus area could be moved horizontally by the user but not move by itself and possibly sit near the right end of the editing window mostly. What would move horizontally, right to left, is the score itself. This is similar to what you are describing in your posting of March 30, 2006 as something you have considered, where you bump off measures to the left. However, using scroll bars and a narrow horizontal overview window at the bottom of the screen would do away with changing pages of the score. The overview would basically be a linear window of time and measure numbers, with the positioning of its locator controlled by the editing action above. The editing window would not be linear with time. Often I like to look at and play back several measures to the left of the editing area. As it is now, I may have to change pages and magnification, searching for the area of focus, to achieve this. DJ wrote “… but I’ve yet to see an on-screen display layout that is significantly better.” In reference to the address of David Jacklin as DJ, I have no idea whether there is a protocol on this forum to control how participants should be addressed. I have used “Mark” for (markwa) and the username for another forum user in the past. I might stay with this system currently. Personally I do not mind if I am addressed by my user name “Herbert” or alternatively by my first name “Herbert”. In reference to the above quote I have to admit that my motivation for putting forward my proposals is entirely selfish. The features of other notation software do not help me, although I think it is always a good idea to know what is done by others and it would be very much worthwhile to compare notation software generally on this forum. I cannot help here, but there may be other users who own several notation editing programs. My concern is not about the aesthetics of Composer in this instance, but totally about productivity. I may not be granted all of what I desire of Composer. Nevertheless … Best wishes, Herbert |
#11
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Hello, Herbert:
You said, "In reference to the address of David Jacklin as DJ" . . . Hey, call me anything except late for dinner. I'll answer to most anything. . . . "my user name “Herbert” or alternatively by my first name “Herbert” It's beginning to sound like the old Monty Python sketch: "Do you mind if we call you Bruce, just to keep it straight?" Regarding the screen display, I guess preference comes from the end use. For me, I'm page oriented -- what I do with Composer is almost always for print-out and use elsewhere, so I work in the page view and don't mind paging up and down. It's natural for me. Others feel differently, I'm sure. Regards, Bruce |
#12
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Hi Bruce, dj, David
This sounds like a lot of fun. But perhaps I shoud be dealing with matters in a more serious way. To keep things short this time, the serious part of my earlier effords were to the call :" please help me on user interface design ... " best wishes Herbert |
#13
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Hi all
Further to what I just said, I am surprised, that there has been so little positive response to Mark's request for help. Just confirming the qualities of Composer hardly helps. Herbert |
#14
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Hello Herbert
It's clear that what you want is a "horizontal scroll view". There have been a few requests for this in the past. Some other notation programs over the year have offered this option. Sibelius takes a different approach. Sibelius has only Page View. It doesn't have a Window View as in MidiNotate. And it doesn't have a horizontal scroll view. Instead, Sibelius has a sort of aerial view window that always sits on top of the score. In the aerial view, you drag the mouse to move across pages of the score, as though you were skating across pages laid side by side on the ground. The aerial view is good in that you can see where you're going with the mouse drag; but the aerial view is poor, in my opinion, because it's always on top of the score, in the way of what you want to see and edit. Here are all of the ways I know about for viewing measures across pages:
<blockquote><hr size=0><!-quote-!><font size=1>quote:</font> What I am missing in Composer is the ability to run several instances of Composer and several instances of the editing screen.<!-/quote-!><hr size=0></blockquote>Composer does let you view multiple scores at a time, within a single instance of Composer. You can use options in the Window menu to arrange the multiple scores to fit within Composer's overall window. You can copy/paste between the multiple scores. Cheers -- Mark |
#15
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Hi Mark
Thank you for pointing out that Composer displays several files at a time. I had overlooked it. This is helpful. The Z-Order Measure Scrolling you describe seems to be what I have in mind. Of course there would be more than 2 horizontal sections possible, but as many as suit a particular situation. The screen might look like the current Window view, except that sections would be divided by narrow horizontal borders. With an empty score, the area of focus encompassing one bar would move down a Z pass from near the left top corner of the Window, to near the right bottom corner of the Window, while the score is filled in. Any change in space requirement from editing existing notation would be accommodated from screen area to the left and top of the area of focus, leaving the focus point stationary. I would like to see a lot more tool buttons and would sacrifice precious window area for it. There would be some distinction between tool palettes and general tool buttons, with the user having the ability to select the tool buttons to be displayed and having a choice of small or large tool buttons. Best wishes Herbert |
#16
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Hello Herbert,
The Z-order measure scrolling is on the to-do list, but won't be included in the upcoming 2.0 release, scheduled for June. The 2.0 release will include some major improvements in the palette and main toolbar design. Tools will be more readily accessible via buttons. As you suggested, the user will be able to show or hide the tools. There will be a beta release of 2.0 in this forum in the next week or two. If I remember correctly, you had some concern about file version control. The beta release of 2.0 introduces a new Save As .NOT 1.0 File Format option, so that you can go back an forth between the 2.0 beta release and 1.0. The loss of data going back to 1.0 will be irrelevant for purpose of trying out the new user interface. Cheers -- Mark |
#17
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Hello Herbert,
In another thread I have proposed another alternative to the horizontal scroll view and Z-order measure scrolling. The proposal is to let you add a temporary page break at any measure, so that you can effectively control what range of measures are displayed on the page. Please let me know what you think of that proposal by responding in the above thread. Thanks! Cheers -- Mark |
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