When working with a fairly complex score, with a large number of staves, it would be very convenient if each staff name, or staff label, or some bit of associated and relevant text, could "float" at the left hand edge of the screen, so that I could always see at a glance which staff is what without having to zip back to the start (and then back to my place). This isn't possible with NWC 1.75 (which I am still using), and I don't think it can be arranged with NWC 2.5 et al, though I'd like someone to show me I'm wrong and how it can be achieved.
Wrong again? Not the way I'm looking at it. I am unable to get two same-value notes one above the other with tails in opposite directions without forcing them.
That's fine for one note on top of the other, but for one note above the other you need to force the tails.
MusicJohn, 9/Jun/15
By the way: where does your dead crab "sign-off" come from? When I google it Google reveals that in Monty Python's "Whizzo butter" sketch it was actually "10% more or less" - at least, that's what most of the hits say. [:-)]
If you persevere with it, I think you'll find that entering the notes from the (computer) keyboard rather than using the mouse is by far the quickest and simplest way. The "secret" lies in making full use of the numeric pad on the right of the keyboard - and I'm assuming that, like me, you're right handed. With Num Lock off, and coupled (with the left hand) with the (left) Ctrl and Shift keys, the keys in this pad do almost every conventional thing you'll ever need to do - moving up and down and back and forth with the 2,4,8,6 arrow keys and the Pg Up/Dn keys, flipping tails, affixing ties (with the slash). Best of all, the plus and minus keys increase or decrease the length of the note next to be entered, so "++", for instance, doubles and then re-doubles whatever value the note had when you started, and "---" halves, re-halves and halves again the note value.
With your right hand resting on the desk adjust the right-hand corner of the keyboard, you can reach all the pad keys in a manner which soon becomes a simple touch-typing affair. And you can reserve mouse use for making large sweeping movements over the screen, as for selecting a long line of notes or moving around from one side or staff to another.
So going back to your original problem; there are many ways/sequences of keystrokes to key in the notes to achieve what you want, but here's one.
Imagine you're starting with an empty staff. Noteworthy will open the score with the cursor sitting on the central line, and if - but don't! - you press the "Enter" key will put in the default starting value, a crotchet with its tail down. First, then, enter 4 line-downs (the pad 2/down arrow), then hit "Enter". You'll enter a crotchet (automatically tail-up) on the bottom line. Then enter 2 line-downs, hit the "+" key once, and then hit "Ctrl Enter"; Noteworthy will insert the minim, tail-down, under the crotchet. Then enter 2 line-ups (the pad 8/up arrow), hit the "-" twice, and "Enter", and there's the first quaver in place. Next, enter one line-up, and hit "Enter" again, and there's the second quaver. Finally, do 2 Shift line-lefts (the pad 4/left arrow), to select the two quavers, followed by Ctrl B to beam them (you can reach Ctrl B with your left hand little and index fingers).
As an alternative, you can enter the minim first - from the initial "empty staff, default crotchet" position enter 6 line-downs, a single "+", a Shifted line down (that forces Noteworthy to enter the next note tail-down; Shifted line-up would force a tail-up entry), and "Enter".
Then to add the crotchet, 2 line ups, a single "-", a Shifted line-down (that cancels the tail-up, and thus toggles back to the default; a Shifter line-up would have made the next note tail-up, and all following notes, which you might not want), and "Ctrl Enter".
And then a single "-", a line-up, and "Enter" for the first quaver,
and a single line-up and "Enter" for the second quaver.
Incidentally, if you want two same-value notes - two crotchets, say - to sit one above the other but with the tails in opposite directions, then you must force each tail. And no, you can't have the upper note tail-down while the lower note is tail-up unless you achieve this using layering.
Persevere. It'll come quite easily after a bit. I know! I've done lots and lots and lots of them.
I can recommend Mailwasher - www dot firetrust dot com - for which a free version is available. It does a stripped down preview so - they say - you can see the plain text in the email without any risk.
Mmmm. Thanks. I'll give it some thought - but at the moment I've chickened out, and gone with Richard's solution above (default endings). You can see it in the Agnus Dei at http://www.learnchoralmusic.co.uk/Charpentier/Messe de Minuit-Schott/minuit-messe.html - and that despite the fact that, on a recording I listened to, the repeats are in fact played after the Dal Segno.
Thanks, Rick G. I need to think about your suggestion; to work out how you've arranged the special endings and the local repeats - and how you've blended a flow control staff with other staves not using the same flow control commands. Interesting. I've vaguely thought about that for other reasons, but never so far tried to implement it.
"Firstly, I'm no musical expert but I understand that after a DS or a DC marking, any section that has a master repeat bars will only be played once after the DS or DC marking."
OK. So that's the "Rule" mentioned in your first Weblink. I didn't know about that. I suspect it applies here (I don't think "here" is an exception).
And then:-
"Because of that, your first and second repeats need to have a D (for default) in the second time bars in the red and green sections as well as the 2.
"If you do this then then Noteworthy will play the final note "in the repeated bars after the DS marking and will then stop at the proper place."
Yup. That works fine. Mind you, I don't understand about Default endings - and I don't entirely understand what the Noteworthy Help File -
- is saying about this ... but I see that the Default can be made any of the numbered endings and will cause that ending to be played - and to be the one played - after the Segno.
"If you do this then then Noteworthy will play the final note in the repeated bars after the DS marking and will then stop at the proper place.
"After the DS marking, it will not play the repeated sections twice, but then as I said, I don't think it's meant to."
Yes. So in fact Noteworthy is playing properly according to the Rules. OK. I should have looked at this Webpage first. Sorry about that!
"Since your second time bars are the same as the first time bars, if you really want the repeat after the DS instruction, then use local repeats instead of master repeats. It works - I just tested it."
They're not quite, but, yes, I understand the point.
Here's a sequence "extracted" from Schott's edition of Charpentier's "Messe de minuit de Noel" [the Agnus Dei on pages 64/5] (don't worry about the huge missing chunks; they're not relevant).
I expect the red bit to be played (twice), followed by the green bit (twice) followed by the blue bit, and then back to the Segno and the red bit (twice) and the green bit (twice) again, and then stop at the Fine. However, as you'll see, following the jump back to the Segno at the start it plays up to the 1st Special Ending then jumps direct to the beginning of the green bit (once only) and thence to the end of the blue (and stops).
It would help a bit if "Font", or "Display font" or "Notation font" - or something similar - were an item in the Help Contents Index. On the other hand, "Text Command" and "Text Expression Properties" are there, and do provide potentially useful assistance!
In any "help" system it's always a problem knowing what to look up when you don't know how to do something! In the old DOS days I vaguely remember looking up, and failing to find, "Delete", which seemed only to be indexed under "Erase". [:-)]
What you're experiencing is probably the result of the Performance Style you're using - see the "Insert" Menu.
NWC 1.75 has effectively three such styles - Legato, Semplice and Staccato; NWC 2.5 et al adds a staccatissimo. All the other styles, though named differently, are actually each one or other of these. For example, Tenuto is the same as Legato, and Marcato is the same as Semplice.
When you first fire up NWC, and enter notes with the style undefined, it plays Semplice, which is as you described, with a clear cut-off and a hard start. Though in reality the end result differs somewhat depending on what Instrument you're using, you can have the notes run together better, and so sound "smoother", using - as you might expect - Legato/Tenuto.
After all your efforts to provide a Noteworthy version of the few bars Jeffrey Grossman refers to, I thought I'd ask the man himself for his comments.
This, then, is what I wrote to him, and there follows his reply. I guess it rests there.
MusicJohn, 23/Aug/14
===========================================
On Jul 16, 2014, at 8:51 AM, John wrote:
Hi, Jeffrey.
As a Choral singer I'm really only interested in what music sounds like, and then only in a general sense, and only incidentally do I care what it looks like. For my purpose, then, the relatively "simple" Notation Processor Noteworthy Composer -
However, my fellow NWC users tend to be more keen on good-looking printouts, and the Noteworthy Forum is full of discussions about getting slurs right, beaming across barlines, and the exact placing of text objects, and so on and so on. So, having quite by chance come across your Website page
- and there have been provided several "solutions" to printing the few bars you refer to, and I thought you might be interested to see what can be done with a $50 piece of software plus a lot of time! None of us, I'm sure, would dream of suggesting that NWC is better than, or even as good as, SCORE, but ... with a bit of time and care it can provide quite nice printed output.
Regards,
John (MusicJohn), 14/Jul/14
PS You will be able to see the proposed NWC Files, and observe all the "tricks" done to get things to look right, using the free Noteworthy Viewer from
Thanks for this message — very interesting to see the ensuing discussion, and glad (I suppose) that my little website would spur it on! As you might imagine, I haven’t updated that in a long time, or I would probably include a few examples like the attached…
Just downloaded that and played it on my computer - it still plays the bass chord after the treble chord. Could it maybe be some setting on my computer?
Hi again, Susanna.
Strange. It plays OK to me. But ... try this one - a "revised" version of Rick's - and tell us how it sounds.
That's odd, Rick. I've just tried it, and it works for me!
Ah. My mistake. First I'd omitted to render the rests invisible, and then I'd chosen "Single Staff Prints" (rather than "Never") without thinking of the consequences!
Listening to it, I suspect - though I don't have a proper score to compare it with - that you may have miskeyed in a few places - thus, in Bars 12, 19, 29, 30, 33, 52, 63, 68 and 89. It's easily done, I'm afraid, and for me there's no substitute to listening again and again and hunting down the errors that make it sound wrong.
The final chord - and, indeed, any of the other arpegios - could be improved by inserting invisible "grace note" rests in the other hand to match the grace notes in the one hand. Then the notes of both chords proper will all sound at the same time.
Incidentally, "grace notes" may - depending what "sort" they are (there was a lively discussion about this several years ago) - need to borrow time from the preceding notes rather than from the succeeding ones. And because, I think, the apparent value of the grace note has no actual effect on the length for which it sounds you may, if things are going to sound right, have to fudge it with real but more appropriately-valued invisible notes on a separate staff layer.
As to the dynamics, there are several ways to tackle the problem you are facing. For example, for each dynamic in the score you can input two in the NWC File, one dynamic which is acted upon but invisible, giving you the sound level you want, immediately preceded by another dynamic which is visible (but overuled by the following dynamic, so it looks right but doesn't actually have any noticeable effect on sound volume). The combination will thus both sound and look OK. Moreover, in Staff Properties you can also adjust the default Volume for the entire Staff. And using the Multi-point Controller you can at any point quite separately adjust both the Volume and Expression levels for each Staff. Alternatively, in 2.51 et al you can of course reset the default dynamic volume values for each instrument to any figure you think is more appropriate.
In one or more of these ways you can fix it so that the actual playing volumes are more to your liking. And I always set the basic value (in Staff Properties) to 64 - that is, halfway along the range - so that I can then use the MPC to grow louder or softer as I wish (mind you, I'm so old-fashioned that I'm still using NWC 1.75, so unlike you I don't have hairpins to play with!).
Presumably by now you have completed your rendition of the Largo? Perhaps you'd like to tell us how you got on ... even let us see your resultant File (which I'm sure we'd find of interest)?
Before I read Rick's reply (the content of which is way beyond my competence) I thought you meant "simply" that you wanted (a) to revise each existing File rather quicker than going via Page Setup to the Fonts tab and then accessing each staff in turn to change the Font Size Typeface and Style, and (b) you wanted a new File to open in some standard format other than one of those Noteworthy presently sets up for you. Possibly, then, I misunderstood - but if not then, for what it's worth, I offer the following suggestions.
For (a), why not convert each Noteworthy File into an NWCTXT version, and then manipulate this as you would any text File, possibly with either an automated or a manual Find-and-Replace. It won't be that much faster than going via Page Setup, but it might help.
And for (b), since most of your new Files are, I suspect, going to be based on the same or some similar template as older ones, why not simply make a new (set of) Template Files that are more appropriate to your needs and which you can then load in whenever you want to start a new song?
"I notice you have braces on the two violin staves; how do you make them cross the layered staves?"
Simple. Look at the score unlayered. You'll see that the two outside staves - the top and bottom ones - have upper or lower Grand Staff styles (see the F2 visual tab), as appropriate, which combine to make the brace, but the two inside ones have Orchestral-style bar line styles, which ensure the bar lines meet across the "two" staves. When the staves are layered Noteworthy combines and merges, and it all comes out right (Noteworthy is quite clever; it will always try to extend any upper Grand Staff symbol until it meets a lower Grand Staff symbol).
You add:-
"And another note - my version is strictly a piano version, no option for voice."
Ah. Yes; I thought our scores were different. Well I can't do it all for you - that would take away all your fun! [:-)] - but I'm sure you'll be able to apply the "lesson" of my Contralto-soloist version (which is what Handel wrote) to your piano one. For the most part you'll see that the Contralto line is what's at the top of the piano right hand!
I'm not normally one who cares much what a Noteworthy File looks like when printed out, being on the whole more interested in what it sounds like so I can use it for learning to sing a Work. Accordingly, maybe my attached attempt at Handel's Xerxes "Largo" - "Ombra mai fu" - made in NWC 1.75 from the available IMSLP Score will not look as pretty, and be not quite as "correct", as it should (it doesn't play that well, either, but the tricks I normally use for playing would mess up the visual appearance, so I omitted them). If you find a few visual mistakes - maybe I should have given a note some extra spacing, or shifted a rest or a dynamic up, down or sideways, or forgotten to make something invisible - please forgive me!
Incidentally, I normally double up the base line, as here, in an attempt to give the music the feel of greater depth and solidity.
I don't think this IMSLP Score is the one you're working from, so I hope that I have been able to offer you some insight into using layers without at the same time spoiling your fun! [:-)]
"OK, I understand what you're saying, and I do know how to work with layers. I just didn't see how it would apply here. I'll give it a try. Thanks. More than one way to skin a cat, I guess."
which is fine, and I'm sure you'll work it out.
Mind you, from your previous comments I had rather assumed that the idea and use of layers was a bit foreign to you, but ... obviously not.
But just to give you a little additional assistance, here's an NWC File with the notes used by Rick in his example above. I assume, from your last comment, that you'll be able to decode this, and then use it - or the example it provides - for your further instances.
With layering, what you see it what you get. Or rather, what you see on the score - some notes tail up combined in the same staff with other notes with tails down - is what you get when you use two (or more, but let's not worry about that just yet) layers for each relevant staff of the Score, one for the tail up notes and one for the tail down notes.
First, then, create two staves for each staff of the Score, one staff below the other (a bit like Sops 1 & 2, or 1st/2nd violins). Preferably they should have different channels, otherwise they may not actually play properly! And the first staff of each pair of staves should be set to layer on top of the second staff of the pair. Then start entering the notes in each staff.
To start with, keep the two staves separate/unlayered, and enter the notes in each, exactly as written in the Score, tail up notes on one staff, tail down notes on the other. I recommend doing this a bar at a time, first one staff, then the other. It's simplest if you pad out each layer/staff with invisible rests of the right duration in the places where there aren't any notes with the appropriate tails but only notes with the wrong tails (provided the bar lines match, this indicates you've probably got it right). And then, when you combine the two staves - when you permit the layering actually to be effected - they will seamlessly blend, one on top of the other, to provide the staff as shown in the Score. And you have achieved just what you want.
A lot of the chats in the forum are about printing the music - about the visual look of the printed score - so I thought you'd all be amused by engraver Jeffrey Grossman's Website at
Perhaps Rick, or maybe Richard, could waste a few hours experimenting with Noteworthy to see if it can match the SCORE version of the example with the dotted sixteenth-notes half-way down the page. [:-)]
Though, as a confirmed Handel/Mozart/Bach etc Choral man, this music leaves me cold, I've been mildly impressed by the effort put into the problem by everyone, especially by Richard, and slightly surprised by the relative absence of further comment from Frybyte/Jay.
And I'm a bit curious about the repeated section from top staff Bar 11 to Bar 22 (which has the D.C. al Fine in it; interesting that, because the D.C. is only in the top Staff!). I don't know what is supposed to happen here, but what actually happens is that the D.C. is performed but the "repeat" is ignored ... so why's it there?
Thanks for your comments. Perhaps Eric will take note, and put things right?
Meanwhile ... an example, from a not-so-modern composer, of music with a lot of time-sig changes is Barber's Adagio for strings, which changes back and forth between 4/2, 5/2, 6/2 and 3/2 several times. Another, and much worse (!), is Poulenc's Mass in G major, which - in the Kyrie, for instance - changes almost every bar ... 7/4, 5/4, 4/4, 3/4, 5/2, 4/2 ... it does become quite a drag!
One of the "features" I don't understand about Noteworthy relates to the manner in which it converts Midi Files into Noteworthy notation when a Midi File is imported into Noteworthy, and specifically what it does with, and how it places, time signatures in the middle of the File.
In all - I think - musical scores I've ever come across the notation used to show a change in time signature - from, say, to 3/4 to 4/4 - places the new signature at the very beginning of the bar/measure from where it is required to apply (although in some modern music the composer sometimes enjoys keeping us on our toes, and puts the new time signatures in the middle of the bar!), and it is normal to locate the new signature immediately after the bar line at the start of that bar (or, if there's a key change as well, immediately after the new key signature which itself is placed immediately after the bar line). And yet ... and yet ...
And yet it seems to me that whenever a Midi File having some such time signature change is imported into Noteworthy, the File shown in Noteworthy notation always has the new time signature placed right at the end of the last bar to which the old signature applies, and thus immediately before the bar line at the start of the bar to which the new signature applies. And this applies to Midi Files correctly made from Noteworthy Files.
So, the score shows the new time signature AFTER the bar line, and yet Noteworthy places it BEFORE that bar line.
What am I misunderstanding? Or is - which I admit is unlikely - Noteworthy wrong?
Indeed there is. The default tempo is crotchet=120. To change the tempo simply insert a Tempo command - from the pull-down Insert menu - where you want the different tempo to start from. So to change the tempo for the entire piece, insert it at the beginning.
It doesn't matter which staff you put the insert in, though a tempo command in a lower - on the screen - staff will overrule any setting in a higher one.
Though I'm not entirely sure about this, I think you'll find that you can select and copy an entire staff in the usual way, and then insert that into a text reader such as Notepad. Then, with a fresh instance of Noteworthy running, you should be able to copy the text from Notepad directly into it.
So, you can effectively save each staff via Notepad until you can get back to your licensed version of Noteworthy.
I doubt there's any chance of a iPad or android version of Noteworthy Composer, but worry not, for help is at hand.
There is an excellent iPad/iPhone Midi File reader/player available from the Apple store - at http :slash slash itunes . apple dot com slash gb slash app slash learn-my-part slash id517515605?ls=1&mt=8. It's called "Learn My Part", and is designed to allow MIDI files to be played in a way that is most helpful for Choral Singers to learn their parts. Each part is represented with a mixer-style volume control and three preset buttons - Isolate, Highlight and Challenge - to change relative track/channel volumes (Isolate mutes all the other parts, Highlight sets the other parts to play softly and the selected part loudly, and Challenge mutes the selected part), though you can manually set the volume levels however you like. It also allows the tempo of playback to be adjusted, and a marked section of the file to be "looped" (which can be useful for going over a small section you are trying to learn). More details, and a demo video and a link to the application in the Apple App Store, can all be accessed via the link above.
I refer to it in the Midi Players page of my own website, http :slash slash www dot learnchoralmusic dot co dot uk.
So, all you need to do is convert your NWC Files to Midi versions, and then you can play them on the iPhone/iPad using this Player.
One possible route is to "export" the NWC File to Midi Format, and then to convert the formed Midi File into an MP3 File using software such as Synthfont -
http-colon-//www-dot-synthfont-dot-com
(you can use this free for experimentation; if you like it, donate them some money).
You might be interested in Choralia - www dot choralia dot net/ - who does this sort of thing for free. And if you need Midi Files to work from, perhaps my own Site - www dot learnchoralmusic dot co uk - would be helpful.
Hmmm. Interesting. It is a fact - see above - that for a new staff the default volume is 110, as Rick says, BUT the default MPC volume is set at 64. So maybe I was wrong!
And ... on a different but possibly related subject, whenever I've used tremelo strings (#45) and then changed back to ordinary strings (#49), for some bars after it always seems to me that the strings are in fact still tremelo!
So far as I am aware there is as yet no version of Noteworthy that will run under either any flavour of Android or the iPhone/iPad OS, and there doesn't appear to be any intention of providing these. However, not to worry; you can save or export your NWC Files in Midi format, and save these to your Smart Phone, and they will (usually with inbuilt software, though there are also Apps you can download that will do things other than merely play the Files)) play on your Phone.
I think you may have misunderstood what we're all suggesting. Whichever solution you take, by choosing to make the relevant rests invisible, and by using layers with suitable notation, you end up with a result looking exactly as you wish, with no indication of the way it has been achieved - both the visible score and the rendition are correct.
Either use layering - the tail-up notes on one staff layered with the tail-down notes on a second - or place a quaver rest under the crotchet D, to make what NWC calls a "rest chord" (this will force the crotchet to appear to have a quaver length, though it will still sound a crotchet long!). For this rest chord, place the quaver rest, tail-down, first, then "chord" it with the crotchet, tail-up.
If you have lots of this sort of thing, layering is probably best.
Mmmm, yes. I suppose each bar would have to have, and show, both a real (fully consecutive) bar number and also a "pretend" one relating to the relevant section, the former being shown (but not printed) and used by the Go To command etc, the latter being shown and printed but not used.
Pity ... you can buy the real thing, in Rutter's "Oxford English Classics; Christmas Motets" see http-//www-musicroom.com/song/214998/magnificat-cui-cesar/, for a mere £8.95 plus postage.
I can't help you - I've looked around but found nothing - but, if you do find it, and/or key it all in, perhaps you'd "lend" me your NWC Files so that I can put the Work up on my Site - www-learnchoralmusic.co.uk - and thus provide assistance to those who follow.
Way back at the beginning of time (1995 or so) I wrote - by letter (!) and by E-mail - to the friendly Noteworthy Support People with both a Wish List and also specific queries about specific problems. On the latter I got helpful replies from Eric and from Beth, and on the former I was given a link to the Wish List page.
Later - in March 2004 (I think) - I E-mailed in an updated Wish List ... and I may have posted that Wish List - 20 items some of which have actually been granted by now - as a Forum item, though I can't find it now. To raise a smile, I attach it below.
And at much the same time, mildly irritated by the lack of a visible Wish List, and assuming that almost all wishes would somewhere have been aired publicly in the Forum, I began the fairly gargantuan exercise of going through the Forum items and collecting all the wishes with the intention of making a List and then posting it as an updatable Topic in its own right.
Eventually I got bored with the task - it was quite difficult to precis people's ramblings into something clear and succinct - so, with other things to do (like a living to earn), I gave up.
Perhaps one of you lot might like to take up the task?
MusicJohn, 10/Jul/12
====
2004 Wish List
1) A proper printed manual. I'd be prepared to pay for one!
2) Combining two staves - that is, "copying" everything in one staff on top of the corresponding things on a second staff. I know, of course, that in 1.75 you can place two staves on top of each other, to view and to print, but that's not quite the same as actually copying one onto the other.
And it would be nice to be able to Insert a new Staff with all the characteristics of an old one - rather like "Copying" the old staff in toto to form a new one.
3) Automatically joining two staves end to end - one from one File, say, and the second from the other - would be nice (though I appreciate that, with two Windows open, you can do this manually). The extreme of this would be to joint two like Files together, one on the end of the other (so that two pieces of music can be keyed in quite separately, and then joined seamlessly to each other).
4) Having a really long note (a breve) as well as a really short note (a semi-demisemiquaver; you added this latter for 1.55, I think).
5) Providing an automated facility for trills and rounds (you know; "tr~~" and "^^^^") and chord "rolls" (a vertical jagged line). This is perhaps Feature No: 509.24?
And, while you're at it, providing a printable note symbol where the stem is crossed to indicate that the note is played as lots of rather smaller notes; violins do this all the time. And actually implementing that - so that, for instance, a minim with a double line cross is actually played as a sequence of eight semiquavers.
An alternative way of showing this for a "chord" of notes is to have the larger notes grouped and "beamed" with the lines corresponding to the smaller notes.
6) You now have keypresses for staccato (.) and tenuto (_) note styles, but what about that note length usually defined by the "'" (apostrophe) symbol?
7) You could usefully automate beaming as the notes are actually entered - toggling beaming on/off with, say, the square brackets symbol "[".
And though you now allow automated beaming for any unbeamed notes within a staff - from the Tools Menu; Alt-TA - nevertheless with some time signatures it doesn't seem to give the right effect. For example, in plain 4/4 time four quavers usually get beamed as two pairs rather than as a single quartet, and yet in scores they're usually written as all four beamed together.
The Help Files say that beaming across a rest is not allowed - which is now not true, since you added this features a few versions ago. It also says that beaming across a bar line is not allowed ... but it ought to be, albeit as a special case, because that's how some scores are printed.
9) And still on the subject of beaming, it would be nice if beamable triplets (and other similar groups) could be beamed with adjacent beamable notes - for example, a triplet of semiquavers beamed with an adjacent quaver.
10) A note can be combined with a (smaller) rest, like a chord, and by suitably selecting the "stem" direction of both rest and note so that the rest can be forced to be either above or below the note. Moreover, any note - and any rest - can be made "invisible", so as not to show in the printed copy. However, with a rest/note combination it does not seem possible to make the rest invisible while still keeping the note visible. This is a shame, because in fact many piano scores show notes combined with an invisible rest!
11) Crescendo and Decrescendo are fine, but ... can you please, please, please now allow use - both printable and implementable - of "hairpins"? It would be wonderful to be able to insert one over the start note and then drag it longer over the subsequent notes who's dynamic is to be changed (though quite how you'd decide the degree of change ... obviously you'd start with the running value, but the change ... maybe you could set each case to "1" or "2" or "3" or whatever, meaning up or down that number of levels in the ppp-pp-p-mp-mf-f-ff-fff sequence? This is Feature No: 509.25.
12) It would be quite useful to be able to start Bar/Measure Numbers from a value less than zero - a negative value - so as to allow for lead-ins and the like to a piece of music the real beginning of which is at bar one (say).
It could also be useful to be able to choose to have the Bar Numbers shown (but not printed) on staves other than/in addition to the top staff, so that when entering a piece with too many staves to see all at once, the Bar Number would be visible even when looking at the bottom staff. Using Ctl-G is not the same!
13) When the Insertion Point cursor is not on some specific feature the Status bar could, with advantage, show the current dynamic and tempo values. And perhaps other "running" values?
14) 1.75 is quite good on triplets and the like - that is to say, it can recognize groups of three (or six or nine or ... ) notes and "convert" them appropriately. It would be nice, though, if it could mark a group of six with a six -6- (as a sextuplet) rather than with a three -3- . It would also be nice if it could recognize and deal with other numbers of notes ... fives and sevens, for example (lots of modern composers insist on using them; it's damned irritating!). And doublets, too (when, say, a pair of quavers is played as though it were really a pair of dotted quavers)!
15) And further on triplets, why can't the bracketed 3 triplet symbol be forced to be either above or below (as required), in the same way that a slur or tie can?
16) Back with 1.55 you added grace notes, which is fine, but ... so far as I can see the notes actually selected for the grace notes - quavers, semiquavers, whatever - may be shown in the printouts, but they do not seem to affect the actual length of the grace notes as played. Wouldn't it be better if they did have an appropriate effect?
17) One possible form of Bar ending is a double bar line. 1.75 treats this as though it were actually a bar end, so that the next bar has the next bar number. However, many pieces use the double bar line to indicate the end of a section, and this may in fact not be at the end of a bar at all! So it would be nice if, when a double bar is inserted, you could choose whether it counts in the bar numbering or not.
18) When keying in music with associated lyrics it is not unusual to find a note held (tied) or slurred across a bar (measure) line. If this note is associated with a word (or part of a word) it would be nice to show that word extending across the bar line as well. At the moment the lyric editor does not allow this.
19) Several other Music Programs - whether Notation or Sequencer - allow you to choose to have each note sound as it is entered, which is very helpful for assisting you to avoid mis-entry. That would be a great feature for NWC.
20) And finally - and this is my most wished-for feature - it would be truly wonderful if NWC could include a real time Mixer Board (as in Midisoft's Session/Studio) allowing real time adjustment of each channel's Midi effects like volume, chorus, pan, instrument, channel number. Considering that almost everything I do with NWC ends up with a Midi File which I then import into Session to allow me to make the final adjustments, being able to do this "natively", within NWC itself, would be heaven!
The Help Files say that beaming across a rest is not allowed - which is now not true, since you added this features a few versions ago. It also says that beaming across a bar line is not allowed ... but it ought to be, albeit as a special case, because that's how some scores are printed.