How do I delete tempo and dynamic markings without deleting nearby notes? The older versions of the program did this, but 1.70 seems to have a flaw in this regard.
Thanks for any help.
The procedure is the same as always. You can either position to the right of the item and press Backspace, or position to the left and press Delete. Either way, you are protected by the Edit | Undo feature. If you miss, simply Undo and try again.
I prefer to select the item (either with the mouse, or shift-Arrow) and delete it. The dynamic is represented by a little diamond. If there is lots of stuff in the same place, it can be hard to know which diamond is for which item.
One advantage of the select-then-delete method is that once you've selected the item, you can edit it (<Ctrl>-e) and see if it's the item you think it is before you delete it.
.... glad to see someone else is still using <ctrl> E (a one-handed operation) as opposed to <alt>+<enter> (a two-handed operation - unless you are Van Cliburn).
Bob
Whether <Alt><Enter> is a one- or two-handed operation depends on your keyboard even more than your handspan. My desktop keyboard has two <Alt> keys, one at each end of the space bar, so I could (if I wanted) press <Alt><Enter> with my right hand alone. On the other hand, my laptop has only the left-hand <Alt> key. (And I can press <LeftAlt><Enter> one-handed on either keyboard, but only at the expense of an awkward stretch.)
As to my use of <Ctrl>E, I suspect I have an automatic bias toward left-hand <Ctrl> key combinations dating from my early computing days when I used emacs a lot and really built up the strength in my left little finger.
Aha! Now I realise that my left-hand CNTL key bias comes from CP/M! :)
Left-hand CTRL sequences are used a lot in EMACS, the unix editor, which is older then CP/M.
Out of curiosity I checked some facts on the web and it turns out that CP/M was first completed in 1974 while the first EMACS appeared in 1976.
So EMACS is not older than CP/M. They're both the same age, very roughly speaking. :-)
The first part of this thread talks about deleting non-preserved width items, such as tempo and dynamics. If preserve width is on, you do not have this problem because the items take up a lot more space. If you want to get rid of non-preserved width items, select a section of the staff, and on the Expression Placement tab you can make everything have a preserved width. However, the score will look ugly.
About EMACS and CP/M - I just assumed anything to do with Unix was ancient. Obviously that is incorrect.
This is all very interesting, but some of us are still struggling with deleting tempo and dynamics. I'm a new user, and so far this seems to be the only interface problem I'm having. Does it have anything to do with the "preserve width" feature?
Thanks. sounds like a great suggestion. I think i'll try leaving 'Preserve width' on until it finalized, then turn it off. This seems to work, althought the score does look cumbersome until you change it. ALSO, I suddenly seem to be able to grab the diamond better on non preserved markings,and now feel slightly er,uh you know...