Easy way to do conditional text/markings?

Topic: Easy way to do conditional text/markings? (Read 5548 times) previous topic - next topic

Easy way to do conditional text/markings?

9 years ago

This has probably been asked/solved before, but my searching skills fail me.

Is there an easy way to make text expressions that appear will in the printout conditional on some global (to the score) setting?

Specifically, I've made some cello solo parts that I want to make 3 versions of: no bow markings (up or down) or fingerings, bow markings but no fingerings, and both bow markings and fingerings. However, I might need to change the part later, and I don't want to have to try to keep 3 sets of files in sync, so I'm wondering if I can just have the bow markings appear conditional on one setting and the fingerings appear conditional on another setting. I'd like to be able to just switch between the settings and print them to PDF again. Bonus points if there's some way to make slurs show up conditionally too.

(I should probably learn how to write objects / tools myself, since I am a programmer, but this seems like the kind of thing that someone's probably already solved.)

Re: Easy way to do conditional text/markings?

Reply #1 – 9 years ago

You don't need three files, all this can be done in just one, using three staffs.

Simply write the notes out on one staff, add two more staffs (Control-A), copy the notes from the first to the two new staffs, add the markings to one of the new staffs and the markings plus the fingerings to the other.

When it's time to print the music, hide the staffs you don't want to print by unchecking them in the Page Setup/Contents menu.

Editing is easy enough. With all three staffs selected, you just go to what you want to change, make it, then move up and down with Page Up/Page Down and make the necessary changes in the other visible staffs.

Re: Easy way to do conditional text/markings?

Reply #2 – 9 years ago

Quote from: Neil Dickson – 9 years ago

since I am a programmer

Set up a User font for your bow markings. Set up another User font for fingerings.
Find or create a null font (mappings with no glyphs)
Use the null font when you don't want to see something.

Re: Easy way to do conditional text/markings?

Reply #3 – 9 years ago

Quote from: Rick G. – 9 years ago

Set up a User font for your bow markings. Set up another User font for fingerings.
Find or create a null font (mappings with no glyphs)
Use the null font when you don't want to see something.

Haha, I love it! That is so awesomely hacky! I'll have to remember that trick.

Has someone conveniently already put together a null font?

Quote from: David Palmquist – 9 years ago

You don't need three files, all this can be done in just one, using three staffs.

That's a good point. It'd be easier than having 3 separate files, but I'd still have to make all changes 3 times, or copy-paste if it's an easy-to-copy contiguous block of changes with no markings in between. I tried to do it by layering of 3 staves and making everything but the markings and fingerings invisible in two of the staves, but the alignment seemed to go all wonky, and it'd take a long while to align every piece of text properly.

Re: Easy way to do conditional text/markings?

Reply #4 – 9 years ago

Here's another idea which might or might not work.

There are 7 highlight colors available; by default they are assigned to red, green, blue, yellow, white, magenta and orange. If you go to Tools > Options, you can change any of those colors to a different color of your choosing. So, set all of the bow markings as Highlight 1, and the fingerings as Highlight 2. If you want to see both of those markings, change both of those colors to black. To hide either one of them, change the corresponding color to white.

This does have one drawback, that white is opaque, and will cover up any staff lines that are behind them. There does not seem to be a way to choose "transparent" as a color.

Re: Easy way to do conditional text/markings?

Reply #5 – 9 years ago

Quote from: Mike Shawaluk – 9 years ago

If you go to Tools > Options, you can change any of those colors to a different color of your choosing. So, set all of the bow markings as Highlight 1, and the fingerings as Highlight 2. If you want to see both of those markings, change both of those colors to black. To hide either one of them, change the corresponding color to white.

Ah, thanks! I couldn't remember how/where to set up the colours properly, since I've never used them before; I'd been looking around a bit.

Quote

This does have one drawback, that white is opaque, and will cover up any staff lines that are behind them. There does not seem to be a way to choose "transparent" as a color.

It should be okay in this case, because I've tried to place the bow markings far away from everything, to leave enough space for people to write in fingerings by hand. I did a bunch of layout work today to make sure there was plenty of space where needed.

I think I'll try this out, since I can't seem to find a font with empty glyphs out there, (searches for null, blank, empty, invisible, etc yielded no useful results), and though I'm sure some colleague at work could probably recommend some free font editor out there, (recommendations I found online for free font editors seemed mixed or no longer available), setting up the colours will take pretty much the same amount of work, and I don't use the colours for anything else anyway.

Re: Easy way to do conditional text/markings?

Reply #6 – 9 years ago

Layers - don't use the layer with the markings you don't want...

Re: Easy way to do conditional text/markings?

Reply #7 – 9 years ago

Quote from: Lawrie Pardy – 9 years ago

Layers - don't use the layer with the markings you don't want...

Yeah, that was what I tried first, before originally posting. I have the bow markings all set to be centred over the next note, but for some reason they weren't anymore when I used layering, even though I kept the notes (set to invisible) on the other staves with that in mind.

Tweaking each one until it's approximately centred over the next note again would take a ton of work. The layering approach would also mean that I'd still need 3 copies of the notes around, though I probably wouldn't need to update them as thoroughly when I make changes, given that they're invisible and just there for spacing.

Re: Easy way to do conditional text/markings?

Reply #8 – 9 years ago

Quote from: Neil Dickson – 9 years ago

Yeah, that was what I tried first, before originally posting. I have the bow markings all set to be centred over the next note, but for some reason they weren't anymore when I used layering, even though I kept the notes (set to invisible) on the other staves with that in mind.

Tweaking each one until it's approximately centred over the next note again would take a ton of work. The layering approach would also mean that I'd still need 3 copies of the notes around, though I probably wouldn't need to update them as thoroughly when I make changes, given that they're invisible and just there for spacing.

Don't make the notes invisible - that just screws up the positioning. Either use rests moved off the page, OR make the notes headless and stemless (select the whole staff and edit the note properties).