Problem with stem direction, beaming and transposition

2014-11-02 10:38 pm

I seem to have some odd behaviour with the stem directions and beaming, particularly when I'm transposing. I'll use this snippet to try to explain:

Quote

!NoteWorthyComposer(2.51)
|Locale|ACP:1252
|AddStaff|Name:"Staff"|Group:"Standard"
|Clef|Type:Bass
|Note|Dur:8th|Pos:-4
|Note|Dur:8th|Pos:0
|Note|Dur:8th|Pos:3
|Note|Dur:8th|Pos:0
!NoteWorthyComposer-End

If I select the first two notes and beam them, they end up with the stem forced upwards instead of the default. Is this the expected behaviour? It seems rather odd. Likewise, if I select the second two and beam them, they end up with the stems forced downwards.

While this doesn't matter a great deal normally, it becomes important when transposing. It means that the stems of beamed notes don't switch direction correctly when they are raised or lowered through transposition. If you beam these notes in twos and then transpose the stave up, say, 9 semitones, the first pair of notes still have their stems upwards whereas they should by default be downwards.

The other related thing is that once this has happened, it doesn't seem possible to restore the default setting of stem direction - I can switch it between stems forced up and forced down, but not back to neither.

Is this expected behaviour? I'm sure this didn't happen in previous versions (I'm on 2.51) though I have to admit that I have previously only transposed by a couple of semitones, so perhaps I just didn't notice the effect. It would be more useful, and more intuitive, to have stems change direction appropriately on transposition unless they have been explicitly forced up or down.

Re: Problem with stem direction, beaming and transposition

Reply #1 – 2014-11-02 10:59 pm

Quote from: TonyQ – 2014-11-02 10:38 pm

I'm sure this didn't happen in previous versions (I'm on 2.51)

I'm sure that it did.

In Noteworthy, all beamed notes have their stem direction set. If you unbeam them with CTRL+B, the stem settings remain.

Re: Problem with stem direction, beaming and transposition

Reply #2 – 2014-11-02 11:27 pm

Rick is correct.

You can always "fix" the stem direction with a simple:
|Tools|Audit|Audit Note Stems