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Topic: Wishing for leger lines (Read 3917 times) previous topic - next topic

Wishing for leger lines

Here's a 3 part wish: Whene editing, have an optional feature that inserts leger lines as you go above or below the staff, so you know where you are, OR, have the note that the cursor is on indicated in the 'context sensitive' help bar, and/ OR.. how about a feature that lets you hear the notes as you scroll up/down, or to the right. It would be helpful to hear the notes as you scroll through a measure,controlling the rhythm with arrow keys. dontcha think?

Re: Wishing for leger lines

Reply #1 –
Good ideas.

Yes, getting the right pitch when entering a note that needs to be on a leger line can be tricky. To develop Art's idea further, how about having the note (showing the selected note value and pitch plus any slurs, ties, accidentals and performance indications)that would be inserted when you hit the enter key "ghosted" until you actually hit the key?

A feature that sounds the note as you scroll up and down could be pretty irritating but might be useful at times. The act of composition could become a perfomance in its own right! Issues to consider: how long should the note sound for? - I often want to zap up and down the stave and it would get awful frustrating to have to wait for all the intervening notes to finish playing before I can enter the one I want; should a chord sound if the control key is held down while the cursor keys are used?

A feature to play as you step left & right through a score would be handy but needs either to allow toggling on or off or have special keys (i.e. not the cursor keys) assigned to the play+step function - are there any unassigned function keys?. Issue to consider: what should happen with tied notes?

Stephen Randall

Re: Wishing for leger lines

Reply #2 –
You are absolutely correct, Stephen. Any feature like this you would want to be able to toggle on and off. An old 3.1 editor that I had did have this feature, and it was kind of fun to be able to play scales with one finger. Being able to hear the note before you place it can definitely speed up your entry.

Re: Wishing for leger lines

Reply #3 –
Other notation packages I've used had, I believe, a very short note-sounding duration when entering notes, and it was quite useful.

As far as "ghosting", you can always enter your note wherever the cursor happens to be, then select it and use
Control-Shift-arrow to move it up and down until you get it where you want it.

Also don't forget that Shift-arrow will move the cursor up or down by an octave. This is helpful sometimes.

- seb

Re: Wishing for leger lines

Reply #4 –
An excellent tip. NWC has a robust choice of keyboard shortcuts;it's hard to remember them all. Thank you NWC for putting those shortcuts in both the dropdowns, and the hover help. It's helped my learning curve alot.
Anyone not using those shortcuts - I recommend hiding the mouse behind the monitor for a few sessions.

Re: Wishing for leger lines

Reply #5 –
Quote from: Steve Bacher –
Shift-arrow will move the cursor up or down by an octave.
Wrong key combo.
Quote from: http://www.noteworthysoftware.com/nwc2/help/HELP_ONKEYBOARD.htm
Shift+Up
Toggles the upward note stem attribute
Shift+Down
Toggles the downward note stem attribute

Instead, try one of these:
Quote from: http://www.noteworthysoftware.com/nwc2/help/HELP_ONKEYBOARD.htm
Ctrl+Up
Moves the insertion point up by an octave
Ctrl+Down
 Moves the insertion point down by an octave

If, for example, you want to enter a B three octaves above middle C, position the cursor on the center staff line, hold the Control key down, tap the Up Arrow twice, release the Control key and tap Enter.

Conversely, if you have a note with so many leger lines that you are unsure of the pitch, position the cursor next to it and tap Ctrl+Up or Ctrl+Down until the cursor lies within the staff lines.
Registered user since 1996