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Topic: Advanced Find with 1.75 (Read 12509 times) previous topic - next topic

Advanced Find with 1.75

The "Find" new function (Ctrl+F or menu Edit|Find...) is very powerful.

To find any other occurence of an item, select the item, copy it (to the clipboard: Ctrl+C), Ctrl+F, Alt+E, (select text if some is already present), Ctrl+V, Enter. This is a the basic usage, not mentionning the "By Category" search, *really* useful too.

Now here are some examples of more generic/advanced searches:

On a current staff, to find any beamed note, type Ctrl+F, select the "By _E_xpression" button, and enter:
|Dur*Beam
as the sought item.
To find any tied note, enter
|*^
To find a slurred note, enter
|Note|Dur*Slur
To find a slurred rest, enter
|Rest|Dur*Slur
And to find any slurred item, enter
|Dur*Slur

Hints:
1. * represent any string.
2. "Dur" stands here for "Duration:", but as it is followed by the '*' "joker" character, it may be abbreviated. I'm a lazy person.
3. The leading "|" character is important, as it indicates any item, not a text item only.

Feel free to experiment with this to discover other goodies ;^)
And don't forget the inline help, for sure :)

Sure this helps!

Re: Advanced Find with 1.75

Reply #1
The "Find" command is great. I'm sure it will save a lot of time in cleaning up midi files and proofreading new material. The one feature I'd really like to see is a search by pitch class - that is ,"find all Db's" or find all "a#'s", or even "find all pitches above/below a certain pitch".

Looking for a specific pitch would be a real help in cleaning up the kind of enharmonic problems Noteworthy doesn't have the musical grammar to fix on its own. Something I often come across when I enter a midi file to be notated is that leading tones in a minor key with flats will be spelled wrong; Db instead of C# in d minor, or Gb instead of F# in g minor. Musicians hate this - it's hard to read - so I have to change them all manually.

The other possibility, selecting pitches above/below a certain range, would be useful in doing arrangements from one instrument to another. Adapting a violin part for flute, for instance: if you could highlight or go to all the pitches below middle C in the original it would be useful.

I think I'm going to copy this to the wish list.

Re: Advanced Find with 1.75

Reply #2
John, I don't have the time right now, but "find all the A#'s" already exists:
simply enter
|PitchPos:A#
as the searched string.
As this, it won't find the A#s who are in a chord with note(s) lower than A#. To find A#'s in that configuration TOO, enter:
|PitchPos:*A#

Et voilà ;^)
Note: It also finds the Bb :( But this is due to midi limitation (there is only 12 notes in a chromatic full scale in midi).
If you want only A# in the middle octave, and not Bb in the middle octave,
|PitchPos:*A#5@1
will be ok (even in a chord)

P.S. To find a middle Cb, enter
|PitchPos:B 5@-1
and so on (on Soprano clef).

An easy way (if you don't know yet the nwc text representation) is to enter the note, Cut it, Ctrl+F, enter (paste) it as the "by Expression", and keep only the pitchpos part. Insert a '*' if looking in chords too, as in my example above.

Hope this helps!

Re: Advanced Find with 1.75

Reply #3
By nelly gumbo, it works! I couldn't find this in the help menus anywhere, so I conclude that you are one smart fellow.
One of my few difficulties with NWC overcome at last. Thank you very much, and I thank once again the good people at Noteworthy, too.

I'd better edit my wish list request, too. All I'd really like them to do is put these instructions in the help menu, no big deal.

Thanks again.

Re: Advanced Find with 1.75

Reply #4
While in Edit | Find, press the Help button.

Re: Advanced Find with 1.75

Reply #5
Thanks for the compliment, but I just RTFM (read the fine manual) :)
F1 key is of some help too, anywhere in the program (or so) for "contextual" help.

Re: Advanced Find with 1.75

Reply #6
Marsu is very modest. He is indeed one smart fellow, and a keen extender of NWC's capabilities.

Re: Advanced Find with 1.75

Reply #7
Yes, that “Find” command is great. It sure has saved me
a lot of time in clean-up mode.
(Don’t forget about the F3 key!)
But can it find an accented note, or a staccato note?
If so, how?

Re: Advanced Find with 1.75

Reply #8
Oops! WithOUT double quotes, did I want to say. i.e.:
|*Ten
Sorry!

Re: Advanced Find with 1.75

Reply #9
Agreed. The Accent property is missing from the Find text.

Find History and/or Named Finds are both under consideration, as well as Andrew's Find Backwards.

Re: Advanced Find with 1.75

Reply #10
Doug, good question!

You can always figure out what to look for by copying an example, i.e. select it then use CNTL C, then pasted it in the Find "by expression" field). The staccato is easy, just look for Staccato.

However, it seems that the accented attribute isn't yet implemented in the Find command... unless I'm missing something.

Fred

Re: Advanced Find with 1.75

Reply #11
Ah. Couldn't find that one.
Found for Tenuto (simply "|*Ten" with double quotes), but it seems the Accent is not the same kind of attribute to a note.
Maybe is it generated in another way, perhaps mid2text may help on that one?

On another subject, a small "historic" of what was previoulsy searched would be a good idea :) As a drop-down?

Re: Advanced Find with 1.75

Reply #12
How about “Find and Replace?”
That would save LOADS of time!

Re: Advanced Find with 1.75

Reply #13
I'd like to add my vote to that. A global "find and replace" would be great. (Change all A#'s to Bb, or change all dotted rests to two rests, or whatever.)

One of the friendly things about Noteworthy is that it's a lot like using a word processor - this would add one of the most useful wp style features.

Re: Advanced Find with 1.75

Reply #14
I'd like to see a graphic of a staff appear.  Then you put the expression, note, notes, beamed note group,(as you normally would to compose), press enter and the same item or note cluster would be found.

PB

Re: Advanced Find with 1.75

Reply #15
I ordered an upgrade to view the latest user's guide. In the meantime I have obtained the pdf. However, there is little about the syntax.  Does anyone have a more complete list of commands for the find.

stuff like |PitchPos  note|Dur  I would love a more complete list, something I don't believe is in the booklet.pdf.

I noticed that pasting notes and symbols into the Ctrl_F screen spells out the code to some extent.

I think it would be nice though if someone had a fairly complete list listed here.

Paul