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Topic: Would NWC ever have a WYSIWYG layout? (Read 17438 times) previous topic - next topic

Would NWC ever have a WYSIWYG layout?

Would it?

Re: Would NWC ever have a WYSIWYG layout?

Reply #1 –
It is WYSIWYG up to a point now.  About the only thing I wish was more in the WYSIWYG direction is lyric placement.  I have never used a MIDI keyboard (& wouldn't), but I understand that that is somewhat WYSIWYG (more like what you hear is ....) Do you have more ideas, !ME!?

Re: Would NWC ever have a WYSIWYG layout?

Reply #2 –
As for the music itself, I think it is nearly 99.9999% WYSIWYG now. What I print and what I see on the screen are exact.

About the only thing that this applies to would be:
placement of title, composer, arranger, lyricist, copyright, etc.

The idea of adding graphics or icons seems rather useless to me and as far as this ENTIRE thread topic is concerned, I think everyone would agree that there are much more important requested features on the wish list where this would be rated No. 98 out of 100.

Actually, it would be nice to have a rated wish list to see the most *popular* request or maybe the top 10.

Re: Would NWC ever have a WYSIWYG layout?

Reply #3 –
I believe that the original question might have referred to a "page layout" mode, where you would see the systems already wrapped to margins, and would move from page to page while editing. Rather like page layout mode in a word processor. That can be done with some other notation programs. It is great for making final adjustments, but not very good for initial writing.

My guess is that the answer would be "no." NWC seems to prefer the strategy of a compact, bug-free program. Adding page layout mode could potentially interact with display drivers in a bug-generating fashion. But that is only my guess.

Re: Would NWC ever have a WYSIWYG layout?

Reply #4 –
what is WYSIWYG?

Re: Would NWC ever have a WYSIWYG layout?

Reply #5 –
What You See Is What You Get

What I print and what I see on the screen are exact.
Not for me.
Text items are often printed a bit off from what shows in print preview.
...no matter what computer or printer I'm using.

Re: Would NWC ever have a WYSIWYG layout?

Reply #6 –
And, to reference a quiery of mine on the newsgroup, slurs sometimes print differently than the display in NWC.

Re: Would NWC ever have a WYSIWYG layout?

Reply #7 –
Considering how many years µ$ spent to make WinWord (almost) wysiwyg, I'd prefer that NW's efforts would be made in everything but doing NWC wysiwiyg.
For it's never exactly as you got it on the final paper, AFAIK.

Re: Would NWC ever have a WYSIWYG layout?

Reply #8 –
It's true that in NWC, text items often do not align with notation items the same way in edit mode as in print.

Although it is annoying, the reason is simple to understand: Notation (measures) are usually stretched to align with page margins and with other measures in a system; notes are re-positioned to align with notes on the same beat. But text items cannot be "stretched" that way, at least not unless you could distinguish between stretch-allowed and stretch-disallowed text items.

The user probelm arises when text items are being used as substitute for notation.

Re: Would NWC ever have a WYSIWYG layout?

Reply #9 –
The user probelm [sic] arises when text items are being used as substitute for notation.
Well, there is no way to accomplish certain things in the program, so text must be used - not as a substitute, but as the only way.
And, all the more reason for making these things native.

Re: Would NWC ever have a WYSIWYG layout?

Reply #10 –
As Stevie noted, I rarely uze spel cheker. And yes, some "text" workarounds would be better as native. The alternative (probably harder to implement than native) would be to have a "treat as notation" property for a text item, which would stretch its bounding box to match the surrounding notation.

Re: Would NWC ever have a WYSIWYG layout?

Reply #11 –
You may want to explore printing to a virtual printer that prints to a file. I use GhostScript and RedMon for this. Output is a multi-page b&w tiff. Uses about 35k of disk space for each page. Took well over a day to set up, but it has been worth it.
Registered user since 1996

Re: Would NWC ever have a WYSIWYG layout?

Reply #12 –
In reply to the original question...
In my opinion, NWC has placed itself in a position where it is not really worth the programming effort to get it more wysiwyg.
1) One of its strengths is its playback mode, for which it is virtually wysiwyg
2) It renders for page mode only when printing or doing print preview, when adjustments are made for stretching measures for "right justification" (as mentioned above). If the question was really one about wanting to be able to do input in this rendered mode, I imagine that there would be a huge amount of work needed to enable this.

So in short, I imagine that the answer would be "no".

I remember when I started using NWC (many years ago). Once I had worked out the "continuous scroll of paper" concept, I really got into it. It's a really good idea and, whilst not unique to NWC, well implemented.

Re: Would NWC ever have a WYSIWYG layout?

Reply #13 –
The present style is a good compromise.
An easy to use text editor doesn't make a good desktop publishing program. Likewise NWC is easy to use for editing and does basic layout well. I wouldn't like to see NWC become much more sophisticated.  Pages can be exported into layout programs where complex layout is easy to do.

I have seen many a good program ruined over the years by becoming too 'powerful'. There are features I would like to see but these are probably best developed as user tools and if user tools could operate over multiple staves we coud have such goodies as being able to take an orchestral score and have all the parts split into separate files.

The present WYSIWYG print preview is excellent but I use it so much in checking the palceemnt of text items that I would like it on a function key. The print preview I find sufficent. The method of moving about is OK.

Re: Would NWC ever have a WYSIWYG layout?

Reply #14 –
...distinguish between stretch-allowed and stretch-disallowed text items.
I think it would be a very useful feature.