How Do I make a Staff wrap to the next line?

Topic: How Do I make a Staff wrap to the next line? (Read 17157 times) previous topic - next topic

How Do I make a Staff wrap to the next line?

2006-10-30 02:13 pm

Hi All!,

I'm a new user and been using my recently purchased NoteWorthy Composer program and absolutely love it! One thing I haven’t been able to figure out though is how do I make a Staff wrap to the next line so I can achieve the same appearance as my hymn book? If I add another staff both play at the same time!! Not the effect I’m looking for. I would like the top staff to play first then the one below that.

If it’s not possible with the program that’s fine I just need to know that so I can quit banging my head against the wall looking for it.

Sincerely,

Ed Brunet

Re: How Do I make a Staff wrap to the next line?

Reply #1 – 2006-10-30 04:23 pm

Highlight the bar line where you want the break to be, then press Control-E for properties, check the Force System Break. It only works on the top staff of a score, but it your piece only has one part, you'll be fine.

Re: How Do I make a Staff wrap to the next line?

Reply #2 – 2006-10-30 04:27 pm

Hi, Ed -

One thing to know about NWC is that when you are editing your staff, you do it as one continuous staff from the beginning of the song to the end of the song. This actually makes it much easier to deal with multiple staffs (for example, treble and bass clef for a piano, with maybe vocal line thrown in, or even a full orchestral conductor's score). The staff wrap occurs when you print the song. If you click on the print preview button, you will see that NWC intelligently breaks the staff at based upon how much will fit on one line. You can adjust the overall size and margins of the printout to fine tune it, as well as the ability to explicitly force a break by highlighting the bar line where you want the break, hitting CTRL-E to edit it, and selecting "Force System Break". You won't see the break in edit mode (other than the paragraph symbol above the bar line to let you know it's there), but it will break there when you try to print the piece.

Hope that helps,

- John

Re: How Do I make a Staff wrap to the next line?

Reply #3 – 2006-10-30 07:41 pm

Thanks! At least now I can stop looking for a way to do that. That helps a lot!

Re: How Do I make a Staff wrap to the next line?

Reply #4 – 2006-10-30 09:02 pm

The shortcut for system break is "B" for barline. Check the system break box and choose the type of bar line you want to show. As stated by John, the staff wraps automatically. If you use two staves or seven, they will all wrap together automaically, but if you only want one, then choose "blank score" from the "song Templates" menu.

Re: How Do I make a Staff wrap to the next line?

Reply #5 – 2006-11-10 02:57 pm

lol...I sure wish you could do that, though...I enjoy trying new music on my violin from NoteWorthy before I print it...and I always have to stop playing to scroll around...or else try and keep up with the computer!

Re: How Do I make a Staff wrap to the next line?

Reply #6 – 2006-11-11 03:42 am

Reading the chart from the edit window must truly be a pain. Does it work any better from the print preview screen?

Re: How Do I make a Staff wrap to the next line?

Reply #7 – 2006-11-11 07:43 am

Quote from: David Palmquist – 2006-11-11 03:42 am

Reading the chart from the edit window must truly be a pain.

You raise an interesting point. It would be nice if NWC2 would switch to Viewer Preview... mode while playing. As far as I can tell the only difference is that hidden notation and anchors are removed. It should be an easy program modification.

Re: How Do I make a Staff wrap to the next line?

Reply #8 – 2006-11-11 09:19 am

I'm not sure if I'd like that or not, Rick. Since I use playback mostly for proofreading, I can stop where the red chase highlight is, and fix a wrong note.

That wouldn't be as convenient if the program switched to preview on each playback.

However, as an option for the user to toggleon or off, why not?

Re: How Do I make a Staff wrap to the next line?

Reply #9 – 2006-11-11 09:37 am

G'day Rick,

Quote from: Rick G. – 2006-11-11 07:43 am

You raise an interesting point. It would be nice if NWC2 would switch to Viewer Preview... mode while playing. As far as I can tell the only difference is that hidden notation and anchors are removed. It should be an easy program modification.

I just did a quick test, and you can activate viewer preview during playback. But it doesn't have a note chase in the preview window...

I would LOVE to have note chase in the viewer preview window during playback!

Re: How Do I make a Staff wrap to the next line?

Reply #10 – 2006-11-11 09:55 am

Quote from: David Palmquist – 2006-11-11 09:19 am

That wouldn't be as convenient if the program switched to preview on each playback.

It would switch back to edit as soon as you hit stop. You can't edit while it is playing anyhow.

To see what I'm suggesting, try changing your Editor Colors for Active and Inactive Hidden Notation to white.

I also zapped the glyph for the large anchor in NWC2STDA. Changing the editor colors and switching to the large anchor makes my edit window look just like Viewer Preview... mode. Too many keystrokes and mouse clicks to use very often, but if it happened automatically ...

Quote from: Lawrie Pardy – 2006-11-11 09:37 am

I just did a quick test, and you can activate viewer preview during playback. But it doesn't have a note chase in the preview window...

Yes, but the window always seems too narrow. My idea would solve that and give you a note chase.

Re: How Do I make a Staff wrap to the next line?

Reply #11 – 2006-11-11 10:09 am

Actually, looking at it, I'd rather have something like print preview with a note chase...

That way I can play along and not "lose it" when things are scrolling. Automatic page turning would be necessary too.

Re: How Do I make a Staff wrap to the next line?

Reply #12 – 2006-11-11 07:27 pm

Quote from: Lawrie Pardy – 2006-11-11 10:09 am

Automatic page turning would be necessary too.

Not to mention auto vscroll and hscroll if you are not displaying the whole page.
Dream on. NWC2 still doesn't support the mouse wheel in Print Preview.

I don't think that the Print Preview code has been changed since version 1.30

Re: How Do I make a Staff wrap to the next line?

Reply #13 – 2006-11-11 09:23 pm

Lawrie wrote

Quote

I just did a quick test, and you can activate viewer preview during playback. But it doesn't have a note chase in the preview window...

Re: How Do I make a Staff wrap to the next line?

Reply #14 – 2006-11-11 11:37 pm

Quote from: David Palmquist – 2006-11-11 09:23 pm

Rick,
I think you can play-along in the edit window, although you won't of course see the whole page.

I can never "play-along" as my piano is 2 meters from my screen.

I was just inspired by one of your earlier comments. Removing text anchors and hidden notation during playback would give a cleaner playback display.

Re: How Do I make a Staff wrap to the next line?

Reply #15 – 2006-11-12 01:33 am

G'day Rick,

Quote from: Rick G. – 2006-11-11 11:37 pm

I can never "play-along" as my piano is 2 meters from my screen.

This is something that's been on my mind for a while... Not specifically your problem with the piano being a bit too far away, but...

On of the guys in my church has modified a Belkin USB game controller (one that came with a macro program) and installed it into a metal case with foot switches...

By programming the buttons with the macro tool, he can page his way through PDF's on his notebook (on which he rotated the visual display 90° to get an A4 presentation). I want to take this a bit further... I'm saving up for a lightweight tablet PC, will do the same thing with the game controller, and want to control NWC with it...

I've chosen a tablet as it should fit on a decent music stand fairly securely (unlike my mates notebook) - perhaps a tablet would work for you on the piano.

Re: How Do I make a Staff wrap to the next line?

Reply #16 – 2006-11-12 02:13 am

Quote from: Lawrie Pardy – 2006-11-12 01:33 am

This is something that's been on my mind for a while...

Mine too. High Definition TV is gaining a foothold in the US consumer market. This should make LCD screens a very cheap commodity item in the next year or so. In 2-3 years, I think we will see an affordable, A4 sized device about 2cm thick that will unfold to 2 page size and sit on a piano keyboard ledge. All the music one would need for a 3 hour gig in one small unit. Backlit, so one need never worry about bad lighting again! Resolution will have to improve: 96dpi is inadequate for piano music, 300dpi is probably overkill.

Brave, New World

Re: How Do I make a Staff wrap to the next line?

Reply #17 – 2006-11-12 04:43 am

Hmm, now here's a thought...

How about if we can persuade Eric to give us an option for 2 pages at a time in the "Print Preview" screen and use a 22" wide screen LCD. Hook it up to an appropriate notebook that could sit in a secure place - perhaps a cradle on the side of a music stand or on the leg of your piano - wherever... and control with the afore mentioned game controller or other suitable programmable device.

Ideally a touch sensitive screen would be a great help but isn't totally necessary...

Re: How Do I make a Staff wrap to the next line?

Reply #18 – 2006-11-12 06:09 am

Quote from: Lawrie Pardy – 2006-11-12 04:43 am

... 2 pages at a time in the "Print Preview" screen ...

Not really necessary. Or desirable. Too many things to go wrong "in the field" creating and rendering emf's.

You just need to print 2 across to a tiff. I'd probably make it a 16 "color" greyscale to help simulate a higher screen resolution. Irfanview is already set up to display this in full screen mode. Left click takes you back, right click forward, middle button takes you out of full screen mode.

A large 16:9 LCD or Plasma monitor would be best. I wouldn't call it affordable, yet. But then, you may get paid more for a gig than I do ...

Re: How Do I make a Staff wrap to the next line?

Reply #19 – 2006-11-12 06:56 am

Intriguing ideas, guys. It might be interesting to try to do the same with a chart that's more than two pages long, particularly where it has repeats requiring a page turn in hard copy.

Re: How Do I make a Staff wrap to the next line?

Reply #20 – 2006-11-12 07:27 am

Quote from: David Palmquist – 2006-11-12 06:56 am

... It might be interesting to try to do the same with a chart that's more than two pages long, particularly where it has repeats requiring a page turn ...

Well that's the beauty of NoteWorthy. You design the song to minimize jumps.
# of pages would much be less important than # of page turns (and their complexity).

Re: How Do I make a Staff wrap to the next line?

Reply #21 – 2006-11-12 09:13 pm

I think we're on the same page, Rick...

Re: How Do I make a Staff wrap to the next line?

Reply #22 – 2006-11-13 03:25 pm

Wow, all of this sounds like the Electronic Music Stand I "invented" back in the mid 1980s. I was rehearsing in my first pit orchestra and we had to mark a lot of cuts/changes, and I also had some really lousy page turns. I mentioned to someone that the conductor (or his assistants) simply should be able to program all of the modifications on some kind of screen and that the changes would automatically appear on screens on our stands.
Twenty years later, I attended a show and saw the pit using "my" invention (too bad I couldn't have made a prototype, or even some schematics...)!
So, they do exist, but I hear they're very expensive (buy very easy to use).

Re: How Do I make a Staff wrap to the next line?

Reply #23 – 2007-05-08 02:29 pm

Well, it was bound to happen sometime...and I hope no one minds...I've resurrected a long-dead topic.

I'd like to insert my two cents before letting this topic rot again.

Quote from: Rick G. – 2006-11-12 07:27 am

Well that's the beauty of NoteWorthy. You design the song to minimize jumps.
# of pages would much be less important than # of page turns (and their complexity).

I think this is interesting...I'm guessing you are a guitarist or pianist? In that case, I can see where page turns aren't a problem.

As a violinist, however, I must say I hate page turns with a passion. On average, a violinist needs about four measures (two in some slower songs) to turn the page, due to the fact that the bow hand has to change to a pizzacatto grip (the grip we use to pluck, which frees up a finger and thumb), and following the page turn, shift back into an arco grip (arco is when you bow, not pluck), and gently get the bow back in position to play (this last part is hard for beginners and takes several years to master, because if you're too fast, then the bow bounces...very undesirable!!!) This is one of the reasons many professional violinists hire a page turner.

Having said that, I would like to say that I use (probably overuse) flow direction/repeats. The object when composing for an orchestral string instrument is to minimize page turns, and if there are any, put at least four measures rest at the end of the page or the beginning of the next one.

So yes, the "print preview play mode" would need to be able to jump around, for us violinists, if it were to chase the notes. I think the note chasing most be appreciated as much as the consideration from the composer about page turns.

For a VERY good example of a decent job in a composer considering page turns for the violins...check out Korsakov's "Romeo and Juliet: Montagues and Capulets" (handwritten version, probably the original). Some pages have only two lines on them, but the rests are just right for the violinist. This adds maybe two pages to the song, but it's definitely worth it.

Re: How Do I make a Staff wrap to the next line?

Reply #24 – 2007-05-08 02:47 pm

Quote from: Bob, Deranged Arranger – 2007-05-08 02:29 pm

Well, it was bound to happen sometime...and I hope no one minds...I've resurrected a long-dead topic.
...
Some pages have only two lines on them, but the rests are just right for the violinist.

Six months is hardly long-dead.

Your example is an excellent reason why a Page Break is needed. So much better than sending a song out to a graphics file and editing it.

My #1 reason for using NWC is to lay out piano music such that flows and page turns are in the right place. Often, I get a request for something I haven't played for six months. I have to be able to pull it out of my bag and play it without stumbling over the flow or a page turn. Often, I'm playing a strange piano and must "practice" page turns on the fly.

Re: How Do I make a Staff wrap to the next line?

Reply #25 – 2007-05-08 03:10 pm

Quote from: Rick G. – 2007-05-08 02:47 pm

Six months is hardly long-dead.

Rolling on floor laughing...

Quote

Your example is an excellent reason why a Page Break is needed. So much better than sending a song out to a graphics file and editing it.

Excellent idea! Seems like in mentioning that example, I would have realized Noteworthy doesn't allow for this currently. (At least, not that I'm aware of.)

My workaround in NWC1 for this issue was to insert a bunch of invisible Forced Break bar lines and invisible rests between them until it flows onto the next page. I haven't had a need for it yet in 2, and I'm not at home, so I can't test it right now...but I'm pretty sure that 2 does not allow you to insert blank space by inserting an invisible rest, so this doesn't work. I'll test it when I get home.