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[MU4 Issue] Fix to Line attribute missing
Unable to find the 'Fix to Line' attribute in the inspector
Expected behavior That there would be a 'Fix to Line" attribute setting in the Properties dialog OR stems would automatically scale their length to match the visible noteheads.
Platform information
- OS: Linux; Nightly build appimage of 5/30/2022.
Additional context See on Musescore.org, Issue #315065, Note Stems Not Scaling with Hidden Note Heads.
NOTE: I had earlier posted this issue to musescore.org site, but in looking around here it seems like it belongs here. See Issue 332448, Fix to Line attribute missing in v4].
(I use this fairly often as a work-around for when I need to show only the notes of a melody-line, hiding the other notes in a chord. It is a work-around because when you hide the bottom notes of a chord stack Musescore does not shorten the staff - and in V4 this behaviour has not changed, so I still need the fix-to-line feature.)
We chatted about this a little bit and felt that the right way to solve the issues this feature was designed to work around is to properly solve them. 'Fix to line' is a really obscure functionality and its purpose isn't obvious to users at all. We are bumping fixes to placement issues for harmonics, slash notation and the case presented here to 4.x.
We'll reopen this issue once 4.0 is out.
Not sure it's proper to add a comment to a closed item...but I am anyway I guess : ) For me I certainly like bumping this out for a 'proper solution.'
3.x Score Compatibility: What will happen when I open a 3.x score where Fix to Line has been applied. In the nightly build I tested here such a score opens and retains it's Fixed to Line formatting. So that's nice. I would just note that, in playing around with that, I couldn't find a way to 'reset' it to remove the fix to line assignment for any given note. For me this is all OK. Simply means I can use 4.0 on such scores as long as I don't need to edit the fix to line stuff. Where I need to use Fix to Line I'll need to continue to use 3.x until a proper fix is implemented.
Re Use in Plugins: 2nd question, springing from the above, concerns plugin code. Fix to Line appears to be available in the Plugin API (QVariant | fixedLine), tho I have not yet used it in a plugin I have a todo for myself to write one using it to make my life a bit easier. Presumably this would still be available in 4.0 as, presumably, 4.0 isn't changing any of the underlying structuire, just the UI. Yes? This might be an important point depending on the elapsed time to a proper fix for Fix to Line. For me a plugin could be an effective temporary solution enabling me to let go of 3.x even if the proper fix takes awhile to get to.
Indeed, if the existing "Fix to line" settings in 3.x scores were not still honored, that would definitely bump up the significance of this in my eyes at least. But that much does work. More importantly to me, so do the built-in commands that normally set this property - "Tools / Fill with slashes" and "Toggle rhythmic slash notation". So the property is still supported; it just isn't currently exposed to users, unless/until someone creates a plugin.
Using last night's 4.0.2 nightly (C229b14), I copies slashes (created with Tools=>fill with slashes) from guitar (treble-8vb) to bass (bass-8vb). While most of the slashes were fixed to position 4, some of the slashes, which had been previously copied from elsewhere in the guitar staff (slashes created using an earlier build), were "transposed" to the new staff. This may indicate a problem in 4.0.2 with handling the "Fix to Line" flag. The "Fix to Line" attribute (flag and y-position) would make fixing this cleaner.
Adjusting the Fix-to line is often useful. Two examples are:
- A drumset part where the voice 2 is written, but the voice 1 part is ad lib - the slashes need to be moved up.
- An ad lib solo with a suggested solo where the slashes are usually moved below the suggested solo.
Just to add that I also use this feature and hope to see it in MuseScore 4 :)
Here's how I use it (see screenshot from MS3 score) -- for 'courtesy lyrics' (fitting a sentence on one line by putting words in brackets to indicate it belongs to the previous system), where I attach the lyrics to an invisible Voice 2 note, which I put all at the same note height (line 7) to avoid lyrics being pushed down by auto-place (I have a strict 'one-page score' rule, so line height is a premium!)
I too think the simplest solution is to just reinstate the option rather than trying to come up with a dozen different solutions for the dozen different use cases.
However, that said, I do think a number of the use cases being discussed here can be solved more effectively by different means - including means already available. For instance, to force slash notation onto a different staff line, a simple vertical offset seems more consistent with how other similar adjustments would be made. And regarding the invisible note for lyrics, invisible notes shouldn't affect lyric position at all, so the fact that they do is just a bug, and a new issue should be opened for it.