<p>Last month we conducted the first MuseScore community survey. We received 722 complete submissions which are much more than expected. So thanks to those who participated! If you didn’t have a chance to add your voice, no worries, we plan to run more surveys in the future to follow up on how MuseScore is doing. That being said, what did we learn?</p>
<h3>MuseScore software satisfaction level</h3>
<p><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/musescore/8678198780/" title="MuseScore software satisfaction level"><img alt="MuseScore software satisfaction level" height="391" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8530/8678198780_2e5288142f_z.jpg" width="640" /></a></p>
<p>Wow! You like the MuseScore a lot :) 72% of the participants to the survey gave MuseScore a score of 8 or more. We can deduct from it that the software is meeting most of your expectations. But we don’t want to stop there and aim even higher. So let’s have a look at the details and find out where we can improve on.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/musescore/8677093693/" title="Rating of MuseScore software on multiple criteria"><img alt="Rating of MuseScore software on multiple criteria" height="391" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8381/8677093693_04698fe36d_z.jpg" width="640" /></a></p>
<h3>What does MuseScore do well?</h3>
<p><b>Ease of Use</b><br />
The MuseScore software is overall considered to be easy to use. That’s quite an accomplishment given that designing a simple workflow for a complex task such as making sheet music is very challenging.</p>
<p><b>Print Quality</b><br />
You are quite satisfied with the print quality of MuseScore which can be attributed to the combination of the quality musical font, the engraving rules built into MuseScore and more.</p>
<p><b>Software Stability</b><br />
The stability of MuseScore seems to meet your expectations. It is a good sign of the effectiveness of the MuseScore contributor and developer community in reporting bugs and getting those fixed.</p>
<h3>What should MuseScore improve on?</h3>
<p><b>Documentation</b><br />
The documentation needs more attention. There is a learning curve to MuseScore so guiding our first time users to understand MuseScore’s workflow should be our mission. Thus we have a plan. A reference handbook will be created of MuseScore 2.0, available to everyone to dive into and learn about the internals of MuseScore. If you ever thought of writing a guide for MuseScore like Katie Wardrobe has done with her <a href="http://www.musescoretips.com/musescore-the-essential-beginners-guide/">Essential Beginner’s Guide</a>, this reference handbook will greatly lower your investment to get to know all about MuseScore. So we want to support anyone who has ambition to write books about MuseScore, even when it’s a book for purchase.</p>
<p><b>Audio Quality</b><br />
Playback quality in MuseScore is ok but a lot of the respondents were somewhat disappointed. This is not a surprise as due to limited developer resources, MuseScore’s mantra has always been notation first, playback after. But this doesn’t mean that we are neglecting playback. As a testimony of that, <a href="http://musescore.org/en/node/20818">listen to the sound of MuseScore 2.0</a>.</p>
<p><b>Support &amp; Forums</b><br />
A lot of people answered ‘not applicable’ for the support, helpdesk, forums and community. Perhaps this means that they didn’t find their way yet to the <a href="http://musescore.org/en/forum">MuseScore forums</a>, or perhaps they simply don’t need support. In any case, we plan to improve the musescore.org website for the next MuseScore release and lower the barrier to ask for help.</p>
<h3>Net Promoter Score</h3>
<p>How likely are you to recommend the MuseScore software to a friend or a colleague?<br />
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/musescore/8678198786/" title="MuseScore Net Promoter Score 2013"><img alt="MuseScore Net Promoter Score 2013" height="391" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8400/8678198786_4f689560ce_z.jpg" width="640" /></a></p>
<p>Based on yours answers, we were able to calculate the word-of-mouth level of MuseScore, or in marketing terms the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_Promoter">Net Promoter Score</a>: it is a stunning 68!</p>
<p>It means that the net percentage of people claiming they would recommend MuseScore as music notation software is 68%. It was calculated as the difference between 74% (lovers answering 9 or 10) and 6% (detractors answering 6 or lower) following to the methodology used with this NPS approach.</p>
<p>Next year we'll do a survey again and share the results. Hopefully with even more submissions and more insight!</p> link

MuseScore got accepted for Google Summer of Code 2013! Students who have a passion for coding and music, check out the project ideas or submit your own idea. If it gets accepted by Google, you can make $5,000 this summer while coding on MuseScore.

Don't hesitate to talk with us on IRC (#musescore on freenode.net) or email us directly at support @ musescore dot org. Student application opens at April 22 at 19:00 UTC but let's get in touch with us already.

<p><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/musescore/8556682467/" title="MuseScore Survey by musescore, on Flickr"><img align="right" alt="MuseScore Survey" height="178" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8243/8556682467_f650f29803_n.jpg" width="320" /></a>We are conducting a survey to learn more about how you use MuseScore. It takes 5 min to complete: <a href="http://goo.gl/bexlI" title="http://goo.gl/bexlI">http://goo.gl/bexlI</a></p>
<p>If you have some time left, here is the very first MuseScore newsletter: <a href="http://eepurl.com/vyS7X" title="http://eepurl.com/vyS7X">http://eepurl.com/vyS7X</a> In case you like to receive the next newsletters, <a href="http://musescore.org/newsletter">sign up here</a>.</p>
<p>Don't hesitate to share the survey and newsletter. Any feedback is very welcome. Thank you!</p> link

We are happy to announce the release of MuseScore 1.3. It's our best and most stable release to date, fixing several critical bugs - including one which resulted in distorted sound playback for many users. MuseScore is now also available as an MSI package, which makes it simpler to install on multiple Windows machines at once - ideal for system administrators of school networks.

Download MuseScore 1.3#... read more

<p>The <a href="https://developers.google.com/open-source/soc/">2013 edition of Google Summer of Code</a> has been announced. It's a global program that offers post-secondary student developers ages 18 and older stipends to write code for various open source software projects, and getting paid for it. Read all about it <a href="https://developers.google.com/open-source/soc/">on the GSoC website</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://developers.google.com/open-source/soc/"><img src="http://musescore.org/sites/musescore.org/files/gsoc-2013.jpg" width="100%" /></a></p>
<p>We are going to submit MuseScore again for this edition as we did for <a href="http://musescore.org/en/developers-handbook/google-summer-code">previous years</a>. If you have an idea for a summer project, please don't hesitate to post it on our <a href="http://musescore.org/en/developers-handbook/google-summer-code/ideas-2013">ideas page for 2013</a>. A good GSoC idea is something which can be implemented in 3 months and optionally has a high impact on the MuseScore user experience.</p>
<p>Looking forward to hear about your ideas.</p>
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<p>Hello everyone,<br />
My name's Mark Johnson and I work for <a href="http://oss-watch.ac.uk">OSS Watch</a>, an open source advisory service for UK education based at the University of Oxford.</p>
<p>We're currently compiling a list of Open Source Options for Education - open source options for educational establishments where proprietary software might otherwise be considered.</p>
<p>MuseScore is on our list, but as part of the list we'd like to include examples of real-world usage where possible.</p>
<p>If you're currently using MuseScore in an educational context and are happy for us to use you as an example, please reply to this message letting me know where you're from with any information you're willing to provide about your MuseScore usage (or a link to some information online if any exists) and we'll mention it in the final document.</p>
<p>Thanks!</p> link

We are looking for support to make an MSI package for MuseScore. With an MSI installation package, one can install MuseScore through Group Policy on multiple Windows computers. It's the preferred way of Windows administrators who need to install MuseScore on their schools computer network.

If you have expertise making MSI packages, please let us know via http://musescore.org/en/node/18159 or via IRC at #musescore on freenode.net.

Today we kick off a community driven effort to redesign the musescore.org site and the MuseScore software. Interested to join? Read further at http://musescore.org/en/developers-handbook/design

Here is a look at the 1st iteration of the musescore.org homepage http://flic.kr/p/d6RT4W

<p>...well, almost!</p>
<p>First of all, a nightly version 74b4a45 (2012-09-01) or later is required. Currently, such a nightly is only available for Mac but it should be available for Linux soon and for Windows as soon as Win nightlies will be resumed. A self-compiled version from Github can also be used, of course!</p>
<p><b>Changes</b>:</p>
<p>1) During note entry in TAB staves, the entry cursor (the 'blue rectangle' cursor) does not span the whole staff vertically as for other staves, but only one string: this is the <i>current string</i>. Initially, the current string is the string of the selected note, if any, or the topmost string if no note is selected.</p>
<p>2) Two shortcuts have been added: one to make current the string above ('blue rectangle' goes up) and one to make current the string below ('blue rectangle' goes down).</p>
<p>3) 10 other shortcuts have been added to enter a fret mark 0 to 9 on the current string. More shortcuts (10 to 19 or even 10 to 29) will be added once the system is proven correct and stable enough. For the moment being, these should cover the majority of cases; <kbd><kbd>Shift</kbd><kbd>Up</kbd></kbd> can always be used to raise the note without changing string.</p>
<p>4) Shortcuts removed. A number of shortcuts have been removed while in TAB note entry; all those referring to absolute pitches (like "A" or "Add A to chord") and to intervals (like "Add a fifth"), as they make little sense while working on a TAB. Of course, those shortcuts ARE still available in other staff types.</p>
<p>5) Actual shortcuts. I had to choose the new predefined shortcuts among the few combination still available (mostly <kbd><kbd>Alt</kbd></kbd> combinations) and the result is somehow awkward. These are the default:</p>
<p><kbd><kbd>Alt</kbd><kbd>Up</kbd></kbd>: current string above<br />
<kbd><kbd>Alt</kbd><kbd>Down</kbd></kbd>: current string below</p>
<p><kbd><kbd>Alt</kbd><kbd>0</kbd></kbd>: enter fret 0 (or 'a' if letters are used)<br />
...<br />
<kbd><kbd>Alt</kbd><kbd>9</kbd></kbd>: enter fret 9 (of 'k' if letters are used)</p>
<p>As an alternative, <kbd><kbd>Alt</kbd><kbd>A</kbd></kbd> to <kbd><kbd>Alt</kbd><kbd>K</kbd></kbd> are also set to enter frets (same meaning as above: i.e. either numbers or letters can be used to enter, and frets will be displayed as numbers or as letters according to TAB properties). Unfortunately, <kbd><kbd>Alt</kbd><kbd>C</kbd></kbd>, <kbd><kbd>Alt</kbd><kbd>D</kbd></kbd>, <kbd><kbd>Alt</kbd><kbd>E</kbd></kbd> and <kbd><kbd>Alt</kbd><kbd>F</kbd></kbd> are intercepted by the operating system to display the "Create", "Display", "Edit" and "File" menus respectively, so these combinations are not actually available! (This applies to the English version; for other languages, any letter which happens to be used for a menu will not be available).</p>
<p>6) All shortcuts are configurable as usual.</p>
<p><b>Note on first time usage</b><br />
After running the nightly with this update, you may need to reset all shortcut customizations or the new shortcuts will have no predefined value (they will there but without any key associated). To reset them:<br />
"Edit | Preferences | "Reset to default" (the one near to "Clear", not the general "Reset")<br />
It is inconvenient, I know, but it is one of the drawbacks of working with an experimental version...<br />
OR: you can enter your own key combinations for those shortcuts as usual.</p>
<p><b>Feedback requests</b></p>
<p>1) Does the whole work as described above?<br />
2) Has some special case been left out?<br />
3) Can shortcut defaults be improved?<br />
4) Suggestions for the additional shortcuts.</p>
<p>Thanks,</p>
<p>M.</p> link

Before explaining the new plugin framework, let's define what problems we faced with the plugin subsystem in MuseScore 1.2.

One problem is the binding to the qt library. The code to enable this is very huge and consists of > 1100 files with > 297000 lines of code. This is not maintainable for the MuseScore team. It seems that qt does not maintain this anymore and it will not be available for the next major Qt version.... read more