Re: [Rosegarden-devel] Notation track headers

[Yves G. <yc....@wa...>]

On Tuesday 16 October 2007 02:02, D. Michael McIntyre wrote:
> On Monday 15 October 2007, Yves Guillemot wrote:
> > New features :
> >  - In notation view, display a header at left of each staff
> >    This header displays :
> >      - Current Clef and key at the left edge of the notation window
> >      - Track number and label
> >      - Transposition (if not 0)
> >      - Segment label
>
> I can't figure out the rules and/or this isn't behaving consistently.  I'm
> having trouble getting the headers to appear, and then having trouble
> getting the headers to display anything.  It seems to work better when I
> have more segments instead of fewer.

I forgot to precise some points :

- The configuration dialog proposes 3 options for displaying headers : always, 
never and "when needed". The last one is currently the default (may be not a 
very good idea) : The headers are only displayed when all the staves don't 
fit  vertically inside the windows.
This behaviour comes from the idea that when few staves are displayed the user 
know what tracks, clefs, keys etc... are involved. The headers are really 
useful when you have, say, 10 staves and only 4 visible.
Nevertheless, once the View->Show Track Headers menu has been invoked, the 
headers should be visible whatever their count is. 

- The header, showing only the track number and label (if any), appears as an 
empty box when the left edge of the notation window is not across a segment. 
Indeed clefs and keys are only defined inside segments.

>
> >  - When segments are superimposed, some elements may be drawn in red :
> >      - Clef and key when clefs or keys are inconsistent
> >      - Segment Label when segment labels are inconsistent
> >      - Track name and transposition when transpositions are inconsistent
>
> This doesn't seem quite right somehow.  I chose a random example with two
> different clefs, but the same key.  The whole header shows up in red, and
> it looks like one of the conflicting clefs (but not both) is drawn at least
> twice, overlapping itself, and so is the key signature.  Plus the entire
> staff turns red.  Not sure if that's by design.

I should add this point to my todo list. It's really by design, but only 
because it was very simple to have it working like this and because I don't 
find time to make something more elaborate.
On the other hand, whatever the clefs or the keys are inconsistent, the music 
can't be safely read.
Actually, each time there is an inconsistence between 2 segments, the data 
displayed is randomly coming from one of them. (Randomly is not the right 
word : the data is coming from the last segment seen).
Maybe will it be better to display some text as "Inconsistent 
Clefs", "Inconsistent Label", etc.?

>
> >  - Some track and segments properties are shown as a "tooltip" when the
> > mouse is moved over the header.
>
> This is a little cryptic to me.  "3-293 tr=0 (foo)" or something. 
> Actually, it's less cryptic when I think about it a minute.  It actually
> said '[3-293] (tr=0) : "Church Organ"'  Segment from bar 3 to bar 293, not
> transposed, etc. Anyway, I quite like the idea, and would just need to play
> a little in the real world to see if I thought it needed any tweaking.

I hesitated to replace "[3-293]" by "bar 3 to 293". It would have been 
clearer, but less compact.

>
> >  - A blue box drawn around the header shows which track is the current
> > one
>
> Sounds like a good idea, but it isn't happening here.

???
To investigate : it's always working for me.

>
> > Still to do :
> >
> >  - Improve the header aspect ans size
>
> Yes, it's all a bit too big, I think.  This is probably annoyingly
> obtrusive enough at 1280x1024 that I'd want this off most of the time, and
> on a 1024x768 or smaller screen, it would be almost unusable.  I wonder how
> much you could shrink it though, because:
>
> 1) we don't have any way to draw clefs or key signatures in miniature (do
> we?) 2) if you drew everything in miniature, it would be out of proportion
> to the staff and/or the header staff would be out of proportion to the
> staff it's associated with

The clef and key on header must have the same size than those on staff.
For small note size, text is preponderant in the header. But it doesn't matter 
too much because, in such a case, a lot of bars are visible in the window.
For big note size, clef and key are preponderant and take too much place.
It should be easy, in a first time, to suppress the right and left margins. In 
a second time, the unused staff lines, at the right of key signature would be 
shortened.

>
> One way or the other, some kind of quick single key toggle might be nice
> too. The way P is supposed to toggle the whole parameters panel in the main
> window, or the way T does toggle the floating transport.

Yes, it should be helpful.  The more difficult is to find the better key to 
use :)

>
> (The P toggle is not working for me today.  This might be a bug, and maybe
> an ancient one, as I probably haven't tried to use that in a year or more.)

Neither working for me.

> exciting, I must say.  I can definitely see where this would be useful, and
> I pronounce it an official Quality Feature(tm).  :D
>

Thanks Michael :)

Yves