From: Dennis Bathory-Kitsz
Characters are characters, individually or combined. Folding together the text, expression, articulation, chord, lyric, clef, and time signature tools into a multifunction toolbar with a consistent interface seems ideal to me.
yes but text is not articulation, just as a chord is not a clef. i see your point, but the only reason they can be considered to be of the same category, "character", is because we define them both via fonts. they are grouped in tools according to *function*, and although a time signature uses numbers and tuplets use numbers, i don't see them at all as being related (at least not notationally [for most composers]... compositionally, however, we could discuss this point for decades and might actually agree in the end...8^).
Like other applications do, a droplist on a toolbar would identify the current method of assignment (say, as an expression), its active (and available) parameters, and its positioning (with, say, a relative/absolute checkbox). I would love to see, on clicking an object, to what other object it was assigned (even though I prefer rubber bands, another discussion), its playback functions, etc. -- just as I would do when clicking on a vector object in a graphics program. A drag-drop icon could allow the present selected item to be dragged and attached to whatever it was dropped on.
there are a couple of issues here. having more floating palettes on the screen is more of a problem (it seems to me) in notational graphics than it is with other graphics programmes. however, every year, the average size of users' monitors is increasing in size and quality; if the palette was designed efficiently - for side or bottom positioning on the monitor screen - this might be an interesting idea to pursue.
i support the idea, but plan to concentrate my request to CODA on the functionality of the Text Tool.
A "duplicate" button similar to the present one could live right there on the toobar. Then by changing the droplist for the duplicate I could, say, change a copied chord symbol into an expression, take some of lyrics and re-assign them as a title, make 4.6/3.3 or M/IV or HX or 4/4(=12/12) or Yay! into time signatures, give a clef change a bundle of Midi parameters, and so forth.
there was reason for this sort of cross-tool use (assigning dynamics as articulations etc.) but with the improvements to the text tool (typographical control) this might be needed on extremely rare occasions. if the interface is improved, it might not be such a large series of tasks to do such things. perhaps simply by adding "create new Text" in a contextual menu might suffice. then immediately pasting the contents of the clipboard (copied from a title, or from the lyrics) fills in the text box. you still have to define the positioning... but then if there were user-defined default positioning of new Texts... i'll add that.
A list could be opened from the toolbar with the existing expressions to drag-drop into place, or it could pop up by clicking a spot on the score as it does now. The opening contents of longer texts would be shown...
an interesting idea, i began to think that to have more efficient use of large lists, perhaps some Texts could be defined to appear at the top of the list, as user-defined "favourites" (how would they be ordered though?), but then realised that this is exactly what the metatools are for, and they are much quicker than any pop-up list. on that note, i will add the ability to define metatools in the Text Designer.
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