!Maestro

I’ve double-checked, and I’m almost certain that I’m posting this in the right forum. Things, as D-Ream once said, can only get better.

I was having a play with !Maestro last night, and I thought of a couple of things which would really be Nice to Have. I don’t know enough about WIMP programming to know how easy the first one is, and I suspect that the file format would make the second one difficult. But there’s no harm in asking.

1) Would it be possible to make the window re-sizable in both directions, wrapping the score at the bar-line as necessary?

2) Would it be possible to have a new glyph to tie two staves together for the keyboard?

1) Would it be possible to make the window re-sizable in both directions, wrapping the score at the bar-line as necessary?

I’m not sure what you mean here – the score window is resizable. Do you mean scaling the display? If so, then it’d be possible, but a fair bit of work, since the glyphs are mostly sprites, which would all need to be plotted with appropriate scale factors. Or have I misunderstood you?

2) Would it be possible to have a new glyph to tie two staves together for the keyboard?

Yup, that’s on the To Do list, along with brackets for single staves.

I’m not sure what you mean here – the score window is resizable. Do you mean scaling the display? If so, then it’d be possible, but a fair bit of work, since the glyphs are mostly sprites, which would all need to be plotted with appropriate scale factors. Or have I misunderstood you?

When I look at a score, I can only view a single system in the window, which scrolls to the right until the end of the piece. What I would like is if the system could wrap around – essentially like a page of printed music. Or is there a subtle option to do this already, which I have missed?

Yup, that’s on the To Do list, along with brackets for single staves.

Awesome! Would be nice to be able to label the staves too!

I was manually converting some sheet music from the netflix movie ‘The Queen’s Gambit’ to Maestro and came across the limitation of channels per stave, so was unable to enter all the notes required for a given stave.

I was using two staves, so Maestro allocates four channels per stave, which is quite sensible, just limiting because of only having 8 channels available in total.

Not asking you to change anything, because I don’t think there would be a sensible way of doing it. Just airing my gripe. Keep up the Maestro improvements.

Suggested Improvement: Would it also be possible to add a ‘Play’ and ‘Stop’ Button to the main App Window? Having to always press menu and Select Play is a bit annoying.

What I would like is if the system could wrap around

Ah, I see. I think that would be tricky to implement, given how things are written at the moment. At some point I’m going to have to wrestle with the printing code properly, which is where Maestro currently attempts (badly) to fit a score on to a page. It may be that an improved and speedier version of that might go some way to meeting this goal.

Would be nice to be able to label the staves too!

Yes, that also should be possible at some stage.

came across the limitation of channels per stave, so was unable to enter all the notes required for a given stave.

Yes, that can be annoying – scores can often have more than four notes per individual voice stave. It’ll be quite hard to remove that limitation, I think, without a lot of rewiring, so I think it’s one to put in the ‘charming quirks’ box, at least for the time being :)

Would it also be possible to add a ‘Play’ and ‘Stop’ Button to the main App Window?

Yes, that’s a good idea. I’ll put that on the list :)

World domination, in bite-sized, easily digestible chunks. :)

Would it also be possible to add a ‘Play’ and ‘Stop’ Button to the main App Window?

That could probably be done using a third party app like the one I’ve used to add buttons to my SwiftJPEG.

If I could only remember what it is! Could it be a Flying Pig invention?

If I could only remember what it is! Could it be a Flying Pig invention?

It is! ButtonBar

Bit of progress…

Very professional! What an improvement! Well done!

Thanks Dave! Some work, and lots of testing, still to go, but I’m slightly surprised (given Maestro’s idiosyncratic internals) that it’s been possible to get this far.

I like the wimp flat theme too :)

Superb! – look forward to the next release.

These changes are now in GitLab – if anyone wants to try them out, I’d be very interested in feedback. It’s a complex change, so I’d be completely unsurprised if bugs or glitches remain. If you do take a look, please read about the known limitations first (here).