Sun 03 Oct 2010 10:45:16 PM UTC, original submission:
Entering a substantial score on the candidate for Windows (on XP) I had a few comments not necessarily pertaining to just this release.
0.Crash: Checked "Use last settings on startup" in Change pref's, then unselected Lyrics from view menu. This crashed denemo.
1. Not sure about the "Save As Midi" concept (which is by no means new, of course). Some other programs use Export to make a file in another format that the program can't import (e.g. Inkscape and probably a lot of others), but some use Save As. It's a little disconcerting that to make a midi file you have to save as and turn your file into a midi file, i.e. the filename in the title bar is now .midi, and the dialog "I advise you to [save as .denemo]" is unusual--not used to a program refer to an "I". But on the other hand it's handy to be able to just hit save and get an updated midi and save the denemo, since I use another program to play the midi due to fluidsynth's very irregular performances. Have you considered switching to an Export-based way of doing this?
2. Laptops don't have a mousewheel, at least not the one I tried this on, so please...make the zoom in/out a command that can be run from the keyboard. The only other option is zoom dialog which is more cumbersome.
3.The Rebar/Adjust measure lengths trashes the score if you have a staff that's got a lot of empty measures. It needs to be aware that this is a potential situation and perhaps prompt the user to fill in with blank rests. I hope to get to this eventually.
4. The commands to insert a blank rest were not in the menus of the commandset I started with--I think I went with classic. These are really important for polyphonic piano music. I propose ctrl+shift+0,1,2.... for these or something similar. I think there should be a Toggle Blank command to convert regular rests to blanks also.
5. If you add a voice to an existing staff that has TimeSig changes, that voice should get all those changes upon creation. But this is not the case (I'll have to give more detail on this when I get to it if it's not clear).
6. The accidentals not being persistent is a significant annoyance which I'm pretty certain was working better before. In fact, if you add a note to a chord, it DOES use accidentals from earlier in the bar; it's just insertion that forgets about the earlier accidentals.
7. When cursor is at end of staff, the blinking part is right on top of the previous note; it should be to the right of the last note. [I'll have to give more details later probably]
8. I recommend renaming join voices to join with previous staff--so you know which way it joins.
9. The help on Designate Voice is pretty uninformative (written by me). Also, I think it should be in voice menu, but that's just my opinion. Adding "Use OneVoice when there is a single voice on a staff. With multiple voices, use VoiceOne for the upper voice, VoiceTwo for the lower voice; VoiceThree is a horizontally offset upper voice, and VoiceFour is a horizontally offset lower voice." would be helpful.
10. It's not possible to put the cursor at the end of an underfull measure with an existing next measure. You can insert notes there but the cursor has to be in the NEXT bar.
Hope this is helpful.
-Dan W.
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