NWC2 Beta 2.27 is now available

[NoteWorthy Online]

New features include:

• New selection option in Edit, Goto command
• New Admin Required warnings when adding file templates or User Tool settings (primarily for Vista users)
• The NWC2 program is now digitally signed, which improves the UAC warnings on Vista

For current users of the NWC2 beta, you can use the Help, Access NoteWorthy Software.com command to get the update. Otherwise refer to:

NoteWorthy Composer 2 Beta Test Program
http://ntworthy.com/nwc2/

[Rick G.]

• New selection option in Edit, Goto command

Thanks. Looks useful.

If you invoke it with a selection, the selection is canceled. I would think that the more useful (and expected) action would be to extend the selection.

I think a better Title for the box would be simply Goto.
Goto Measure followed by: Bar Number: is a tad confusing.

Bar Number:999 takes you to the end, but Bar Number:0 results in a warning. Unnecessary, I think. It should just take you home.
If the interface permits, enabling VK_END and VK_HOME in the spinbox would be helpful. This would also tell you, at a glance, the number of the first and last bar.
Edit: spinbox has its own uses for VK_END and VK_HOME. I still think that Bar Number:0 should always take you home. [end edit]

Instead of Ok and Cancel buttons, wouldn't:

• Go
• Select
• Cancel

buttons be better?

Make Selection: is not retained between calls (nor should it be). It makes little sense to me for it to be a checkbox.

[William Ashworth]

There seems to be a small problem with the "goto" box as currently implemented. If you have set any barline properties to "exclude from bar count," the measure numbers in the score will ignore them but the measure numbers in the goto box will not. This means that if you attempt to go to a measure following the excluded bar(s), the goto command will take you to a different measure than anticipated.

I don't use this function often, so I don't know if this is a carryover or a result of the change that has just been made.

Just tryin' to help.....

Cheers,

Bill

[Rick G.]

If you have set any barline properties to "exclude from bar count," the measure numbers in the score will ignore them but the measure numbers in the goto box will not.

I can't duplicate this behaviour. Goto properly observes |XBarCnt:Y in my tests.

One small anomaly: The program jumps to the beginning of the bar except for the current bar or a bar past the end. The behaviour for a bar past the end is logical, but I think it would be in keeping with user expectations if the current bar was treated like other bars.

[William Ashworth]

I can't duplicate this behaviour. Goto properly observes |XBarCnt:Y in my tests.

Interesting, Rick - that helps narrow it down. A little more experimentation shows that it occurs only when I invoke the goto command from within a selection. Try that.

Bill

[Warren Porter]

I also wonder what the "make selection" box in that option is for.  I didn't see any difference in how the program behaved.

[Rob den Heijer]

It marks the bars between the point where you started and the bar where you want to go.
So, if you want to perform a certain action on bars 41-60 on all twelve staves of your score, life is now a lot easier.

[Rick G.]

it occurs only when I invoke the goto command from within a selection. Try that.

I did. Excluded bars seemed to be properly handled. You may be baffled by how it clears your selection before making its own selection (from the cursor to the "Goto" bar). Selecting the same set of objects from left to right causes a different selection than selecting from right to left. IMO, this is not a feature ...  Not a big problem either, I'll get used to it. Just not what I expect.

[William Ashworth]

No confusion, Rick. It's going to the wrong bar. However, I've found a further oddity about it: it doesn't happen the first time I invoke the goto command. The program gets that first call right: on all subsequent calls, it gets it wrong.

Here is the specific situation. I have a three-movement piece for wind quintet which I decided, for ease of distribution by .pdf, to notate in a single file. To separate the movements during playback, I used four bars of rests, making them invisible and excluding them from the bar count. So the first movement ends on bar 114; there are four invisible, unnumbered bars; and the second movement begins on bar 115. The problem develops when I try to invoke a goto command across those four inter-movement bars - say, from 60 to 120. The first time the command is invoked, I end up, correctly, in 120. The second and all subsequent times, I end up in 116.

I think what is probably happening is this: On that first jump, the program decrements the count properly for the four uncounted bars and then stores the decremented count. On the second and subsequent jumps, it uses the stored count but treats it as a raw count that needs to be decremented. So the bars are subtracted twice. The problem does not compound, so the second (wrong) count must be thrown away. I would guess the program checks the register the count is stored in and doesn't change it if it contains a non-zero amount.

And, by the way, you can throw away my statement that the problem only happens from within selections. (The "my statement" register contains a non-zero amount. ;-) That was an artifact of testing the first time without a selection and the second time, with one. I pounced on the wrong variable - a common problem when I was debugging my own programs, and part of the reason I no longer do programming.

Cheers,

Bill

[Rick G.]

Bill, attached is the environment you describe (I think).

I put the cursor in bar 60 and keyed:
  Ctrl+G  1 2 0  Alt+S  <enter>
Many times, both with and without a selection.
Every time, the selection ended at bar 160. 120.

I'm confused.

[William Ashworth]

OK - found it. And you're right: it was user error after all.

The four measures between movements were removed from the count in the flute part (at the top of the score), but not in the remaining four parts. So when the cursor was in the flute part, the jump was correct; when it was in any other part, the jump was off by four measures after the break between movements. Simple as that. It was concealed by my habit of throwing the cursor into the second staff of a system when navigating a score. When I first loaded the score, of course, the cursor was in the top staff, and the goto worked. On subsequent tests, I put the cursor in the second staff, and the goto failed.

Mea culpa oops. Thanks for sticking with this, Rick, until the real cause turned up. And apologies to Eric, who got the program flow right after all.

Cheers (faintly),

Bill

[Rick G.]

OK - found it.

I was going to ask if you had layering enabled. Just another reason why a HotKey is needed to toggle layering.

[William Ashworth]

Just another reason why a HotKey is needed to toggle layering.

Right. And another possible tinker with the program that could come out of this is that it might automatically apply an "exclude from bar count" on the top staff to the equivalent bars in the rest of the staves of the score. I can think of no reason why one would want different counts in the different parts, although I may be missing something.

[Rick G.]

I can think of no reason why one would want different counts in the different parts, although I may be missing something.

Maybe <this>

My songs with separate print and play groups rarely align.

I often use a 'TopMost' staff for things I want to go to the MIDI control track. It is often just a few bars long, consisting mostly of Local Repeats.

I have argued in the past that Page Setup...->Contents->Measure Numbers: should only apply to Print Preview and the printed page. A separate Ruler (like in WordPad) should show the bar numbers of the current staff. Just as WordPad's Tab settings vary depending on cursor location in its ruler, NWC2's Bar numbers might vary in its ruler.

[William Ashworth]

OK, I can see the possibilities in setting up a "jump staff." However, this function might be better served if users were allowed to insert cue points and a "goto cue" function was added to the "goto bar" function. (Others have also suggested a "goto section letter" function; cue points could take care of that, as well.)

I like the ruler idea. Another way to handle knowing which measure you are in would be to add that information to the status bar - which has also been suggested by others.

Cheers,

Bill