MU 4.0 Change instrument dialog doesn't show current instrument or part name and related problems.

• Jan 27, 2023 - 01:23

In MU 3.6, this works correctly. In MU 4.0, the long instrument name is displayed. However, the long instrument name should really be called the long staff name and may differ from the instrument name and the part name, particularly if the part includes doubling (playing more than one instrument).

For example, in one part in one of my scores, the part name is "Reed 1"; the long staff name is:

    Reed 1
    Alto 1
    Flute 1

and I don't use (display) the short staff name. The instrument is the alto saxophone.

A second problem is that the "Instruments tab=> ... => Settings => Rename" dialog doesn't support multi-line staff names (while the change instrument dialog does).

A third problem that creating the parts gets confused with the multi-line staff names. This is another reason why the a staff name should not be used as the part name (using the same default is okay, but not trying to tie them together). The first eight parts are:

    Identified as:      Their staves:
    Reed 1              Staves 1 and 3 (as in 3.6)
    Reed 1 Flute        Staff 2
    Reed 3 Alto 2       Staff 3
    Reed 3              Staves 3 and 4 (as in 3.6)
    Reed 2 Tenor 1 1    Staff 5
    Reed 2 Flute 3      Staff 6
    Reed 2 Tenor 1 2    Staff 7
    Reed 4 Flute 4      Staff 8

Occasionally multiple staves are used for what is normally a single-staff part. In the Reed 1 part, named above, the flute is optional, so the flute part is on a separate staff, allowing both to be available on the part. A suggestion, based on importing this 3.6 score into 4.0: allow merging two parts into one with multiple staves. My current solution for this is to create a new staff set up as the "second staff", then copy from the original "second staff" to the new staff before deleting the new staff. I could probably also work this in parts as in 3.6.

Note that the five reed parts are named Reed 1 through Reed 5. The Trumpet and Trombone parts also do not match their long names. MU 4.0 after creating parts for every staff, MU 4.0 also created any parts (from 3.6) that were not created, which included Reed 2, Reed 4, Reed 5, and the eight brass parts.

Attached is the 3.6 version of the score that I opened with 4.0.

Attachment Size
When_Johnny_Comes_Marching_Home.mscz 269.65 KB

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